Even this year, when, thankfully, most of the hopefuls are bringing a stop to the GOP politeness game à la John McCain/Mitt Romney campaigns, they are not taking full advantage of the situation.
Even Ted Cruz (whom I've supported for the past few months) does not do this enough — although he has been doing it more than anyone else.
Even, incredibly, Donald Trump does not do this enough. (He attacks more the policy than the man behind them, as well as Hillary the candidate but much less so than the man who has presided over those policies since 2009.)
In short: Hillary Clinton (or whoever the Democrats' candidate turns out to be) and Barack Obama should invariably be lumped TOGETHER in whatever criticism is made of the Democrat party and its members' administration of the country in the past seven years.
Three recent developments that should be picked upon unceasingly— especially when the candidate or any of his competitors (!) are being attacked personally:
1) The insanity of Obama's Iran deal, with the offer of $100 billion to the ayatollahs (see an example at the bottom of this post), not to mention the apologizer-in-chief's attendant domestic policy;
2) the petulant and puerile outbursts of Obama — allegedly the most intelligent man ever to run for the White House — his ugly mocking, which can be called akin to juvenility and childishness (a puerility which makes the GOP's remain-polite-to-Obama-at-all-costs game even more ludicrous);
3) and evidence of the double standards of the media (no recent development, this, but then, okay, neither was/is the ugly attitude of an extreme leftist nor was/is his smart diplomacy).
Ben Carson went for the jugular during a press conference when the media kept asking him about the West Point controversy.
I do not remember this level of scrutiny for one President Barack Obama, when he was running, in fact I remember just the opposite, I remember people just said, "oh we won't really talk about that relationship, oh, Frank Marshall Davis, oh we don't want to talk about that, Bernadine Dorne, Bill Ayers, we don't want to know about that, all the things Jeremiah Wright was saying, ehh not a big problem.Ben Carson should be taking on Obama all the time. As should all the others. But as far as I can tell, the surgeon stopped doing it.
Goes to Occidental college, doesn't do all that well, somehow ends up at Columbia University, I dunno.
His records are sealed." Why are his records sealed? You're not interested in that? Can somebody tell me why? I'm asking you why are they sealed? Don't change the subject. Will someone tell me please why you have not investigated that.
Something with the words "a scholarship was offered" is a big deal, but the president of the U.S. his academic records being sealed is not. Tell me how there is equivalency there. Tell me somebody, please.
Because you see, what you're not going to find with me is somebody who is going to sit back and be completely unfair without letting the American people know what is going on; the American people are waking up to your games.
They should also be getting to the root of an issue.
For instance, the only real news about the "controversy" of Ben Carson's not advocating a Muslim for president is not the content of that very statement, but — and any of the candidates could have picked up on this — the apparent dread of liberals and their media brethren to the horrific idea of having a Christian, i..e., an average, everyday American (never mind an evangelical Christian), for president.
Regarding a recent Donald Trump outburst, Paul Ryan intoned that
While GOP Chairman Reince Priebus added thatThis is not conservatism. What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for and, more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.
We need to aggressively take on radical Islamic terrorism but not at the expense of our American values.First of all, with regards to Ronald Reagan's dictum on remaining united, offhand I do not have too much issue (relatively speaking) with attacks on fellow Republicans. But by all means, follow it up with an "on the flip side", with an attack on the Democrats — and by that I mean, not just on Barack Obama, and I mean, not just on Hillary Clinton (or on Bernie Sanders); I mean, follow it up with an attack on both of them, on all of them, together. (Actually, an attack means little more than a neutral and objective description.)
So Paul Ryan attacks Trump for not understanding what America stand for. Fine. By all means, do so. But, at the same time, follow up the above statement with something to this effect:
[To the credit of all our candidates, however — and I mean all of them — not one of them has referred to any member of the opposition party as terrorists or the equivalent of Iran's religious fanatics. Nor, indeed, has any of them mentioned the Democrats as the worst enemies of their career.]The speaker of the House might have added:
[Furthermore, no Republican would ever dream of nixing probes into Southern California jihadist groups or, more generally, protecting the rights of Islamists instead of protecting the American people.]An aside: Often I have wondered what was the best comeback — the best succinct comeback — on issues raised by liberals.
On the issue of gun control, and how well it works in those Western European countries we should always be seeking to emulate, I came up with one three or four years ago. Last week the New York Times published it as a response to their "Gun Epidemic in America" editorial.
Through the years, I have also often thought about what might be the best response to being called a racist, a bigot, a fascist, or a homophobe or being told "you are full of sh1t." (Thank the person. Profusely.)
Returning to our candidates: I would to say that the perfect candidate would refrain, should refrain, as best as possible, from attacking his fellow Republicans all the other candidate. Even if they attack him (or her), he (or she) will look better to the voters if, au contraire, (s)he continuously defends all the others (Marco Rubio showed this brilliantly in his comeback to Jeb Bush (“My campaign is going to be about the future of America, it is not going to be attacking anyone else on this stage; I will continue to have tremendous admiration and respect for governor Bush”).) Even if, to be entirely honest, no one can deny that there is some degree of weasel-ness involved… It may also have been Marco Rubio who stated that anyone on this stage would be better than Hillary Clinton or than any Democrat…
In any case, I have never loved Marco Rubio more than during the third Republican presidential debate when he pointed out that
the Democrats have the ultimate Super PAC. It's called the mainstream media … And I'll tell you why. Last week, Hillary Clinton went before a committee. She admitted, she had sent e-mails to her family saying, "Hey, this attack at Benghazi was caused by Al Qaida-like elements." She spent over a week telling the families of those victims and the American people that it was because of a video. And yet the mainstream media is going around saying it was the greatest week in Hillary Clinton's campaign. It was the week she got exposed as a liar. It was the week that she got exposed as a liar... But she has her super PAC helping her out — the American mainstream media.It was brilliant.
Almost. Almost brilliant.
The Florida senator should have mentioned the apologizer-in-chief's name too, and should have hammered it home. Again and again. And again.
Witness the outburst, rewritten:
… the Democrats have the ultimate Super PAC. It's called the mainstream media … And I'll tell you why. Last week, Hillary Clinton went before a committee. She admitted she had sent e-mails to her family saying, "Hey, this attack at Benghazi was caused by Al Qaida-like elements." She [and Barack Obama] spent over a week telling the families of those victims and the American people that it was because of a video. And yet the mainstream media is going around saying it was the greatest week in Hillary Clinton's campaign. It was the week she [and Obama] got exposed as [liars]. It was the week that [they] got exposed as [liars]... But she [and Obama have their] super PAC helping [them] out — the American mainstream media. [Obama and Hillary lied to the American people, Obama and Hillary lied to the international community (the apologizer-in-chief repeated the lie six or seven times in an address before the United Nations), and Obama and Hillary lied to you people in the MSM. And you know what? You couldn't care less. You didn't care then. And you don't care now.]Obama lied.
In fact: Obama lied, Americans died.
Or perhaps that meme should be turned around: Americans died, Obama lied.
How 'bout:
Americans died, Obama lied, Hillary denied.If, like me, you have been made angry about Barack Obama's mocking Republican candidates as not being able to "handle a bunch o' CNBC moderators" and wondering what kind of comeback would be best to counter that childish behavior with, well, finally it struck me: the best thing would have been effectively to act — to have acted — preemptively.
How well would Obama's bogus charge have played, even with his own base, had Rubio mentioned his name as well every time he charged the media of being indifferent to Hillary's actions, actions which were not only failures but lies?
Would Obama even have dared make the mockery in the face of such a statement? (Quite possibly — given the media double standards — but it would have looked much less convincing to the average voter…)
Finally, with regards to the three points above, the sentence I would like to hear a candidate, several hopefuls, all contenders say a variation of over and over again (the Republican names in the sentence depend on who is speaking, obviously—indeed, this is one more thing that Paul Ryan could have, should have, added to the end of his bromide against Donald Trump):
[We keep hearing how Barack Obama was, is, one of the most intelligent people to enter the White House, and a man who keeps appealing to, and lecturing, the American people to use common sense solutions. I suppose that is because neither I [whichever candidate is speaking], nor Ted Cruz, nor either of the Bush brothers, nor even Donald Trump would ever dream of bestowing a gift of not $100 million, not $1 billion, not $10 billion, but $100 billion to the ayatollahs of a country whose leaders regularly lead the people in chanting "Death to America!" and "Death to the West!"]Related
• From the 2012 archives: IdeOlogy Masquerading as Foreign Policy (What Romney Must Point Out in the Third Debate).
• From the 2008 archives: A Winning Strategy for McCain: Not Attacking Specifics, Simply Describing Patterns; What McCain Must Say in the Coming Weeks
