The Patriot Post Brief 1-16-2012

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The Patriot Post Brief 1-16-2012
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation

"I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles." --Thomas Jefferson

Political Futures

"On Sunday night Jon Huntsman told his advisers that he is ending his presidential campaign and will endorse Mitt Romney. ... Huntsman had criticized Romney repeatedly during the campaign, and with a note of bitterness if I am not mistaken; he made the accurate point that Romney's tax plan is much more timid than his own. Huntsman finished third in New Hampshire, but most of his votes came from self-identified Independents and Democrats, which are expected to be a smaller proportion of the primary electorate in South Carolina and most later contests. In my January 8 Examiner column I identified what I thought was the central weakness of Huntsman's campaign: his tone was that of a moderate or even liberal Republican, critical of the party and its followers, while his policy proposals, at least on domestic issues, were solidly conservative. 'The tension between the anti-conservative aura he gives off and his genuinely conservative positions seems to have left Huntsman between two stools and struggling to achieve the solid third place finish in New Hampshire that might plausibly give him a ticket to other states.' Well, he got his third place finish in New Hampshire, but it wasn't enough, given his non-conservative aura, to make him a contender in South Carolina and beyond." --political analyst Michael Barone1

Should Huntsman have dropped out of the GOP race?2

For the Record

"There are two stories coming out of New Hampshire. The big story is Mitt Romney. The bigger one is Ron Paul. ... He got 21 percent in Iowa, 23 in New Hampshire, the only candidate other than Romney to do well with two very different electorates, one more evangelical and socially conservative, the other more moderate and fiscally conservative. Paul commands a strong, energetic, highly committed following. And he is unlike any of the other candidates. They're out to win. He admits he doesn't see himself in the Oval Office. They're one-time self-contained enterprises aiming for the White House. Paul is out there to build a movement that will long outlive this campaign. Paul is less a candidate than a 'cause,' to cite his election-night New Hampshire speech. Which is why that speech was the only one by a losing candidate that was sincerely, almost giddily joyous. The other candidates had to pretend they were happy with their results. Paul was genuinely delighted with his, because, after a quarter-century in the wilderness, he's within reach of putting his cherished cause on the map. Libertarianism will have gone from the fringes -- those hopeless, pathetic third-party runs -- to a position of prominence in a major party." --columnist Charles Krauthammer3

Opinion in Brief

"Corporations seem to be the new villains for everyone to hate. And no candidate in recent memory quite invokes the corporate image as much as Mitt Romney. ... It turns out that he made his own fortune heading up a private equity firm that specialized in corporate takeovers. Bain Capital's model was to identify underperforming companies; tighten or replace management; and make them profitable as quickly as possible -- which often meant cutting jobs, at least initially. And since Romney and Bain are so closely identified, the implication is that Romney got rich by destroying jobs. ... Some people seem to think it's immoral for Bain -- and Romney -- to make money if any jobs were lost. But is it really fair to blame Bain Capital or Mitt Romney? Not every takeover will be successful, and even the successful ones entail pain in the beginning." --columnist Linda Chavez4

Insight

"The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects -- his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity." --American economist Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993)

Faith & Family

"Doesn't anybody get the connection between the social issues and economics issues? One candidate who does, Rick Santorum had the courage to link the two in a recent Iowa town hall meeting. (And before I go on, please, folks, I'm not endorsing him or anyone. I never do.) Here's what Senator Santorum said: 'Yes, [the election is] about growth and the economy, [but] it's also about what is at the core of our country ... faith and family. You can't have a strong economy, you can't have limited government if the family is breaking down and we don't live good, moral, and decent lives.' Precisely right. ... If the nation's current economic crisis has taught us anything, it's that a healthy economy cannot thrive in the midst of moral breakdown. Ethical failures on Wall Street, Main Street, and Capitol Hill put us into this mess we're in today, as I've said many times before. ... Do you think that crime rates, incarceration, low educational achievement, out of wedlock births, affect the economy and government spending? Of course they do, and the statistics prove this! If you want a healthy, thriving economy you've got to have a strong moral societal foundation." --author Chuck Colson5

Reader Comments

"It is regrettable that your ideal candidate be 'a man of strong faith.' Aside from the fact that the candidate need not be a male, strong faith in supernatural spirits, ghouls, gods, demons, and the like should be a red flag warning against a lack-of-touch with reality, and is particularly repugnant if said candidate believes he should use his office to impose his irrational beliefs on the rest of the nation." --Marc

Editor's Reply: Yes, that whole "endowed by our Creator" thing is a problem ... for those who serve no higher universal order than the one they see in the mirror every morning. Regarding the use of "he," that is only because the remaining candidates from whom the attributes were selected, are male.

"Alexander wrote of the ideal candidate, 'he' should be this or that. How about 'she'?"

Editor's Reply: Alexander noted "he" only because the remaining candidates, from whom these attributes were compiled, are male.

"As for Friday's Digest6 story on Mitt Romney, he is just another revolting RINO, but I am prepared to hold my nose, suppress my gag reflex, and vote for him. This will give us a four-year period without a Marxist regime, during which we can search for a proper leader. Retired Gen. Petraeus and former UN Ambassador John Bolton come to mind." --JP

"These attacks on Bain have pushed me towards Romney -- I didn't see that coming." --Robert

"Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain is perhaps what this government needs most. There is so much waste in government, we need a hatchet man." --Fred

Martin Luther King Jr.

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." --Martin Luther King Jr.

Today the once-noble Democrat Party7 has turned the wisdom of MLK, one of their most revered iconic figureheads, on its head. Perhaps King's most remembered words are these: "I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." However, Democrat Leftists now interpret this as, "I have a dream that my children will one day be judged by the color of their skin, not the content of their character."

To read more of what Martin Luther King has come to symbolize for the Left, click here8.