What Happened To "Hope & Change"?
Liberals who love big government are losing their patience with the Obama Administration. (More on that below.) From the epic failure that was the launch of Obamacare to the VA scandal, there has been little change in the way government works (or doesn't) and "hope" is the last thing Americans see in Washington, D.C.
In what some are calling the "Bagram Blunder," the latest embarrassment involves this weekend's leaking of the CIA's top officer in Afghanistan. In announcing the president's surprise visit to Bagram Air Force Base Sunday, the White House accidently blasted the name of the CIA's "chief of station" out to a nationwide media list of 6,000 individuals before someone at the Washington Post reported the error.
When the Bush Administration "outed" a veteran CIA operative, liberals demanded a special prosecutor and Scooter Libby went to jail on unrelated charges. This isn't another scandal per se, but as former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said, "In a White House that is filled with press flacks ... was there no one who understood the significance of what they were doing? ... This is utter incompetence."
VA Turns To Private Sector
Here's another embarrassment that is frustrating the left. Attempting to address the growing scandal at more than two dozen VA hospitals across the country, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki announced over the weekend that the VA would allow veterans to get care at private hospitals.
What irony! Just as Obamacare begins to kick-in, a major government-run health care bureaucracy is turning to the private sector for help. In fact, several left-wing advocates for socialized health care pointed to the VA as their model!
Criticism And Racism
Sparks flew during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week when the committee's chairman, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), said that conservatives opposed Obamacare because Barack Obama was "the wrong color." It was the second time in recent weeks that Rockefeller has leveled that charge and Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) had had enough.
"That you would say that opposition to Obamacare necessarily must stream from some inherent racism? Very offensive," Johnson said. "Listen, my opposition to health care has nothing to do with the race of President Obama. It is the greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime." You can watch the exchange here.
This weekend, CNN's John King reported that some members of Congress are "scathing" in their private remarks about Obama. They say he is "detached," "flat-footed" and "even incompetent."
If such comments came from conservatives, it would be cited as evidence of their racism. But the criticism is coming from members of Obama's own party, and no one is suggesting that they are racists.
Note To Beltway Elites: Pay Attention To England
Mainstream political parties suffered stunning defeats throughout much of Europe in last week's elections for the European Parliament. One of the most notable insurgent victories occurred in England, where the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) finished first.
It succeeded in large part because it was rebelling against Great Britain's Conservative Party which is no longer a Thatcherite party. UKIP's victory marked the first time in more than 100 years that one of England's two major parties failed to win a national election.
Prime Minister David Cameron has been unwilling to take on the immigration crisis, and like some in the Republican Party, he tried to appeal to youth by endorsing same-sex marriage. After that endorsement, faith-driven resignations all over the country bedeviled the Conservative Party. Later on Cameron admitted, "If I'd known what it [the reaction to his same-sex marriage position] was going to be like, I wouldn't have done it."
How on earth did the leader of the Conservative Party not know that attacking an institution that dates back thousands of years would not go over well with conservative, morally-oriented voters?
I share this with you because some Beltway elites want to abandon values issues and would prefer to not discuss them. There is no need to speculate about that strategy. All they have to do is look at what has happened to England's Conservative Party.
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