Obama Corleone owns them

Don Obama Corleone. It does sound a bit over-the-top. But when you look at certain aspects of the Obama administration you see some similarities. USA Today tried to make a McCain ad look like a hit piece on Obama during the campaign. What McCain had in the ad isn't really all that different from their 'fact check'. Was USA Today in Obama's pocket or just in thrall to his charisma? The quote isn't really all that out of context and their attempt to make it seem so was weak. There's the press trying to be kind to the administration to curry favor. Then there's the Obama campaign trying to manipulate their own press. Doesn't that seem a little bit like this?

Michael Corleone: Tom, wait a minute. I'm talking about a cop -- that's mixed up in drugs. I'm talking about ah - ah - a dishonest cop -- a crooked cop who got mixed up in the rackets and got what was coming to him. That's a terrific story. And we have newspaper people on the payroll, don't we, Tom?

[Hagen nods in the affirmative]

And they might like a story like that.

Tom Hagen: They might, they just might...

Michael Corleone (to Sonny): It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.

I'm just saying.

What have we learned?

So what have we learned?  That depends on who you ask.  The ideal answer would be that millions of previously entranced people have realized that Obama is not The One.  He is a socialist and out of control and must be stopped by any legal means possible.  That hasn't been learned yet.  There are those who know this already, but that's not really a learning, is it.

So what have we learned then? Well, let's limit the scope of the question to make it more answerable.  As conservatives, what have we learned since November 4th, 2008.  We've learned a few things. This is not a comprehensive list, but it highlights some important things.

• We've learned that President Obama is definitely  the tax-and-spend liberal we always knew he was.
  
• We've learned he does not care about deficits at all though he will spin that he does care more than anyone else in the room.
• We've learned his team is "blunderific" when it comes to foreign policy gaffes.  This extends from the weak-kneed response to North Korea to the talking with Iran, to not knowing international gift-giving protocol to not knowing the protocol of interacting with the Queen of England. The latter two, international grade-school stuff, clearly shows a lack of comprehension and homework.
  
• We've learned the American Main Stream Media will continue to overlook Obama's gaffes and short-comings because they are deeply invested in his success.
  
• We've learned liberals from the President on down are already in re-election mode, from the blame Bush Obama speeches to the JournoList cabal of reporting plotting, to the back room Carville-esque divide-and-conquer Rush-is-the-bogeyman memes.  Who knows what else they have planned.
  
• We've learned that we collectively fall for the liberal distractions and we'd better stop it and get our act together
  
• We've learned that Michael Steele is not as great as we'd hoped he would be after the RNC chair election.
• We've learned that corruption runs deep in the Democrat upper echelons but we don't know how far or where it extends yet.
• We've learned that we can organize Tea Parties but we haven't learned yet if we can get them to gather sufficient political momentum.
• We've learned the real meaning of change as espoused by the President.

And while we never really loved John McCain, because he wasn't conservative enough, we learned that he would have been a better choice than what we got.  And that's where the learnings start to fragment into camps.

We still haven't learned if we are willing to settle for a weakly conservative Republican or if we want to push for a real leader with conservative principles.  Individually we have learned where we stand on that issue, and I suspect most readers would fall into the same camp.  But collectively we haven't yet learned where as a GOP 'constituency' we stand. And the GOP hasn't learned to remember core requirements as a conservative party.

But some of us have learned that while we need to come to a position on that we simply CANNOT stand still on spreading the conservative message while we dither on candidates.  The message needs to be brought to those who can be brought into the light of understanding that underneath the labels they apply to themselves, they are actually conservatives in their beliefs, actions and day-to-day lives.  If we don't learn to bypass the  MSM and connect with the American people directly, we will have learned nothing that will benefit conservatism in the next 4 to 8 years.

What's a JournoList to do?

On Tuesday, Politico reported that there was a secret cabal of liberal journalists holding secret electronic discussion board 'meetings'. "Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy?" Politico asked. Despite denials it is proof that if there's no conspiracy, there's at least an unintended commonality that will inevitably get filtered out into the mainstream media out of sheer laziness of idea generation if nothing else.

Is it a big deal? Not really. Conservatives know that the left has a bigger microphone, and we knew that there was a co-ordination of daily talking points. Whether it's deliberate or accidental is of no consequence. The fact that it's happening comes as a surprise to no one. The fact that they are doing it, while sneaky or lazy, is perfectly legal. There's no reason they can't act unethically like this. And conservatives don't expect them to honor the independent and unbiased thinking expected of journalists.

What really matters is that the left has a way to co-ordinate and plan their talking points and the right seems to be behind on that account. If the gloves are off as far as journalistic independence so be it, the right would rather have it that way, and at least now it's out in the open.

Oh it's on baby...