Ben-Meir: Partisanship gone awry
Exactly one year ago, although it feels like much longer, America elected Barack Obama as its 44th president. Since then, the national mood has changed in serious ways.
At the time of his election, Obama was seen as a movement leader, sweeping into the White House with a huge electoral majority and what seemed to be a mandate for change. Although his first few months in office were not without controversy, they did little to contradict this image: Obama averted the impending second Great Depression that many were predicting, ended the “Mexico City Gag Rule” and the ban on federal...
The author severely mis-characterizes our nation's political climate. It is not the Republicans that have become radicalized, but the Democrats. We have always been, and remain, a nation with a plurality of conservatives. And, as the election results yesterday demonstrate, both our Independents and Republicans are sick of the outrageous government spending which both President Bush and President Obama have made the norm in America.
The results in Maine, which has gone blue since 1988, should serve as a reminder to Yale Democrats that the majority of their party are not the "latte-sipping" pro-Europe liberals they are, but are Americans with old fashioned values, and have many conservatives among their ranks.
For the first time, the Democratic Party has become overrun with the "latte-sipping," as opposed to the blue-collar, crowd of Democrats--indeed, the choice of Biden as VP reflects an attempt to appease this second class of Democrats.
If the Democrats want to enact European-style social reforms, they're going to have to ram them through Congress, because moderates and conservatives have consistently polled strong opposition to health-care reform and the like, and their representatives are following these opinions.
If, on the other hand, the Democrats want to enact popular reforms, it is them who will have to move to the center.
"[C]ritics are right to worry about the expense of the package. The federal government is running a $1.4 trillion deficit this year, and Obama’s current budget plan calls for an approximate doubling of the national debt by the end of the decade. In the long run, this increase in the national debt will hurt GDP growth, as the Democrats’ own Congressional Budget Office has warned." -- Revisiting the Stimulus Package, Wagener, Trevor, Yale Daily News, 11/04/2009
This entire piece is rooted to the assumption that everyone should agree with what Obama is doing, that his policies are objectively wonderful, and that any kind of dissent is simply disruptive, petty and unfounded. It seems that the possibility someone, or even many people, might genuinely not agree with Obama and other Democrats has not occurred to the author. If it has, then he's advocating we all make nice, simply because partisanship is bad, rather than standing up for what we believe in. Startling ignorance from a Yale student.
let's play a game:
who said this?
"Right now it's not our job to give out specifics. We have no control in the House. We have no control in the Senate. It's our job is to stop this administration, this corrupt and incompetent administration, from doing more damage to America."
well, it was Democrat Party Chairman Howard Dean on Meet the Press, discussing the Bush Administration.....
The honeymoon is coming to an end ....finally!!!
In NY 23, the democratic candidate was liberal and the republican candidate was even more liberal in some ways. God forbid the conservatives aren't blindly partisan and voted for a 3rd party candidate whom they actually agreed with. For someone who claims partisanship has gone awry, you're sure quick to dismiss people who doesn't want for conform to the 2-party system.
For future reference, "teabaggers" is just as offensive of a term as calling gay-rights activists "faggers". People respect arguments that do not resort to name-calling. Just because every other media outlet relishes in using that name, it doesn't make it any more professional.
This piece written last week by Mr.Scrudato pretty much sums up everything that's wrong with Mr.Ben-Meir's arguments.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/opinion/staff-columns/2009/10/29/scrudato-independent-leader/
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Stop wasting your breath. You can't reason with an idiot.
A great piece!
The "debate" about climate change is not part of any country's "historical tradition" because it's not a "historical problem". And, if making sure poor people can go to the doctor isn't fundamental to the "American identity", I'm glad I'm not an American.
This fundamental basis for this piece was absolutely stupid. The demonizing of individuals who wish to practice their constitutional rights in criticizing a president is not partisanship gone awry, but the American freedoms in action. To characterize conservatives as a "crazy fringe" because they vehemently oppose policies that make us less safe and jeopardize the long term economic security of our country is nonsensical. This piece presented a naive and extraordinarily biased view of the political process. I also wonder if the author was so "disconcerted" when people were vehemently protesting Bush era policies left and right, my prediction would be that he saw nothing wrong in those instances but now that Obama is challenged the prescription must be partisanship gone awry. Give me a break, this piece seems more like journalism gone stupid.
Obama - a person of civility? Obama's administration has the most politicized Dept of Justice, has a "in your face" attitude to Republicans (or Democats) who disagree with his Holiness, apologizes to world tyrants like Putin, Chavez, Castro, and Ahmadinejad, insults our allies like England, France, and Israel, fails to provide crucial support to the Iranian resistance movement, acts to prop up a dictator-in-training in Honduras, rewards its big donors with ambassadorships, tries to politicize the National Endowment for the Humanities, draws up an enemies' list that would make Nixon blush, coordinates activities with crooked organizations like ACORN, is a political friend to hateful extremists like Bill Ayers or Rev Wright, spends more time playing golf in 6 months than his predecessor in 36 months while the economy goes down the toilet, Iran is making nuclear bombs, and war against terrorism is turning from victory to defeat in Afghanistan... need i say more... oh, and he's the narcissist in chief.