“Numerous GOP officials have told POLITICO they worry that the party has been hijacked by a noisy and powerful minority...”

Wanting limited government interference in people’s lives; wanting government to live within its means as the people must; wanting personal responsibility and consequences for personal actions; wanting people and corporations to pay for their bad investments; wanting a safe home and country – these are majority views.

Yes, there are issues about which Americans disagree, but the vast majority of Americans agree on the above.

If you want to call that a conservative view than “GOP officials” and the media do not understand that conservatives are not a minority.

Count me among those who think that all this hoopla over President Obama’s birth certificate is a bunch of animal waste. Those pursuing this should investigate something much more critical and dangerous, like the Piltdown man.

However, according to the AP:

State officials again are confirming that President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said Monday she has seen the original birth records that verify Obama was born in Hawaii, and is a "natural-born American citizen."

Fukino made the announcement in hopes of ending any lingering rumors about Obama's citizenship. She issued a similar press release Oct. 31.

State law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest.

Excuse me, if the citizens of the United States do not have a “tangible interest” in their president’s birth certificate, one of the requirements to be president – who does.

What is with the liberal media’s obsession with Sarah Palin?

If you disregard articles on oil and gas, there was all but no national coverage of Mrs. Palin before July 2008.

The governor wrote an op-ed piece in The (liberal) New York Times on January 5, 2008 (on polar bears).

The Times of London on February 11, 2008 wrote: “Seeking to offset a Clinton-Obama duo with either an obscure female such as Sarah Palin (Governor of Alaska)…” Note at that point it was a Clinton-Obama ticket.

A few weeks later Mrs. Palin really got coverage: The Washington Post, February 27, 2008:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is emerging as consensus pick for vice president among both Republicans and Democrats.

Well, not exactly, but, based on a perusal of the nearly 600 entries in our contest to pick a running mate for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and the 2,600 entries to select one for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), a fair number of Loop Fans speculated that either candidate might pick Bloomberg as his No. 2…

…One entrant, from Cairo, picked 44-year-old Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R).

On May 26, 2008 Nat Hentoff in The Washington Times wrote a substantial piece putting forth Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential nominee.

But, Newsweek, on June 16, 2008, wrote: “…conservatives talk up Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, but she is all but unknown to McCain.”

One would guess that on June 30, 2008, outside of Alaska, almost zero percent of Americans would remember ever hearing of Sara Palin.

So, for discussions sake, say Sarah Palin “burst” onto the national scene on July 1, 2008. By election night in November her 15 minutes of fame should have ended.

That is just over four months in the spotlight.

Today, eight months after the election the liberal media cannot let go of Sarah Palin.

There is almost no rational explanation for their obsession.

Perhaps the best explanation is they are trying to make her the poster “girl” for Republicans and by vilifying her they hope their ongoing negative attacks on her will rub off on the entire Republican Party.

Even given my strange perspective, there are some mornings I wake up in America and I feel that like Alice I am seeing the world through the looking glass. Today was one of those days.

According to the liberal New York Times: “Top federal regulators say they were taken aback when they learned that a California congresswoman who helped set up a meeting with bankers last year had family financial ties to a bank whose chief executive asked them for up to $50 million in special bailout funds. Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, requested the September meeting on behalf of executives at OneUnited, one of the nation’s largest black-owned banks. Ms. Waters’s husband, Sidney Williams, had served on the bank’s board until early last year and has owned at least $250,000 of its stock.”

I am shocked!

According to the almost as liberal NY Daily News: “President Obama said Thursday the nation's economic woes are not as dire as they seem and said his economic policies will get the country back on track. "I don't think things are ever as good as they say, or ever as bad as they say…Things two years ago were not as good as we thought because there were a lot of underlying weaknesses in the economy…They're not as bad as we think they are now…I don't like the idea of spending more government money, nor am I interested in expanding government's role”.

Oh, really?

Just 6 days ago according to the AP: “President Barack Obama challenged the nation Saturday to not just hang in there but rather to see the hard times as a chance to ‘discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis.’”

$787-billion stimulus plan, $410 billion spending bill for the current fiscal year, proposed 2010 budget increases the deficit to about $1.8 trillion.

And then there is this from the Financial Times: “Jack Welch, who is regarded as the father of the “shareholder value” movement that has dominated the corporate world for more than 20 years, has said it was “a dumb idea” for executives to focus so heavily on quarterly profits and share price gains.  The former General Electric chief told the Financial Times the emphasis that executives and investors had put on shareholder value, which began gaining popularity after a speech he made in 1981, was misplaced.”

Mind boggling.

From The New York Times: “Mr. Obama acknowledged the anger felt by many Americans over the bailouts of banks, the automobile companies and homeowners who are in over their heads. But he made a case that all those steps were necessary, not to help the institutions or people receiving taxpayer money, but to avert deeper economic problems that would afflict everyone for years to come.”

So, I ask again: What is the upside for all those people, those 91%+ of Americans who lived within their means, who did not live “over their heads”?

If bailing out the 9% of "homeowners who are in over their heads" is necessary “to avert deeper economic problems that would afflict everyone for years to come”, why not take the money going to the 9% and instead give it to the 91% for them to spend? Spending is stimulus, right?

Again from The New York Times: “He was vague about how he intends to make health care more affordable and accessible…” and “The president waited until the last moments of his speech to address America’s relations with the world, and when he did, he struck broad themes while eschewing specific policy directives.”

Speeches only require the speaker to be vague and present broad themes. Leadership requires specific action.

Speeches, especially for a good presenter like the President are easy. Leadership, well, that is another matter.

President Obama 2009:

"I'm pleased to announce that this morning the Treasury Department began directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks, meaning that by April 1st, a typical family will begin taking home at least $65 more every month…"

Michelle Obama 2008 (On President Bush's tax refund):

"You're getting $600 - what can you do with that? Not to be ungrateful or anything, but maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn't pay down every bill every month. The short-term quick fix kinda stuff sounds good, and it may even feel good that first month when you get that check, and then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings."

One of the issues that must be faced by the “right” is that verbal firebomb throwing may feel good, may excite some to “the cause”, but ultimately all it does is burn down your own house.

A well-known columnist recently wrote:

Working in a homeless shelter is widely regarded as “community service”-- as if aiding and abetting vagrancy is necessarily a service, rather than a disservice, to the community.

Is a community better off with more people not working, hanging out on the streets, aggressively panhandling people on the sidewalks, urinating in the street, leaving narcotics needles in the parks where children play?

Now his real point was on target:

In other words, people on the left want the right to impose their idea of what is good for society on others-- a right that they vehemently deny to those whose idea of what is good for society differs from their own.

But, by including the incendiary language on the homeless what do you think most people will remember?

Now obviously, my view of those in a homeless shelter is vastly different than this columnist’s view. 

First, helping those less fortunate is a Christian value and beyond that I would hope our society and government would have a level of “caring”. What the level should be can be debated.

Second, not all homeless are: “hanging out on the streets, aggressively panhandling people on the sidewalks, urinating in the street, leaving narcotics needles in the parks”.

Beyond that, such language reinforces the idea that Republicans, conservatives, “the right”, do not care about people.

Most Americans, even those who have had encounters with the type of homeless described, want to think of themselves as kind-hearted, caring people. When they read or hear someone on the right use such language Americans have an almost automatic negative response – feeling/thinking like that is not who they want to be.

From Bloomberg.com on November 18, 2008:

Thanks in part to funding from benefactors such as billionaire George Soros, the Center for American Progress has become in just five years an intellectual wellspring for Democratic policy proposals, including many that are shaping the agenda of the new Obama administration.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aF7fB1PF0NPg&refer=home

Somewhere out there must be a conservative who has the technical expertise to create a virtual “action tank”, to tap into the intellectual wealth of conservatives. Imagine a Wikipedia, or if you prefer a Conservapedia, which would gather and share conservative ideas, creating an online “book” of issues, ideas, positions, and solutions.

Perhaps one already exists, if so, please send a comment with the web address.

The first black man elected U.S. president is poised to name Washington lawyer Eric Holder as the nation's first black attorney general…

In 1988, GOP President Ronald Reagan appointed Holder to the bench in Washington's Superior Court. Six years later, as U.S. attorney in Washington, Holder's office indicted then-Democratic House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, who ended up pleading guilty in 1996 to mail fraud. And the Senate unanimously confirmed Holder in 1997 for the Justice Department's No. 2 post…

On the last day of Clinton's term, Holder told the White House he was "neutral, leaning toward favorable" for a presidential pardon for Marc Rich, a wealthy commodities dealer who had spent years running from tax charges. Rich's ex-wife, Denise, was a prominent Democratic Party donor.

It turned out to be a bad call. The pardon provoked howls of protests and a congressional investigation over whether it was politically motivated. Holder later publicly apologized for what he called a snap decision and said he would have advised against it had he paid more attention to the case.

Republicans and conservatives should treat President Obama with the respect they thought the liberals and Democrats should have treated President Bush.

The President is entitled to have the administration he desires. Quietly and quickly approve his nominees for his Cabinet, etc. Save your opposition for when it matters, on the appointment of judges and then only oppose those where you have a real legitimate reason.

If the only objection that Republicans have to Mr. Holder serving as Attorney General is his slight role in the Marc Rich pardon, they should question him with respect and restraint and then then they should unanimously approve his nomination.