It disturbs me:

Monday –April 11, 2011 It disturbs me: I was so disturbed to see the President of the United States walking the streets of Washington D.C., visiting the Lincoln Memorial and telling the crowds that “we kept these open for you.” The implication was that he kept them open. I ended Friday’s FORUM with a quote from President Kennedy. He said, “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie --- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” When I sat down to write today, I gave great thought to what these words meant. The Kennedy myth was Camelot. It was created after his assassination. To bad that it took a tragedy like that to create the myth. Kennedy was a fiscal conservative and in those days was considered to be a social liberal. A chapter in the myth was that he survived the sinking of his PT boat and saved many of its crew in WWII. As Congressman, he voted many times against what Truman wanted and what the Democratic Party line was. In short, he did the heavy lifting, not only as a member of Congress, but as a Senator and as a President. Today’s liberal is so far apart from the liberal of yesteryear. In past years, we had some boastful politicians that occupied the White House. Many deserved the attention and few didn’t. However, when a president actively pursues creating a myth for himself and has not proven that he has done the heavy lifting, it then becomes clear that someone has to call him on it. This war over the budget, that came to a head, was the first salvo in what I hope is a political assault against the White House. This was the first time that this president had a Republican Congress to deal with. This was the first Congress that has called the president out. Though we don’t have all the details on the machinations that occurred in the midnight meetings, we did get a sense of how things were orchestrated. When the president came to his pulpit to preach to his choir, he became the story. This has to stop. I know the president has his bully pulpit, but that bully pulpit should be the one the Republicans have to capture. What happened last Friday night was not a victory. The Democratic Party has been skilled in the use of slogans and words. They say that “We acted on the children’s behalf”. Not true. The president didn’t want any spending cuts before the budget issue and the shutdown of the government came to a head two weeks ago. The Democrats use the term “investment spending”. To the lay person, this means they will get the benefit, but don’t worry how much it will cost you. The Democrats use the term “Education Innovation”. What does this mean? No one can answer this, but they say it takes an investment. These words and phrases are used against those who want to reduce the cost of government by eliminating waste on programs that are duplicated and that have become useless. The conservative is demonized by the democrats when the president or the senate leader say that the conservative is balancing the budget on the backs of seniors. Not true. These alternate programs for seniors that have been recommended will put the buying power in the hands of seniors. I believe that the American people are ready for the truth and they are ready for a different politician in Washington D.C. The Republicans came close to realizing this over the weekend, but they failed on the communication front. They have to work twice as hard now to get their message across in a truthful way. They must be able to define terms so the lay person can understand the difference between the terms investment and cost. It is time to use the bully pulpit to get the message out. A bully pulpit is a public office or other position of authority of sufficiently high rank that provides the holder with an opportunity to speak out and be listened to on any matter. The bully pulpit can bring issues to the forefront that were not initially in debate, due to the office's stature and publicity. This term was coined by President Theodore Roosevelt, a progressive Republican, who referred to the White House as a "bully pulpit," by which he meant a terrific platform from which to advocate an agenda. Roosevelt famously used the word bully as an adjective meaning "superb" or "wonderful" (a more common expression in his time than it is today). The President will announce his 2012 budget on Wednesday. I hope the Republicans can grab the bully pulpit and speak the truth, so that the Obama myth becomes harder to see. It disturbed me when I had to listen to Democrats say that the Republican Party were the new segregationists, because they wanted to reduce spending. It disturbed me that the Republicans were accused of advancing their radical social agenda, because they wanted to reduce spending. These are all terms that should be dismissed quickly and should be taken to the source, such as Jessie Jackson and Claire McCaskill. We should be taking the battle to those who bring it to us. It disturbs me that the spending battle is now just a word war. It disturbs me that we are in no better shape than we were last week. Gregory C. Dildilian Founder and Executive Director Pinecone Conservatives A footnote: It continues to disturb me that the battle over the budget is not over. It disturbs me that we are still talking about borrowing a trillion dollars in the next six months and raising the debt ceiling to do that. It disturbs me that politicians still don’t get it!