VDH: The Day After

Looking ahead to the coming battles.

Here's one bit of advice:

It seems to me that conservatives have a golden opportunity to offer criticism and advice in a manner that many liberals did not during the last eight years. By that I mean I hope there are no conservative versions of the Nicholson Baker Knopf-published ‘novel’ Checkpoint, the creepy documentary by Gerald Range, the attempt to name a sewer plant after an American President, or the celebrity outbursts that we have witnessed with the tired refrain of Hitler/Nazi Bush—that all have cheapened political discourse. When I hear a partisan insider like Paul Begala urging at the 11th hour that we now rally around lame-duck Bush in his last few days, I detect a sense of apprehension that no Democrats would wish conservatives to treat Obama as they did Bush for eight years.

In the future, criticism should be offered in unified pro-American tones, rather than anti-Obama screeds. When disagreements arise, they should be couched in a sense of regret rather than ebullition. There should be no conservative counterparts of Bill Maher, Michael Moore, or Al Franken.

I think that's about right.

One line of attack that is now mostly past its expiration date is Ayers/Wright. I do not say that because these matters are unimportant. I say that because Ayers and Wright were harbingers as to how Obama might actually lead. Very useful in warning the country about an unvetted Marxist candidate.

However, now he's been elected, and the country is even less interested in previews of his leadership, because they'll have tangible evidence of his leadership. Many of his policies, I expect, will be fairly decried as statist, socialist, and dissent-crushing, and the reminders about his tutelage at the hands of America-hating Marxists will serve us well, but the primary thrust changes from Who Obama Is to What Obama Does.

And, unfortunately, I think we'll have no shortage of criticism regarding the last point.

That said, I'm still pretty interested in knowing who wrote Dreams from My Father, or, as one reader called it, Bill Ayers' Dreams from Barack Obama's Father. And I'm not giving up on that Rezko land deal anytime soon -- a previous corrupt land deal turned out to be a rather big deal some years back.

It's more a matter of emphasis. Because we have crucial policies to fight for -- like stopping, somehow, the left's creepy determination to stamp out free speech on talk radio. And perhaps on the internet as well.

Ahead of a widely-expected crackdown on free speech and political dissent by the incoming Obama administration, our Dear Leader has appointed a new FCC transition czar to oversee the process.

Henry Rivera, a longtime radical leftist, lawyer and former FCC commissioner, is expected to lead the push to dismantle commercial talk radio that is favored by a number of Democratic Party senators. Rivera will play a pivotal role in preventing Obama's critics from having a public voice during Obama's tenure in office.

Rivera, who resigned from the FCC nearly a quarter-century ago during the Reagan years, believes in a doctrine of "communications policy as a civil rights issue".

Insist on extending the "fairness doctrine" to network news and tv shows. Not that I wish that, either -- but insist on its general applicability to any broadcast medium.

posted by Ace at 06:18 PM

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