Content by Joe Cor
Posted at 10:30am on Jun. 7, 2008 The Elephant in the GOP's Living Room
By Joe Cor
There is a lot of discussion over the current plight of the GOP. Many causes are given for it: the Iraq war, spending, corruption, the media, stupid Republican voters who stayed home on Election Day in 2006, Hurricane Katrina. But there is, in my opinion, another cause that trumps all the other causes. I find it glaringly obvious – the elephant in the GOP’s living room. Yet many conservatives want to look in every corner of the living room except the one in which the elephant is standing. I agree that there is a lot of other rubbish in the living room; some of the piles of rubbish are quite high and unsightly, but they aren’t the elephant. The elephant, in fact, created many of these other rubbish piles. This elephant, I believe, is the fact that standard bearer of Republican Party for the last eight years – its “face” for the majority of the American people – has been a stunningly poor politician who has committed political malpractice on a massive scale.
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Posted at 1:41pm on Jan. 31, 2008 Let's Keep Our Perspective
By Joe Cor
I think that there's a distinct lack of perspective developing in the conservative community over John McCain. I say this, not being a McCain fan, agreeing with much of the criticisms that have been leveled at him. But I think it's time for a reality check here, a toning down of the rhetoric, and a realistic comparison of a McCain presidency with a Clinton/Obama presidency.
I feel it's absurd and dangerous to be talking about it being better for Hillary to be elected than John McCain. Let's look at just a few issues here. Iraq is still important to all of us. Who would you rather have overseeing the Iraq war, McCain or Hillary? Do you think there's a difference in how the two would prosecute the war? Even if all else were equal between the two, I'd vote for McCain.
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Posted at 12:58pm on Jul. 28, 2007 Bush and History
By Joe Cor
A number of people are saying that the President will be vindicated by “history.” Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the President’s own advisors are making this claim. Notably, they site the example of Harry Truman as a president unpopular in his own time who has been vindicated by history. President Truman, wherever he is now, might be amused to see a Republican using the 33rd president to bolster his image. Truman was a very partisan Democrat, and had little or no love in his heart for Republicans.
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Posted at 10:16am on Jun. 17, 2007 Suggestions for the 2008 Republican Nominee
By Joe Cor
The Republican brand name is so thoroughly tarnished that any candidate will be hard-pressed to defeat Hillary. The nominee will have to distance himself from an unpopular president while at the same time taking Hillary on. Given the president’s cavalier attitude toward how he speaks to and about his own supporters, I see no reason why a Republican candidate should shy away from an aggressive campaign against the president. Here is a list of issues I believe a Republican candidate can run against the president on and still be a strong champion of conservative causes.
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Posted at 6:05pm on May 29, 2007 What Happened to "New Tone?"
By Joe Cor
This today, from the AP, on the President's immigration speech:
'Those determined to find fault with this bill will always be able to look at a narrow slice of it and find something they don't like,' the president said. 'If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it.
'You can use it to frighten people,' Bush said. 'Or you can show leadership and solve this problem once and for all.'
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Posted at 7:28am on Feb. 20, 2007 A Problem of the Conservative Media [and A Passive President]
By Joe Cor
Promoted from Diaries ... - MartinAKnight
The pathology of the Clinton years was’t simply confined to the White House. It extended to the liberal media that refused to acknowledge his corruption. That included the MSM that fawned on him like he was Mick Jagger, consistently ignored his criminal activities, and rolled their eyes whenever confronted with accusations of his corruption. It included the liberal punditry that twisted itself into intellectual pretzels so that it could maintain that Clinton’s corruption wasn’t corruption. Clinton’s supporters willfully suspended their judgment and their duty to inform the American people in order to stick by Clinton, because he was “their guy.”
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Posted at 2:57am on Oct. 20, 2006 A Historical Perspective
By Joe Cor
As I think of conservative voters who want to sit out this election because they are disillusioned, or to teach the Republican leadership a lesson, I am reminded of a group of individuals over 140 years ago who had far more reason to have those feelings than we do today.
The Union soldiers who had served in the Army of the Potomac had ample reason to feel disillusioned. For years, they had endured appallingly incompetent leadership, with resultant losses of life and limb that stagger the modern imagination. They had endured near routes at the first and second battles at Bull Run. They had endured the pompous general McClellan, who lacked the will to engage Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, and let the badly outnumbered Confederate forces off the hook near Richmond and at Antietam. They had endured the horrible tactics of Burnside, who ordered a senseless and fatal frontal assault against Confederate entrenchments at Vicksburg. They endured the loss of nerve of “Fighting Joe” Hooker, which led to the ignominious defeat at Chancellorsville. And they had endured George Meade’s timid pursuit of Lee after Gettysburg, which allowed the shattered Confederate Army to safely slip back into Virginia to fight another day.
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Posted at 10:08pm on Oct. 9, 2006 Now's the Time to Fight Back.
By Joe Cor
I heard this Kerry quote tonight on Sean Hannity, and here, via Byron York of NRO, it is summarized again:
"On the edition of his program taped in Washington, Bill Maher interviewed John Kerry. In the chit-chat at the beginning of the interview, Kerry said he and his wife had gone to Vermont for a getaway for her birthday. Maher said they could have gone to New Hampshire and killed two birds with one stone. Kerry's response:
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Posted at 11:31pm on Jul. 21, 2006 Bush's Rasmussen Numbers
By Joe Cor
I see where the President is at 45% approval in the latest Rasmussen poll. While this poll only ran through the 18th, I wonder if some of the "bounce", if I may call a 2% increase a bounce, was in anticipation of his vetoing the embryonic stem cell research bill, which was being reported widely. Perhaps people like to see the President being a stand-up guy who sticks to his convictions and does the right thing. Perhaps the best way to get through media bias is by boldly being yourself, Mr. President.
Too often the President comes across as rhetorically timid, afraid to stand up for himself or what he believes in because it goes against the grain of the "right thinkers." Why the President, or other Republicans for that fact, take such stock in the opinions of "right thinkers", has always been a mystery to me. If they took on the "right thinkers" more directly, were less apologetic, less intimidated, -- but instead, put the "right thinkers" on the defensive, challenged them to defend their views -- I think they would do much better politically. It appears that flying in the face of the "right thinkers", doing exactly what they didn't want and what they strongly disapproved of, didn't hurt the President, and actually may have given him a slight bounce. This piece of empirical evidence, slight as it may be, makes me think that if only the President were like this more often, and "let Bush be Bush," he would fare much better in the public relations wars.