Letter from Rush to the President
“Because Mr. Obama, I think it’s time we had a heart-to-heart talk. Let me be the father that you never had or never really knew, because I think you need some guidance. It’s time to man up. It’s time to grow up. That speech last night was an embarrassment. You couldn’t focus, you lashed out in all directions, you refused to accept responsibility for your own actions, and you were angry.”
January 19, 2010
One can not help but watch the replay of last night’s victory for the Republican Party and the Country. The “Kennedy Dynasty” has been broken.
Without of prayer Scott Brown set out to let the people of Massachusetts know that they are not alone in their fear of how this current administration is bringing down the country by imposing a health care program that will only end up making the people of the country ill. That is right ill. A bill that will put the country trillions of dollars further in debt as the democrats and the president are insisting on pushing the reprehensible health care bill down our throats.
Brown will be a voice of caution, reality, and common sense as the “41” Republican vote in the US Senate. Brown’s ardent belief that the democrat version of health care is nothing more than a means to raise taxes on the citizens across this country, it will hurt Medicare and Medicaid recipients, along with strong beliefs that our country needs to continue a vigilant watch over the terrorist that want to bring our country down are the issues that brought Scott Brown over the finish line.
As Brown rolls into D.C. with his trusty GMC pickup, we pray this man will not be swept up in the Washington machine, but will remain true to himself and the Republican Party.
Marilyn Huston, President
CRWC
You can chalk up another one for “transparency in government” in the New Hampshire House of Representatives today. In a private, closed-door, session in Concord, Speaker Terie Norelli brought together House Democrats on both the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules and the Ways & Means committee for a private briefing on the LLC tax with Revenue Commissioner Kevin Clougherty.
“By ignoring the Republicans who serve their constituents on those vital committees, Speaker Norelli is telling the people of New Hampshire that their opinion doesn’t count in this matter. Rep. Norelli is supposed to be the speaker of the entire House, but it is clear through this move that she considers herself the speaker of only House Democrats,” said Rep. David Hess (r-Hooksett), the Deputy House Republican Leader.
In sending an email only to Democrats on the committees, Speaker Norelli said that the update “should be very informative and helpful to us [Democrats] at this point in the session.”
“Apparently the speaker doesn’t feel that the issue is important enough to include all legislators on the committees,” added House Republican Leader Sherm Packard (r. Londonderry). “I find it interesting that while Commissioner Clougherty cannot find the time to ‘brief’ the public in the southern tier of the state, and has refused numerous requests to do so; he did manage to find time to be a part of this secret meeting.”
“I am very concerned that, after all the questions and concerns raised at the public forums about the enactment of the LLC Income Tax in the dead of night, without a public hearing, the Democrat leadership would have yet another closed door meting with the Commissioner of DRA. This is how we got into this mess to begin with,” said Senior Assistant House Republican Leader Gene Chandler (r-Bartlett).
The back-door meeting is just another example of a series of moves by the Democrats in the last three years to ignore the process. “Secrecy is not the exception, it has become the norm. They added this tax in the middle of the night, without a public hearing, and now they are trying to pervert the process with secret, one-sided briefings and preferential treatment,” concluded Hess.
James E. Rivers
House Republican Office
107 North Main St.
Concord, NH 03301
603-271-6277
www.nhhousegop.com
All politicians have their verbal tics — say, John McCain’s “my friends” — but few resort to their crutches as often as Obama relies on his “let me be clear” set-up. He deploys it in formal speeches as well as in impromptu remarks, meaning that the White House speechmakers have keyed in on the boss’s security blanket.
“Let me be clear,” Obama said when he introduced himself to the country at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. “We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued. And they must be defeated.”
Talking about health care in July: “Let me be absolutely clear: Medicare is in place, and as long as I’m here, Medicare will continue to be in place.”
And when he got word of his Nobel Peace Prize in October: “Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments.”
Plenty of others have taken note of this habit, but they usually dismiss it as a standard time-buying device, like Bill Clinton’s “make no mistake” or Richard Nixon’s eerily similar “let me make one thing perfectly clear.” But Obama’s declarations of clarity are far more than a little presidential throat-clearing.
When Obama is being “clear” these days, he is saying something quite different than when he was being clear in 2007 and 2008. His shifting use of the phrase traces the arc of Obama’s time on the national stage, from campaign sensation to a president beset with challenges that rhetoric alone cannot overcome. In a presidency in which everything is murkier than Obama could have imagined, the “let me be clear” preface has become a signal that what follows will be anything but.
ad_icon
In the halcyon days of the presidential campaign, candidate Obama was “absolutely clear” in driving home his main points and asserting himself against his rivals. Perhaps acknowledging that his rhetoric could be opaque at times, he used the line as punctuation that said: Here’s what I really think, without equivocation or ambiguity.
Obama employed it in the summer of 2007 to make the case for his candidacy: “Now, let’s be clear, it’s not enough just to change parties in this election. . . . If we hope to truly transform this country, we have to change our politics, too.”
He used it to rebut doubters: “Some folks say, ‘We’re just not sure America is ready for an African American president,’ ” he said in South Carolina in November 2007. “Let me be clear: I never would have begun this campaign if I weren’t confident I was going to win.”
He used it to contrast his opposition to the Iraq war with Hillary Rodham Clinton’s record. “She tried to suggest that, well, my opposition was just a speech in 2002, and since that time I’ve been inconsistent,” he said in March 2008. “Let me be absolutely clear here. I opposed this war in 2002. I opposed it in 2003, ‘04, ‘05, ‘06 and ‘07.”
And he was just as unequivocal in late 2007 about the Iraq troop buildup: “On Iraq, we hear that the surge is succeeding. Let me be clear: The surge is not the solution to Iraq’s problems because it is not achieving the political benchmarks that were the stated purpose of our troop increase.”