In the 1970s war classic Tora! Tora! Tora!, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is quoted as saying after the Pearl Harbor attack, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” That same quote might well be used today to describe what the election of Barack Obama has done for the conservative movement.
Liberals, socialists and Democrats (oh, my!) – not to mention some RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) have been doing the Snoopy Dance since last November. They’ve all but run out of new ways to declare conservatism dead, dead, DEAD.
But the Left has forgotten that politics is like sports – there’s always a new season. And last season’s losers can always regroup, add new talent to their team, and come back stronger and better than ever. Maybe even win a championship.
The Left should also consider the fact that while Obama was a terrific candidate who ran a great campaign and gave a lot of wonderful speeches (saying pretty much nothing), voters certainly weren’t rejecting fiscal conservatism in voting for Obama. After all, one of The Chosen One’s main campaign themes was cutting taxes. I mean, how conservative can you get?
No, voters didn’t reject conservatism; they rejected Republicans who had rejected conservatism.
Congressional Republicans had thrown fiscal responsibility over the side of that bridge to nowhere. They recklessly spent money they didn’t have on things we couldn’t afford while hiding behind a “war on terrorism” they had no idea how to end. And big-government “compassionate conservative” George W. Bush sat by and watched it all happen, apparently having lost his veto pen the day he moved into the White House.
And let us not forget that it was the Bush administration which first contracted, and then began spreading Bailout Fever.
But it was Barack Obama who sparked the huge tea parties we just witnessed by misreading the tea leaves from last November. Voter rejection of big-spending, fiscally irresponsible Republicans did not mean voters wanted big-spending, fiscally irresponsible Democrats to start acting like big-spending, fiscally irresponsible Republicans on steroids.
For their sake, I hope all the big-spending, fiscally irresponsible Nevada legislators of both parties – cloistered in their Carson City offices and surrounded by fawning special interest lobbyists – took a minute to peek out from their plush, taxpayer-funded offices yesterday to catch a glimpse of what has been reported as the largest Carson City grassroots protest seen in decades.
The Left has been laughing since November. But they should remember that he who laughs last, laughs best. And the Right should remember that it was the liberal failure of Jimmy Carter which brought us Ronald Reagan. The sun’ll come out, tomorrow…
