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We The Government indeed. Cartoonist Michael Ramirez is certainly one of the most perceptive individuals of our generation. The only thing he missed was the signature block, with Obama's name written in the size of John Hancock's.
Is there anyone on the right who does not realize we are in a zero sum ideological war in America today? It is not only against the progressive left in Congress, but equally against a MSM in the pocket of the progressive left. For instance, this today from MSNBC:
[I]n a week when Democrats are celebrating the passage of a historic piece of legislation, Republicans find themselves again being portrayed as the party of no, associated with being on the losing side of an often acrid debate and failing to offer a persuasive alternative agenda.
The party of "No?" You have got to be kidding me. Republicans were virtually shut out of the health care negotiations. They made attempt after attempt to influence health care legislation, only to be rebuffed.
If you want to see a "party of no," take a look at the left. When Bush attempted to fix a Social Security system clearly destined to fail, changing it from a ponzi scheme to essentially a personally owned, government administered 401k, the Democrats utterly refused to engage in any sort of dialogue or to offer any alternative plans. Everytime someone says the party of no, we should be replaying:
There is your party of "NO."
And this bit about "failing to offer a persuasive alternative agenda" is almost as offensive. Rep. Paul Ryan did precisely that in his "roadmap" for America, posted on line in November. So ignored was it by the MSM that three days before the "healthcare summit" in February, Obama and Gibbs were quoted as calling on Republicans to post something online. It was outrageous.
But it also makes my point - that Republicans are utterly failing at communications. The three biggest things Republicans can do to help their chances are, one, to develop a far more effective communications apparatus, recognizing that the MSM is, but for Fox and the Wall St. Journal, an ideological enemy that will do them no favors. The second thing they need to do is to challenge major misstatements or spin in the press, pointing out the bias and hypocrisy of the press itself. The press likes to pretend to objectivity, so they may not like it, but they will have to run the criticism. Three, stop worrying about decorum and start accurately expressing emotion. If the President is lying to the American people - then damn it, use the word "lie," use it with passion, and then explain why. The left operates to a large degree on pure emotion while the right is far more restrained in expressing it. That has to change if the right is ever going to get its message across and make it stick with the electorate on a visceral level. I am not arguing for adopting the pure emotion and intellectual dishonesty that are the hallmark of today's progressive left, but rather marrying intellectual honesty with emotion.
It is not enough to stop the progressives at this point - to have a static trench warfare, to use military terminology. This is a new Cold War. And as were their socialist progenitors, our modern progressives must be fully delegitimized, defeated and sent to the dustbin of history.
Update: Having looked at Doug Ross's blog, perhaps it would be better to call this a newly hot war - as a civil war graveyard tells us that Democrats have been at war with our country for a very long time.
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