Democrats, Please Follow New York Times’ Advice

David Limbaugh
Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Liberals' derision of "people of faith" as weak, anti-intellectual, anti-reason and anti-science is ironic beyond measure, given their stubborn adherence to their own discredited views on the thin thread of faith alone.

New York Times editors' "In Search of a New Playbook" provides a perfect illustration. They not only don't apologize for President Obama's failed policies but also insist that Democrats run proudly on his record.

They argue that for Democrats to retain control of Congress, "they need a sharper and more inspirational playbook." But they're talking about a playbook that deviates not from their tired liberal ideas, but simply from the way those ideas are presented. (This is reminiscent of Obama's tone-deaf reaction to his effective trouncing in the Massachusetts Senate election, when he said he would have to explain his health care ideas more clearly to the American people.)

You see, enlightened people understand the superiority of liberal positions, and the unenlightened just need more indoctrination. You'd think liberal control of the teachers unions, institutions of higher learning and other cultural institutions for a couple of generations would be enough.

The editors warn that the November elections could produce a Republican tidal wave akin to the 1994 midterms, "in part ... because the significant accomplishments of the last two years -- health care reform, the stimulus package, the resuscitation of the auto industry, financial reform -- were savagely attacked by the right and aggressively misrepresented as the hoof beats of totalitarianism."

The editors believe these "accomplishments" would have been even better had they not been "highly diluted to draw centrist support." I'm not making this up. In their view, "Democrats have been failing to delineate the differences between themselves and Republicans."

Let's unpack some of this. What they call "accomplishments" we call disasters. They want to tout health care reform as an accomplishment? Well, if you define accomplishment as a piece of legislation crammed through against the will of the American people and against all odds, then I suppose that would be accurate. But in all other respects, it is a disaster, and the American people overwhelmingly understand it, thank you -- and no thanks to liberal misinformation, including that from the Times. The more people learn about Obamacare the more they realize just how grossly the administration deliberately misrepresented its provisions and the more unpopular it becomes. Rasmussen reported that a stunning 59 percent of Americans now favor repealing the bill.

The stimulus package? Can you imagine the chutzpah of people still calling this legislative train wreck a "stimulus"? It stimulated nothing but public-sector jobs, bureaucracy and the federal debt. No problem for The New York Times editorial board. It believes the stimulus did work, because had it not been implemented, unemployment would have been worse -- "Depression-level." But it would have worked much better had it been even more ambitious. Amazing.

No number of negative empirical data can shake their blind faith. The failure of the administration's predictions that unemployment wouldn't exceed 8 percent doesn't matter. They simply parrot the Obama mantra that the stimulus helped to create or save 3 million jobs. But as Heritage Foundation scholar Brian Riedl says, the only evidence they have to support that assertion are their economic models, which say that should have been the result. The results, in reality, are that millions of jobs (net) have been lost.

And the editors regard the government's takeover of the auto industry and Obama's financial "reform" bill as things to brag about? Please, bring it on. "Hoof beats of totalitarianism"? You'd better believe it.

So what do the editors want Democrats to do? They recommend they follow the lead of Obama, who "has become uncharacteristically combative" (uncharacteristically? Surely they jest!) in pointing out that Republicans "have not come up with a single solitary new idea to address the challenges of the American people." How about a refreshing return to a few old but tried-and-tested ideas, such as drastically reducing spending and taxes?

We must pray Democrats take the editors' advice, betting on the ignorance of the American people and the fantasy that when the dust settles, liberalism resonates better than conservatism with the American electorate.

Indeed, concerning the alleged failure of Democrats "to delineate the differences between themselves and Republicans," the editors, again, have it completely backward. Democrats can only avoid an electoral disaster if they pretend to move to the right, but because they've now unveiled their extremism with control of the executive and legislative branches, it's way too late for that.

Despite the blind faith and delusions of The New York Times editorial board and many other liberals, the public well understands what Obama liberalism is all about now. There has been plenty of delineation, thank you, and you're going to see just how much in November.