Posted on 02/13/2005 11:30:16 PM PST by NZerFromHK
I'm sorry that the whole article is not available, which requires subscription.
Well, I was thinking that the justice of our cause was so obvious that it wouldn't be a party thing. And, even though I was introduced on NPR the other day as a "notoriously toxic conservative,"
>>>
I've been called worse...just today in fact! lol
Ping!
What? Someone call you a liberal?
;-)
I think the pattern is, the farther one is from Europe, the more likely one is to be sane.
Unfortunately there is one big exception. New Zealand (which coincidentially is my country) is about as far ayou can get from Europe, but which effectively is one big country that the British Left has effective control over. A typical Kiwi left-winger thinks like this (new poster CfromNZ):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1342185/posts
Sticks and Stones BTTT :)
Kim Jung Il being a noted exception.
If I lived in Britain, I'd vote for Tony Blair's Labour party. Yes, yes, I know he's a nanny-state control-freak and you can hardly pull your pants on in the morning without filling in the form for the Public Trouser Usage Permit and undergoing inspection from the Gusset Regulatory Authority.
LOL! I love it.
But on the One Big Thing — the great issue of the age — he's right, and he's reliable.
Proof that you can be leftwing and STILL have moral clarity
Me too..several liberals keeps telling me I am "mean spirited". I am getting really vexed by it. Any suggestions freepers?
Ping.
Like our RATS, it appears that Britain's Conservative Party has come unhinged, just saying "No!" to anything that Blair proposes. I'm pretty sure I'd disagree with 99% percent of what Labor proposes, but I'd vote for them just to keep Tony Blair in power, too. World leaders who "Get It" are in short supply these days.
Let's see if we can find someone who is a subscriber who'll post the complete column. Calling CONSTITUTION DAY!!!
I'm headed to lunch. I'll post when I get back!
CD
Thank you. ;o)
First Things First
One reason I was looking forward to Election Day 2004 was so I could stop being viciously partisan. I loved Campaign 2000, couldn’t wait to get up each morning and do another dozen cheap cracks about Al Gore’s earth tones, inventing the Internet, being “raised” on a “farm.” But my heart wasn’t really in it this time round. Oh, to be sure, John and Teresa were a veritable production line of great material — going into Wendy’s and inquiring what “chili” was, etc. — but, to be honest, I was going through the motions. It seemed unworthy of the epic times in which we live to beat up John Edwards. I longed to put aside the ketchup-heiress gags and get back to the great geopolitical sweep of history.
I assumed the Democrats felt the same. But evidently they don’t, as was made painfully clear by their decision to mark inauguration week by getting Barbara Boxer and Joe Biden to do their bad cop/bad cop routine on Condi Rice. I’m loath to admit it, but one of the dopier sentences of my entire oeuvre was some mawkish pap written in the days after 9/11 saluting the sturdy Biden, the rock of Delaware, for his robust support of the president. He reverted to his usual showboating poltroonery about ten minutes after the first edition hit the streets. What the hell was I thinking?
Well, I was thinking that the justice of our cause was so obvious that it wouldn’t be a party thing. And, even though I was introduced on NPR the other day as a “notoriously toxic conservative,” I still don’t feel I’m the one being partisan. If I lived in Britain, I’d vote for Tony Blair’s Labour party. Yes, yes, I know he’s a nanny-state control-freak and you can hardly pull your pants on in the morning without filling in the form for the Public Trouser Usage Permit and undergoing inspection from the Gusset Regulatory Authority. But on the One Big Thing — the great issue of the age — he’s right, and he’s reliable. And, sad to say, the British Conservative party isn’t. Their leader, Michael Howard, has been a cheesy opportunist on the war, supporting it at the time, backtracking later, his constantly evolving position twisting itself into a knot of contortions even John Kerry might find over-nuanced. Most other Tory heavyweights — ex-Thatcher cabinet ministers like Lord Hurd and Sir Malcolm Rifkind — are more straightforward: They’re agin the war. They’d have no time for his frightful American clothes or his ghastly hamburger diet, but, social distaste aside, they’re Michael Moore Conservatives.
John Howard down under is more congenial, but I wouldn’t say he’s my kind of conservative — he’s a complete wuss on gun rights, for example. Yet, like Blair, he gets the One Big Thing.
Is there a pattern here? John Howard was supposed to be in trouble in last fall’s election, but he won big. Bush was supposed to be in trouble up until about 7 p.m. Eastern on November 2, but he too won big. Blair was supposed to be in trouble over his “lies” about the war, but in the British election, likely to come in May, he’s now set for another landslide. Iraq, we were assured by all the commentators, was an electoral liability, and so it was — for the opposition parties. It’s not just that the U.S. Democrats and the Australian Labor party lost, and the British Tories are about to lose, but it’s the manner of the loss. Six months ago, Mark Latham was the great white hope of the Australian Left. Now he’s quit on health grounds. As the Sydney Morning Herald’s Tony Stephens reported, not entirely felicitously: “He had said of John Howard at Labor’s campaign launch only 16 weeks ago: ‘I’m ready to lead. He’s ready to leave.’ He had said that he had fire in his belly and that, at 43, he was in the prime of his life. Now he is leaving while Howard continues to lead. The fire in his belly has been doused by his pancreas, the large organ behind his belly.”
But, with Latham gone, the Labor party is a bar no one wants to belly up to. The likely new leader is a returning old leader, Kim Beazley, just as the British Tories, currently on their third leader in four years, keep having to bring back old-timers from the ever more distant past, and the Democrats are apparently talking about repealing the Twenty-Second Amendment so that Bill Clinton can run again. In all three parties, there’s a conspicuous lack of fresh talent. That’s one reason Barack Obama gets all the magazine covers. He seems a perfectly affable fellow, but the notion that he can singlehandedly rescue the Democrats is ridiculous.
These parties have no new talent because they have no new ideas. In Britain, Michael Howard brought over from Australia Lynton Crosby, the consultant behind John Howard’s four election victories. Crosby doesn’t seem to be impressed by what he’s found — or, as the headline in the London Times put it, “Election Is Lost Already, Top Adviser Tells Howard.”
For good or ill, Bush, Blair, and Howard are all transformative figures: They’ve remade their political landscapes and driven their opponents into loopy, self-inflicted death spirals. All the Democrats needed last November was their own Tony Blair — on the war, tough, moral, and credible; and a big pantywaist on health, education, and the rest of the touchy-feely stuff. The story of this election season — from Canberra to Washington to Westminster — is that candidates who engage seriously with the central challenge of the age can see off their opposition, whether Left or Right.
Thanks...another great column by Mark Steyn...I love this guy. ;o)
If I lived in Britain, I'd vote for Tony Blair's Labour party.
...........................................................
I am not bloody voting for him. Not after ID cards, fox hunting, Daivd Blunkett and Immigration and general lies and ineptitude.
They did do some good things like the minimum wage in their first term but it has been downhill in terms of domestic policy ever since.
If I was a Pom, I don't know what I'd do in their election.
The Conservatives seem far from conservative, but the prospect of voting Labour...yuk!
I personally believe the Poms have largely gone over the drain. The country is now beyond the point of no return. The left is deeply hopeless, and yet their conservatives (both capital "C" and small "c") are still in denial. The British response to this news article amply shows their problems:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1343022/posts
Next time a new generation Margaret Thatcher comes onto the scane and I guarantee she will never be elected unless something catastrophic happens to Britain itself.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.