Et Tu, Brooks?

Gosh...us stupid McCain (and in my case John Edwards) voters...how dumb are we?

The lemmings who voted for this catastrophe are loosing everything like everyone else. Kiss your retirement bye, the equity in your home, your childrens' hope for the future and most of what made this country great.

The emperor is dancing around the mansion with the big plane and fleet of choppers. Man, want to shoot some hoops? Cool.

Let's all get a number tattooed on our wrists, the concentration camps can't be far off.

"What say you? Any significance to this?"

Not really in terms of Obama "losing them".

What it does represent though is a reasonable conservative critique of Obama's budget.

Too bad right wingers tossed these guys for daring to speak ill of Palin.

They could use a moderate reasoned voice vs the bellowing bloats of Mr Potato Head.

Nashville fan, are you serious when you write, "Obama's agenda is not radical . . . it is exactly what he promised to do during his two year campaign." The two parts of your sentence do not necessarily go together, btw. Yes, his agenda is radical, that is to say, extremely liberal. He wants to institute a cap-and-trade policy, which will be extremely expensive and detrimental to the economy. He wants to have the government control health care. He wants the highest levels of federal discretionary spending as a percentage of the GDP that we have ever seen. To my mind, these things are "radical."

Yet you have a point in saying that he 'promised' these things in the campaign. These liberal notions kept popping up, but were either dismissed as "running left" to win the nomination, with the idea for many that he would not actually govern from the left once elected, or were ignored by folks like Brooks who only heard what they wanted to hear.

"The media is only surprised that he is actually going to do what he said. Get use to it." I do not think of commentators like Brooks and Buckley as 'media.' And the mainstream media does not seem terribly surprised-- some of them seem pleased, to be sure. And I fear we will all have to 'get used to it.' Some of us just have the good sense to think of that as a bad thing rather than something to celebrate.

You conclude: "America approves." But I doubt the veracity of that statement. America, it seems, approves of Obama as a person. They approve of his election. Whether they will approve of the specific policies and programs that will go with his election remains to be seen, because I think there are a lot of people like David Brooks who are starting to have buyers' remorse. I know that my students who were so enthusiastic about Obama before the inauguration are more often now beginning sentences with, "I WISH the president would..." or "I WISH the president had not..." rather than the earlier, "You know that the president will..." They seem increasingly unsure that the president is on the same page they are on. (I simply listen to these conversations. I do not discuss politics with my students and I seriously doubt that more than one or two could correctly identify my political party or the ticket for which I voted in November. They seem to assume that, since I am an academic, I must be a liberal democrat) And my parents, who are life-long Democrats, are growing more concerned about his financial policies by the day.

But you reveal your naivety with your statement: "P.S. All the whining about the budget deficit is kind of comical. . . this country has been running deficits for years." Well, as a whiner about deficits, I would point out that #1, I have complained about them in the past just as I do today, regardless of the party in power and #2, the deficits being proposed by Obama (esp. if you ignore his laughably rosy economic projects and use more realistic assessment of economic growth for the future and adjust the deficit estimates accordingly)are massive in comparison with what has gone before.

Now when the President wants to provide the American people some relief, it's magically time to balance the budget.

When will be the right time for the needs of the American people to come first? Reading the posts here, I guess the answer is never.

Question: If you didn't have a job, a home, or healthcare - how many years do you think you could wait for assistance?

"Obama's agenda is not radical . . . it is exactly what he promised to do during his two year campaign."

Actually I think he touted fiscal responsibility. I also remember it being a little shocking coming from a democrat, taking a typical Republican platform. There were numerous media bits about how roles reversed during that time.

What I think is significant is that Jake Tapper takes his cues as to whether or not Obama is doing well from people like Rubin, Brooks and Buckley.

I wonder why it is that so many Democrats say that the DC political class (including reporters) is still "wired for Republicans"?

If Obama is "losing" conservatives like Brooks and Buckley on his budget plans then that's good news. If he weren't losing them that would mean he's nothing but a Reaganite trickle-downer... and we've seen that doesn't work. This country is due for a course correction and that's what the American people voted for. If "conservatives" aren't thrilled about it, then he's doing something right.

Say I: Better never than late, geniuses.

Never understood Buckley's endorsement of Obama in the first place. Suspect he was playing the gadfly. I'm not one who has accused him of being a "RINO". Though I do think he has more of an independent-libertarian streak than his father. Would be easy to imagine Buckley having endorsed Ron Paul.

Instead McCain was the one stabbed in the back by moderates. As someone who supported McCain in Y2K, it was disappointing that so many of his former supporters (like Buckley) brushed him aside in '08.

"Obama's agenda is not radical . . . it is exactly what he promised to do during his two year campaign."

It is radical, and it is exactly what he promised. The point you are missing is that many people like David Brooks saw what they wanted to see and heard what they wanted to hear and not what was really there. The scales are now falling from their eyes. Those are the people who put Obama over the top, and he's started losing them only one month into his administration.

"Question: If you didn't have a job, a home, or healthcare - how many years do you think you could wait for assistance?"

I've got another question. When the unemployment money runs out and you still don't have a job, a home, or healthcare, and the government has blown through trillions, how are you going to feel about the money spent on pig poop, grape peeling research, and bailouts of the folks who got us into this mess?

If anyone had been willing to explore the Chicago Annenberg Challenge- apart from the Ayers issue- they would have noticed Obama as an executive is more than willing to throw money at programs with little consideration for results or opportunity cost.
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$50,000,000 from the Annenberg Foundation achieved nothing in Chicago Public Schools according to the studies commissioned by the CAC. Unfortunately, another $110,000,000 in public and other foundation's funds were wasted in that boondoggle as well.

Peach- Karl Marx never wrote that. Karl Marx only wrote that big manufacturers work labor too hard in poor conditions. We fixed that. You sound like the Israeili/British lobby that wants to go on forever making a commi scare while you and the rest of socialist europe go on subtly pulling our individual liberty out from under our feet.

"President Obama compensated for republicans in the stimulus package with tax cuts etc. from the beginning. And still got his hand bitten off."

Actually I think he promised that in his campaign did he not? Tax cut for 95% of Americans? I guess he checked that box with $13 a month. Is that now a Republican compromise?

"interested in political posturing than any type of compromise and the American people."

I love statements like this. When the Republicans were in power, Bush had to compromise to the Democrats yada yada. Now that Obama is in power, the Republicans have to compromise with the Democrats. This is classic narrow perspective. Both parties pull this, how is it that one party is more noble than the other at any given time?

Obama's agenda is not radical . . . it is exactly what he promised to do during his two year campaign.

The media is only surprised that he is actually going to do what he said.

Get use to it.

America approves.

P.S. All the whining about the budget deficit is kind of comical. . . this country has been running deficits for years.

Now when the President wants to provide the American people some relief, it's magically time to balance the budget.

When will be the right time for the needs of the American people to come first? Reading the posts here, I guess the answer is never.

Question: If you didn't have a job, a home, or healthcare - how many years do you think you could wait for assistance?

My only question is to Jake Tapper...Jake how does it feel to be the last honest political reporter in the country? What has happened to your colleagues? My only wish is that the producers would let a little more of the Blog Jake through in your nightly news casts, but I still enjoy them nonetheless.

Obama gave the Republicans what they wanted up-front in the stimulus bill and it bit him in the butt as they were more interested in political posturing than any type of compromise and the American people.

The man is smart and my guess is he put everything in the budget with full expectations of modifications.

The difference is, Obama is going to let Congress/Republicans do it instead of him doing it on the front end allowing him more negotiating room.

wake up!
President Obama compensated for republicans in the stimulus package with tax cuts etc. from the beginning. And still got his hand bitten off.

He starts left on the budget and moves to the middle with republican push back.
Go Pres. always 2 steps ahead.

I think it shows how people loved the idea of an Obama Presidency more than the policies he represented. I couldn't figure it out during the campaign that people just didn't seem to pay attention to what he was saying. I theorize now that they were blinded by the idea and imagery of an Obama Presidency, not realizing that when you opened the carefully wrapped and attractive package, there was a turd inside.

Well, look at the positive side of this. Obama saved at least $4 Trillion by not not spending an additional $4 Trillion. We should be grateful, no?