Why was the mainstream news media so slow to pick up on Obama's green czar Van Jones, ACORN corruption, and the tea parties? The Washington Post's ombudsman concedes that the Post (and MSM in general) don't really do a good job of covering conservatives.
." [Washington Post: Wrongly Deaf to Right Wing Media?]
I was never much bothered by Barack Obama's election last year because I knew that America remained a center-right country. Jonah Goldberg of National Review made these same points in an op-ed printed in the Wisconsin State Journal this week. But here's an excerpt from CNN on-line:
So what accounts for the persistence of conservatism even after the severe problems it encountered by the end of the Bush presidency?
The first reason is that conservatism taps into a basic anti-government ideology that has existed in the nation's political culture since the Revolution. Anti-government sentiment has ranged from opposition to federal taxation to an unwillingness to create strong centralized bureaucracies.
When the United States has created government programs, they have often relied on decentralized administration, minimal levels of funding and even private organizations to administer benefits. (CNN: Conservatism is far from dead]
Conservativism is dominant ideology
I will say it again: the U.S. remains a center-right nation. That is why Obama-Pelosi-Reid are spinning their wheels in Washington, why Jim Doyle is marking off his remaining days in the Governor's office, and why the most nervous man in Madison is Assembly speaker Sheridan.
A Gallup poll report in August paints the numbers.
Despite the Democratic Party's political strength -- seen in its majority representation in Congress and in state houses across the country -- more Americans consider themselves conservative than liberal. While Gallup polling has found this to be true at the national level over many years, and spanning recent Republican as well as Democratic presidential administrations, the present analysis confirms that the pattern also largely holds at the state level. Conservatives outnumber liberals by statistically significant margins in 47 of the 50 states, with the two groups statistically tied in Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts.
When considered with party identification, these ideology findings highlight the role that political moderates currently play in joining with liberals to give the Democratic Party its numerical advantage.
Gallup lists Wisconsin, btw, as a "somewhat conservative" state: 38% conservative, 21 percent liberal and 39 percent moderate. The only majority liberal entity in the U.S., according to this survey, is the District of Columbia.
The Jeremiah Wright Psych Ward
Welcome two more inmates to the ward. This being Madison, each of our inductees gets a rooftop garden implanted on their heads.
Everyone, please welcome little Jimmy. Jimmy thinks if you criticize our current president, then you must be a racist.
SOME THINGS may get better with age - fine wine, some say - but the concept seems not to apply to former President Jimmy Carter. ... Opposition to Obama's programs is not the same as racism. To claim otherwise cheapens and threatens the robust public debate which should accompany the sweeping changes Obama wants to impose.- The Beloit Daily News: Jimmy Carter's Shameful Words.
Everyone, please welcome Mike Tate, the Democrats' new state party director. On his admission form he submitted the following high-fever rant about the Tea Party this weekend in Milwaukee that attracted 10,000 people.
Over the weekend I was asked to comment on the self described "tea baggers" who held an angry mob gathering in Milwaukee. Here is what I said: "These are extremist elements pulling together, distinct vocal minorities that frankly don't believe in this country. They don't want to see more people have access to quality affordable health care; they don't want clean air and water. They fundamentally don't understand how the American government, economy and capitalism work."
I meant what I said, and I'm not afraid to say it again. Just because you throw the biggest temper tantrum doesn't mean you can silence the majority of Americans who want fundamental change in this country.
History is riddled with examples of vocal fringe groups that have risen to oppose progress and success. From the red-baiting McCarthyites to the Know-Nothings and the KKK, we have seen this story unfold many times in the past. Fueled by ignorance, racism and intolerance, these groups have done everything in their power to obstruct progress often resorting to intimidation and violence.
The KKK? Proportionate to its population, no state lost more blood than Wisconsin in the Civil War. The anti-slavery Republican party was formed in Ripon, WI. The good people of Milwaukee freed a runaway slave jailed under the Fugitive Slave Act and helped him escape to Canada.
Know-Nothings? In one of the most Catholic states in the Union? McCarthyites? Ah, yes, the gift that keeps on giving: anti-anti-Communism.
Thomas Jefferson said "When the people fear their government there is tyranny. When the government fears the people there is liberty."
Hostile takeovers are the best
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel provides the Cliff's Notes for mayoral takeover of Milwaukee's public school system.
- Mayoral control provides for clear accountability - as one person can be held more accountable than can nine.
- Voting in Milwaukee School Board elections has historically produced low voter turnout - less than 4%.
- The city's mayors have negotiated more successfully with the city's unions than the board has with the teachers union. In fact, the line between board and union sometimes has been fuzzy.
- There have been clear successes in mayoral-run systems in Chicago, Boston, New York and Norfolk. [September 21, 2009 - Arguments against mayoral control fall flat]
Mayor Tom, gallant hero that he is, fails to mention the clincher for mayoral takeover: Ed Garvey and WEAC are agin' it!
Blaska's Blog hereby issues this directive: Governor Doyle: mobilize the National Guard and send it in. Put boots on the ground! Occupy the WEAC castle on Nob Hill. Put union leaders under extraordinary rendition on Rock Island.
Badges? We don't need no stinkin' ...
This summer, Mayor Dave and The Kathleen ballyhooed a farmers market at the Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ as their contribution to deteriorating quality of life in Meadowood and an $11,000 CDBG grant, even though the church parking lot is firmly located in Orchard Ridge.
One problem: no zoning. A neighbor complained about noise from the loudspeakers so now it must ask for a conditional use permit because it is, after all, in a residential area. Apparently, the market did not improve her quality of life.
Hearing is 6 p.m. Monday, October 5, in Room 201 (the Council chambers) of the City County Building downtown. Applicant of record: one Lisa Veldran.
Extra platinum subscriber bonus material:
- You've got your "We'll never forget you, Brent" T-shirt. Now grab this one!
- My former colleague Jake Stockinger, once the arts editor for The Capital Times, continues to cover classical music online at the Well-Tempered Ear. As Jake, a polymath and piano virtuoso, tells me: "It's specialized but serves a purpose with the regular media pulling back on arts coverage in an arts-rich town and county.
- Hear about that "secret Legislature" - the one that would be appointed to serve in case Osama bin Laden decided to turn our lights out? I used to do emergency preparedness for the State of Wisconsin. I think I can say, having served in the legislative branch on the county level, that the last thing you need in an emergency is a legislature. It's purpose is to deliberate. In an emergency, you need action.
- Obama says there won't be a tax increase with the new health care bill. But he could look it up - in the bill. Page 29, sentence one of the bill introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont) says: "The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax."[Politico: Health Care Bill says 'Tax']
- Hey Kids, catch my act on Joy Cardin's Week in Review program this Friday from 8 to 9 a.m. on the state radio network, WHA 970 am here in Madison.
