National Review Online again, this time from Mark Levin...
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One More Go at It [Mark R. Levin]
Andrew writes, citing another: “You quote Olsen writing "Mr. Huckabee offers the Republican Party a new political narrative, light years removed from the limited government principles governing the GOP in the Reagan and post-Reagan era." This would be funny if it weren't so sad. As a small government fiscal conservative I'm amazed that someone as knowledgeable as Mr. Olsen could write such nonsense. Under Bush and his congressional enablers we got Medicare Part-D, The 2005 Transportation Act, No Child left Behind, an explosion of earmarks, intervention in the Schiavo case, the ongoing scandal and waste of the Ag bills and on and on. Really what part of this represents "Limited Government" in the post-Reagan era? The fact that he borrowed instead of taxed to do it does not make this fiscal conservative happy, that's just taxing a future generation. Huckabee is a kinder gentler Bush III.”
Let me try this one more time, not to convince you Andrew, but for others who aren't bored out of their socks by this.
The Senate voted unanimously or near unanimously in the Schiavo case, Andrew, as did most of the House, to pass legislation authorizing federal courts to review the state's court decision - something that is routinely granted in capital cases without legislation from Congress. I don't want to argue, endlessly, the Schiavo case again, but it does not prove your point. I am glad they did and wrote so at the time. Furthermore, it is preposterous to argue, with little more in your case, that evidence of the Republican party turning into a European Christian Democrat-style party can be found in the party's spending. By such reasoning, maybe it's becoming a socialist party. Maybe the Rockefeller wing has finally prevailed. Maybe, if, whatever. This proves that Republicans are aping liberals (European and American liberals, I might add.).................................
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Maybe the motto should be "We retort, you divide."
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...................................Gradually, he began to air the issue. "I became very interested in this idea that we were selling ourselves and America short," he says. "And in the great clash of ideas around the world, I don't think the US always gets credit for providing the cultural and physical underpinning that allows all the rest of us to have all the arguments that we have."
An edition of From Our Own Correspondent about the severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo's right to die was widely picked over in cyberspace. In it, Webb declared: "America is often portrayed as an ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible-bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry . . . I know that is how it is portrayed as I have done my bit to paint that picture . . ."
It was a startling piece of self-flagellation. When pushed on the issue, Webb now says his criticism is less about British reporters "getting the story wrong" than "wilfully going for those gosh-aren't-Americans-weird stories"..................................
'I'm a real admirer of American patriotism'
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