On the Collective Widsom of Conservatives

It must be duly noted that the only sensible thing conservatives have said in the last few weeks is their acknowledgement that Barack Obama is the first black President of the United States of America. Their collective wisdom comes from Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, who said that the New Deal was a flop. The right’s de facto leader, Rush Limbaugh, called Obama a Chicago thug and a cruel socialist. Congressman Ron Paul claimed, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that our financial crisis was brought on by too many government regulations and too much government oversight.

In the Republican response to President Obama’s speech to the Joint Session of Congress on February 24, 2009, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana reached the acme of banality and innacuracy. He denounced the waste in the stimulus program, which, he said includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government. To the governor, it is wasteful to buy new automobiles for the FBI, the US Marshal’s Service, the Secret Service, the DEA, the Treasury Department, and the Departments of Agriculture, Transportation, and Defense. He also complained about "…$140 million for something called ‘volcano monitoring.’ " This conservative leader, whose state suffered from Hurricanes Katrina and Gustav, did not ask for a reduction in the US Weather Bureau’s budget, but decried a government program that would prevent another disaster caused by volcanic eruptions like that of Mt. Saint Helens, Washington. This is petty carping, not fiscal statesmanship, and the whole speech was rightfully scorned by all but the far right.

Nevertheless, Bobby Jindal is the darling of the Republican Party. He exemplifies the American Dream. Jindal is the son of immigrants, and he tried in his speech to compare his background with Obama’s. "My own parents came to this country from a distant land." However, this immigrant story is totally unlike that of Obama’s parents. The Jindals had come to America in 1971, but the governor’s father was a civil engineer, and his mother was a PhD candidate at Louisiana State University. His mother is now Director of Information Technology for the Louisiana Department of Labor.

Jindal, true to his Republican ideology, spoke the words that have been magic for Republican campaigns. He called for less government spending, not more. He said, "What it will do is grow the government, increase our taxes down the line, and saddle future generations with debt.. Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need?" He and his speech writers obviously had forgotten that future generations were already saddled with debt, including an unbudgeted $600 billion for the Iraq war, all created by the Republican tax cuts and by eight years of non-existent oversight by the Bush administration. It is more likely that he hoped that Americans would continue supporting bankrupt ideas.

Since January 20, 2009, Americans have waited in vain for intelligent commentary from conservative leaders. Somewhere there must be a conservative American who has some new ideas that will help the USA drag itself out of the quagmire of two wars, increasing unemployment, a decreasing Gross Domestic Product, stalled wages for workers and growing bonuses for executives, failing schools, crumbling highways, growing health care costs and declining quality of medical care, global warming and a ever growing dependence on coal and other carbon-based fuels. Is there a conservative with enough courage to stand up and say, "We conservatives let things go to hell, and here are some practical ideas that will help us reverse America’s descent into oblivion."

We moderates and liberals are waiting for those ideas. Until the time we hear from him or her, we’ll go with Obama's.