No Permanent Majorities In America
Cartoony Politics in Canada
Being President 101
Failure To Blow Election Stuns Democratic Party Faithful Mourn End To Losing Tradition
Hope Is On The Way
The Future Is Upon Us
Illinois Outdoes Itself
Environmentalists Disregard Public Safety
There's Something About Harry
The White Collar Lament
What Good Can Come Of This?
Dummies
If The Shoe Fits Hurl It
Obama The Magic Negro-Gate
Sick Of The Doom And Gloom?
Crazy Like A Fox
Out With The Old
Remember The Empty Chairs At Holiday Tables
Who Are The Real Nazis?
The Gaza Rules
Harper's Weekly
The Mortgage Thieves Return
Bringing A Bit Of Fairness To The American Workplace
Bye-Bye 2008: Things I Want To Forget
The Fierce Urgency Of Now
How Many Government Workers Does It Take To Change A Light Bulb?
The Perils And Joys Of Self-Esteem
The Future Of Civilization
'Hunk' Obama Can Help Nation Fight Obesity Epidemic
Moral Clarity In Gaza
Obama's Tax Cuts Leave Logic Behind
Talking About Sex-Ed That Works
The Time Is Now
Et Al Ad Nauseam: 2008 And All That
The Generational Theft Act Of 2009
Pay Rod Gives Democrats Fits With Senate Choice
'Tis The Season To Be Jolly. Or At least Try
Gaza: The Dove'S War
Hamas Rockets Blew Away Gaza Opportunity
Season's Readings
Old Acquaintances
A Social Trauma For Obama: Youth Crime
Sensitivity And 'Gran Torino'
A Question For My Friend Alan Dershowitz
The Unsung Hero Of Obama'S Victory
Red Ink Did Me Good
Barack in Limbo
A Hard Year Ahead
Ask Not For Plum Political Appointments
Eric Holder And All Political Prisoners
Mideast Overshadows Obama's Prospects
A Clean Start
Year-End Odds And Ends
Team Obama Dabbles In Drama
The Gamble in Gaza -- Interview With Aaron David Miller
Cal Thomas-Bonus
A Respite From Reality
One Nation, One People-God Bless Us Everyone
Dr. Leavitt's Scary Diagnosis
Rich People Versus Politicians
Richardson's Exit And The Vetting Process



Thoughtful Warriors
Mona Charen 11/21/2008
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Unlike some who shall, in the interests of comity, remain nameless — conservatives do not cry foul when they lose elections. They do not whine that the election was stolen, or secured through dirty campaign tricks, or otherwise illegitimately won. Instead, they ask themselves where they went wrong.

The National Review Institute, a think tank founded by the late William F. Buckley and now headed by the dynamic and perspicacious Kate O'Beirne, hosted a daylong conference in Washington, D.C., to examine where conservatives need to go from here. It was a very clarifying day.

Yes, the Democrats got a big win on Nov. 4 and there is no gainsaying that Republicans and conservatives were rejected. Then again, it would have defied 200 years of American history if the party holding the White House for two terms and presiding over a huge financial panic should have been successful. Add to that the essentially content-free McCain campaign and you have yourself a drubbing.

But did liberal ideas win? Identification with the Republican Party is down. But the number of voters who identify themselves as liberal (22 percent) is nearly identical to the results four years ago (21 percent). Thirty-four percent, the same as in 2004,
still identify as conservatives. And while slightly more voters expressed a desire for more government activism in 2008 than in 2004, the panting eagerness in the press for a reprise of the New Deal (note the cover of Time magazine) is not widely shared by the electorate.

Lacking political strength for the battles to come, conservatives will have to rely on the strength of their ideas. The most important battle, Yuval Levin of the Ethics and Public Policy Center argued, will be health care. If health care is successfully nationalized in America, the case for a smaller and less bureaucratic state becomes immeasurably more difficult. Throughout the developed world, in countries that have adopted socialized medicine, every call to limit the size and scope of government is instantly caricatured as an attempt to take medicine away from the weak and sick. People become awfully attached to "free" medical care even though it is emphatically not free (it is supported through higher taxes), even though it requires waiting periods for care (even in cases of cancer and other serious illnesses), and even though it deprives people of the latest technology (the city of Pittsburgh has more MRI scanners than the entire nation of Canada).

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Posted By: Patriot Pete  on Monday, November 24, 2008

Ha ha ha!!  Con-servatives don't whine about stolen elections, Mona?  Every single con-servative website is still whining about how the so-called Liberal media handed the election to Obama on a silver platter.  And as for Pittsburgh and that glut of MRI machines, all the MRI machines in the world won't do you any good if you can't afford an MRI.  Just one more thing, Mona.  You forgot to mention the fact that the Bush Gang oversaw an economic meltdown of epic proportions which is probably why Republicans found themselves on the losing end of the election.  


Posted By: Nathan L.  on Monday, November 24, 2008

Patriot Pete, I'm sorry, but the conservatives at least have proof of the liberal media. Proof means numbers, statistics, and facts, not claims that florida was stolen without a single fact to back up that claim. I'm going to skip over the fact of the number of MRI's and instead focus on the fact that, canadians are known to come to the United States and pay increased rates for better care. Americans don't visit canada for the hospitals, just for cheap drugs; and personally, i would rather have a good doctor than a handfill of cheap pills. Lastly, that meltdown that you mentioned was overseen by President Bush, yes, but more importantly, a liberal congress. Quick civics lesson is that the President enforces acts, the congress creates them, so in order to lay the blame on Bush's doorstep, you would need to prove that the democrats worked to prevent the foreclosures, which they didn't.


Posted By: Bernard Garner  on Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The last figure I saw for healthcare in the USA was 17% of GDP, close to 50% more than other members of the G8 that have socialized medicine.

Is it really "more expensive" for the people as a whole to have socialized medicine? All those CAT scanners don't mean shit to the 50M people who can't afford them.

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