Contrasts

Today I listened to the Presidents news conference and had to chuckle at transparent delight many of the reporters where showing because there guys won in the election. I thought that the President showed grace in expressing his commitment to working with the new....democratic majority ( as if he really has much of a choice). I also think this will define him as a president, for the first time he will be able to show the American people the stark contrast between his policy's of cutting taxes, reducing regulation, (finally in the last year or so) attempting to get spending under control, vigorously fighting the war on terrorism, and holding the line on the free will sucking entitlement programs, and the positions of the liberal leadership in the congress, there policy's of raising taxes, increasing spending, remember no democratic congress has balanced the since the 1950's to spite the fact that they held control of the house from 1954-1994, so if you take out Vietnam years of 1964-1973 in which there was at least a some what valid excuse for deficits , that leave thirty -one years in which there was no war, no major economic depression to justify deficit spending and yet in 31 years during which they( the democrats in congress) four Presidents of their party Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton and yet they still could not find the political will and courage to make the hard choices and balance the budget. So on that issue they have NO credibility, yet I digress.

As I was saying the President force the liberal leaders in the house like Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, and Majority Whip Emanuel to show their true colors, that they want to raise taxes, increase regulation, increase spending by at least 15% which was what they wanted in the last budget that they worked on, reduce spending on the war on terror, oppose listening to terrorists phone calls, give terrorists constitutional rights, something by the way that FDR didn't give to enemy combatants during WWII but that was back when democrats still thought there where somethings worth fighting for, besides the U.N. of course., and of course there desire to lose in Iraq and return to a pre 9/11 mind set. If this President can do that while also getting some victory's out of the congress on immigration, a energy bill, and hold the line on there attempt to cut taxes he will leave office in 2009 with a 65% job approval rating.

The next two years will be interesting to watch from a political scientist point of view and scary from the point of view of someone who is able to recognize that our nation is at war and needs one united voice in fighting an enemy with which there is no negotiation, reasoning, aside from our destruction. So we shall see how it plays out.