TOO MUCH NOOZ HAWKISHNESS

In an a genuine attempt to embrace President Barack Obama's message of bipartisanship, I have been attempting to refrain from my usual instinct to go one-on-one with the many conservative columnists and bloggers in Santa Barbara. I mean, hey, my guy won; I don't have to be arrogant about it. That being said, I do admit that some of the writers over there at Noozhawk really know how to push my buttons. In fact, it wasn't even one day after Obama defeated McCain that I had to read this kind of crankiness from them:

In his acceptance speech Obama acknowledged those of us whose vote he didn’t get. He claimed to want to earn our trust. Fine. We aren’t going to agree to socialism because we work hard for our money. Share the wealth of the shadow banking bandits — not ours — We-The-People. We want our borders secured and our country protected against radical Islam. We don’t think it’s fair to nationalize health care without nationalizing the legal profession ...

Okay, TL, let it go ... It's just a little ranting from a sore loser.

So, I tried to lay low for a while, hiding my eyes from such vitriol and just enjoying the Obama victory. But, no, the much too prolific (and curmudgeonly) Harris Sherline couldn't even give me a week to soak in Obama's inauguration before spending an entire column trying to rip it (and him) apart. It's just a speech, man; why all the rage?

Okay, TL, take a breath.

Let's be constructive and talk about a few of Mr. Sherline's complaints. We'll start with this:

Whose "collective failure"? The fault lies with our politicians, who have steadily expanded the role of government in the economy and have been unwilling to restrain spending.

You're joking, right? The main reason for our current economic nightmare is years of Republicans deregulating everything they could get their hands on. In other words, we're in this mess because government's role has been severely restricted; not expanded. And that spending you want restrained so much ... Well, let me remind you that Bush has raised our national debt more than all other presidents in history COMBINED. And wasn't it your hero, Reagan, who said deficits don't matter?

Anyway, here's the next quote I'd like to look at:

So far, his vision doesn’t seem to include fiscal restraint. With something on the order of $2 trillion of new spending in the offing, I don’t intend to be led somewhere I know is wrong.

Again, where was your anger when Bush was spending us into the ground, huh? I mean, NOW you guys care about fiscal restraint!? The fact is that almost any economist worth their salt will tell you that we have to pump money into the system right away to get the economy moving again. Yes, it sucks, but now is not the time to worry about deficits.

And then there's this gem:

It’s hard to know where to begin with this litany of ambitious goals. Who knows what any of this means, except perhaps his health-care prescription, which he seems to think should be some form of nationalized health care. This is a formula for a health-care disaster. Socialized health care has never worked as promised in any society, generally downgrading the quality of care and causing rationing.

As I've blogged about before, this is my favorite conservative talking point; it's one of those things that it is totally not true, but if you say it enough, people believe it. I don't want to get off on a rant about health care, but here's a quick quote from the recent MSN article on this subject:

Americans get the poorest health care and yet pay the most compared to five other rich countries, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Germany, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada all provide better care for less money, the Commonwealth Fund report found.

"The U.S. health care system ranks last compared with five other nations on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes," the non-profit group, which studies health care issues, said in a statement.

So, you don't want the government running health care, Mr. Sherline? Well, guess what, I don't want Wall Street running it either. We all know how well they do with our money.

Next one:

This is a repudiation of the use of torture and the presumed abuses of the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA). However, Obama does not offer any alternative to protect the nation? He has already signed an executive order to close Guantanamo — without having the slightest idea of what to do with the prisoners there and without any agreements with other nations to take them.

It's no secret that Guantanamo has done more to recruit terrorists than anything besides the Iraq war itself. And throwing someone in the slammer with no trial and (often) no evidence is un-American and unpatriotic. How would you like it, Mr. Sherline, if they did that to you? Obama's people are going to review the case of every person held at Gitmo (imagine that), and he will figure out what to do with each and every one of them. And for those who can't be set free or sent to other countries, what do you actually think will happen to them? Do you really believe they are going to be dropped in the streets of Santa Barbara or something? Please.


Finally, Mr. Sherline ends with this:

At the risk of being pilloried as another negative, nay-saying conservative, my take on Obama’s inaugural address is that it was long on platitudes and short on substance. The most important message he conveyed to me is his intent to turn America into another socialist state.

Here's what that sounded like to me ... I don't mean to be critical, but Obama is a Commie.

The reality here is that the negative, nay-saying conservatives have been in charge of all branches of government for most of the last eight years, and look where we're at as a country right now. I know you'd like us to lose our collective memories in regards to Bush's America, but that's not going to happen.

We tried it your way ... time for change.