 The Case Against Barack Obamaby David Freddoso |
GLENN: Let me go to David Freddoso. He is with the National Review. Hey, David.
FREDDOSO: How are you doing, Glenn?
GLENN: Very good. So David, help me out here. Are you one of these guys who's like, Arlen Specter, the Republicans have got to move closer to the middle and more progressive.
FREDDOSO: You know, what really strikes me, Glenn, is the severe case of amnesia that Senator Specter seems to have as though, you know, the Republican Party is supposedly so completely intolerant of, you know, more moderate members that if you'll recall, President Bush went in there and dedicate and basically saved him from becoming a former senator in 2004, if you recall that, and also Senator Rick Santorum basically sacrificed his reputation with his entire base in the same year to save Arlen Specter's political career and that all of a sudden, oh, the Republican Party is so, you know, it's moved to the right. Well, no. The reason that Arlen Specter has gotten out is that the Republican voters in Pennsylvania according to the polls are just waiting to end his career. That's what's going on.
GLENN: They are waiting to end his career because he doesn't stand for anything. I mean, this is the to me this is the quintessential example of how spineless these politicians are. He says just a few weeks ago, "You know what, there needs to be a balance of power." That one sold out the window. As soon as he realized, oh, crap, I could lose and not have my job anymore? I've got to switch parties.
FREDDOSO: Yeah. And when I hear him talk about how this is for the good of Pennsylvania, I think, well, okay, that may be true if no other senator, Democrat or Republican could do for Pennsylvania what you've been doing for it which I think is a ridiculous proposition, just extreme arrogance.
GLENN: Oh, I don't know if anybody could really I don't know, David, if anybody could really pull off what he's pulled off, you know, and brought all those great things to Pennsylvania.
FREDDOSO: Well, you know, maybe that's right. I mean, the interesting thing now is that there's no guarantee the Democrats are actually going to give in their nomination. I would be rather suspicious. People, party switchers often face a lot of trouble. And you know what? Frankly Specter on some things from a conservative perspective has been very good and now all those things are going to come back to haunt him in the Democratic primary. They are going to run ads about how he doesn't support the Employee Free Choice Act, they are going to run ads about how here's a guy with a picture of Dick Cheney and George Bush, here's Arlen Specter who helped to push Sam Alito and John Roberts through the Senate judiciary committee, here's Arlen Specter who voted for President Bush's tax cuts. So now he faces you know, he's been spending all his time trying to move to the right, expecting a Republican primary and all of a sudden he realizes he's going to lose. He has to now spend the next year moving toward the left in order to prepare himself for a Democratic primary, and I just don't know if he can do that, switch around fast enough.
GLENN: Tell me about Joe Schwarz and Wayne Gilchrest.
FREDDOSO: Right, okay. So here are two members for congress that the club tore growth decided to take on, Joe Schwarz in Michigan, the 7th district in Michigan and Wayne Gilchrest in the eastern shore district out in Maryland. Both of them, after losing their primaries to conservative candidates, endorsed a Democrat. Now, that's called, you know, sore loser basically. If you recall in 2004 when Pat Toomey lost to Arlen Specter, he endorsed Specter right away and this whole business about having a big tent party and don't criticize your fellow Republican, the old 11th commandment of Ronald Reagan doesn't seem to apply when it comes to moderate Republicans. All of a sudden there's this different standard. People didn't you know, right now as you mentioned, we have this media feeding frenzy saying, oh, you know, this Specter thing is proof that the Republican Party's going in the wrong direction. Well, when Wayne Gilchrest and Joe Schwarz went off the rails and started endorsing Democrats, did anybody say well, you know, this just goes to show you how moderates, you know, can't be trusted to be team players. I don't think anybody tried to make that case at the time. I don't think as a blanket case it's a true; it would be a true case. But the case they are making now and I'll admit I've been watching MSNBC, which is bad for my blood pressure, but that's all you seem to be hearing now is that
GLENN: Well, you know what, David? I contend this is a bogus argument. I contend that the whole idea that the conservatives the Republicans need to be more conservative is a bogus argument because conservative means something to everybody, and it means something different to everyone. What they need to be is more classically liberal. They need to be more libertarian. They need to be more rights, protect people's rights, make sure that people have freedom and also shrink the size of government. That's what the Republicans have been missing. What they need to do is irradiate the cancer inside the Republican Party that is called progressivism. That's who they ran. They ran the most moderate progressive the Republicans have. John McCain.
FREDDOSO: Yeah, I do think that the problem is complicated in many ways. I think that McCain's loss doesn't clarify too much as to the state of conservativism. I mean, let's face it. We're in the desert right now. We really are. And it's not just the Republican Party, but right now conservative ideas have lost a lot of credence with the public. And what I think has to happen is unfortunately we're going to have to go back and relearn all of the lessons that we've learned in the last 50 years about what happens when government gets out of control, lessons that helped, you know, ultimately elect Ronald Reagan, that helped usher in the 1994 Republican revolution. But the public may just, the voting public may simply have to relearn those lessons once we run into the brick wall of, you know, Obama style big government with all the borrowing we're going to be doing now and the massive debts that our children and grandchildren are going to be facing. We may just have to relearn all those lessons.
GLENN: David, I contend again that it is not the public that needs to relearn that. There is a good portion, maybe 40% of this country has no clue whatsoever how bad big government really is, maybe. But I contend the average person knows, but there's not anybody out there that knows it that is running, that knows it and can articulate it.
FREDDOSO: No, and that's a good point. Republicans really need to put up they need to be making the good arguments right now. They need to be putting up a good opposition, a strong opposition that, you know, so that at least the arguments out there and so that people will realize, oh, yeah, gee, maybe all this spending wasn't a good idea, maybe nationalizing healthcare, just nationalizing it wasn't a good idea.
GLENN: Right.
FREDDOSO: Maybe nationalizing banks wasn't a good idea.
GLENN: Maybe. You know what, David, let me take a break. Let me come back because I want to talk to you about the nationalization of the banks and the nationalization of healthcare that is going to be slipped in in the cover of darkness. Well, now that Specter's in, maybe they don't have to do that. But how we are fundamentally changing because of these last 100 days. And people don't realize how big the changes are and what they mean for the future. We'll be back with David Freddoso in just a second.
(OUT 9:45)
GLENN: 888 727 BECK. David Freddoso is on with us from national review. You know, David, I'm looking at this stress test from the banks which is completely bogus. The FDIC does a stress test and then it's mysteriously leaked out so it shuts the door on CitiBank or Bank of America, you know, being able to go out and raise any real capital with any confidence. It hurts the stock price immediately. So now they have to even raise even more. Meanwhile the government's standing there saying, you know what, why don't we just convert our shares into common stock.
FREDDOSO: Yeah, yeah.
GLENN: Which is a back door to nationalization, which is exactly what we're doing now with General Motors.
FREDDOSO: No, that's the data that was announced, in fact, that that would happen, it was very little notice by most people, but the market absolutely swooned with that news. I think it was two weeks ago or maybe early last week. But yeah, I just found out my bank failed the stress test.
GLENN: David, I mean, here's the thing that I don't think that people really understand, that we're seeing everything in the light of an emergency, but when the emergency goes away and they turn on the regular white lights, which have all been converted to fluorescent light bulbs, so it's that real sterile awful white light, you'll see exactly what we have left. And in the blink of an eye, we have taken control of the financial sector and that ain't going away. We're taking control of General Motors, and that ain't going away. And now we're about to do it in the cover of darkness with healthcare.
FREDDOSO: Yeah. No, that's you know, in fact, what the Democrats plan to do in congress. And it's slightly complicated but it's very interesting. They want to use a tactic that would limit debate, prevent amendments and prevent a Senate filibuster, and it's called budget reconciliation. The purpose of budget reconciliation is actually to save money. It's to make the government's bottom line look better, but they are actually going to do its that they can they are going to use this tactic to enact a major new policy. You won't see much it's on a level that's unprecedented. You can say, okay, the Republicans used this to pass President Bush's tax cuts in 2001, they use it to do welfare reform. It's been used to do policy things in the past, but this is something that is massive and means a takeover of about 17% of the U.S. economy. So the fact that they are going to do it this way, it really just shows, hey, we don't care, we won the election, we're going to flex the muscle and, you know, I guess it's a risk they are willing to take but it's definitely an abuse of a Senate procedure that's designed to save money, not to create massive new expenses.
