Dead Horses

There's nothing to be gained in beating a dead horse, goes the old saw. So why do the conservatives continue to do so?? Their present dead horse is the growth of government as exemplified by "Obamacare." Funny, when Medicare/Medicaid was enacted I don't remember cries of foreboding about "Johnsoncare." Was it because we were not as clever then? Doubtful. Most likely it was because we were more civil then, at least in our domestic policy discussions. But I digress....

This morning I happened to catch Congressman Mike Pence (R-Ind,) on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. Mr Pence is a conservative Republican and a winner of Conservative Man of the Year from the organization Human Rights. After the usual frothing about how health care reform as presently constituted will be a crushing blow to our economic recovery, Mt. Pence would NOT name any other government program than "Obamacare" that he would cut to help reduce spending at the federal level and the trillion-dollar deficit. This despite several instances of encouragement by the show' s panelist Mike Barnicle. Mr. Pence's stand is so typical of the conservative Republicans who got us into this mess in the first place---the Iraq War, the debacle named Afghanistan, the collapse of the financial system in 2007------the legacy of George W Bush and the Republican controlled congress (until 2006). And now it's Barack Obama's health care reform that is plunging us into the abyss???? I think not. I agree with David Frum---time for the conservatives to work within the system rather than merely being perceived as obstructionist if they want to make any headway in the November mid-term elections.

So go to the tea parties, continue the "I'm NRA and I vote", and the "NObama" bumper sticker tirades. On with the racial epithets and gender preference slurs, on Rush, on Sean, on Glenn, on over the top screaming, and on to defeat with your beaten dead horse in November.