Wearing his I’m‑Not-Partisan-No-Not-Me hat, President Obama has again declared war on partisanship, telling congressional Republicans to “peel off the partisan war paint.”
To be partisan in a bad way is not merely to belong to a political party and more or less support its program. It is to cling to party at the expense of Doing the Right Thing.
Unless, that is, it’s about opposing the program of a president determined to be partisan at the expense of Doing the Right Thing.
I often disagree with both parties. But let’s say that a representative of one party is marginally more reluctant to destroy our wealth and freedom than a representative of another party. Then I prefer the slightly more responsible stance of the former — and wish it were tougher and more consistent — even when the latter engages in name-calling and abuse of the former.
Demanding “perspective,” President Obama declares that he and the Congress should “not put ourselves through some sort of self-inflicted crisis every six months.” And I wholeheartedly agree. These crises happen because their spending programs always go up and up and up, even when a few “cuts” get made.
But the president doesn’t stop there. He explains they must “allow ourselves time to focus on things like preventing the tragedy in Newtown from happening again, focus on issues like energy and immigration reform.…”
Um, sir, please do not suggest that an unimpeded path to fiscal ruin is the only way to prevent fiscal ruin, or can somehow enable policymakers to prevent crazy gunmen from killing people. Please.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “Shooting from the Hip”
Mr. Jacob,
Didn’t you misspell the title of this article?
Shouldn’t that have been; Shooting from the Lip?
Fearl
Policymakers CAN make policies that lower the risk from crazed gunmen. The one policy that actually lowers the risk and lowers the numbers of deaths in actual occurances is streamlined concealed carry laws. Lib-progs hate that, but they tend to prefer to focus on intent instead of results.
Senator Helms once said, “Compromise, hell! That’s what has happened to us all down the line — and that’s the very cause of our woes. If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?” Unfortunately, the Republican establishment has ignored this sound advice.
The war is not on partisanship, unless you happen to be in the communist party, and that seems to be very true of the majority of Dems and libs…
President Obama does not mean by “crisis” what you imply he means. So you are not really in wholehearted agreement.