It's Deja Vu All Over Again

            By: Linda Case Gibbons           If not now, when?
          When will the Republicans take on Obama and talk about the damage he has done to this country, the laws he has either ignored or broken? There’s so much to talk about.
          But we are met with nothing but silence.
          It’s déjà vu all over again. I remember doing this before when I had to vote for McCain because I couldn’t in good conscience vote for the other guy.
          And I remember watching helplessly as McCain held back, not asking Obama any hard questions, not asking for him to be vetted, so mild in manner that one wondered if he wanted to be elected at all. And when he lost, in a most un-maverick, ungentlemanly way, he blamed his vice presidential candidate for his defeat.
          What he and Dick Cheney will not admit is that the only reason McCain received the votes he did was because of Sarah Palin.
          And here we are again.
          Many who did their homework knew who Obama was in 2008 and knew it was going to be a rough ride if he was elected, but many flocked to his side, oblivious and blinded because they felt electing the first black president was all good.
          Four years later the whole country knows more about Obama the man and none of it is good. This president is taking America down the road to a lower standard of living and it is all by design. It is there for all to see.
          Every day since Obama said "I do” on January 20, 2009, it has been a blogger’s dream and a nightmare for every legal American citizen.
          But if Obama has the audacity to do what he does, why should we be afraid to talk about it?
          Let’s take the gloves off and talk about his lousy record. He won’t.
          Let’s talk about his lawlessness, his disdain for America and its Constitution. The ignorant "gaffes” this so-called brilliant man makes. He won’t.
          Let’s hear the candidates talk about that.
          By now we know how this man, Barack Obama, operates. He surrounds himself with a raft of left wing staffers who work on auto pilot to follow an agenda seemingly set a long time ago, all dreams of his father’s.
          How many of us as Americans can say that we hobnob with radicals, Marxists, Communists or attended a church which spewed anti-white hatred for twenty years? I can’t, but our president can.
          Doesn’t that demand a question, a challenge or two by the Republican candidate? Ask about the backgrounds of the people in his administration and his life -- Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, Bill Ayers, the SEIU, and ACORN.
          Let’s hear the candidates talk about that.
          Instead, in heavy denial that the father of their country may be an abusive parent, despite hit after hit on the rule of law in America, American-citizen-children look at the president and say, "Why is he doing that? That’s not good for the country. He couldn’t be running our country, our constitution, our laws, our businesses, our freedoms into the ground on purpose – could he?”
          But he is. He is doing stuff that we have never seen before in the history of our country, but stuff that citizens in Socialist and Communist countries know all too well.
          And we know the drill. Distraction. Never let a good crisis go to waste.
          So off Republicans go, chasing the carrot on the stick that is the latest silly controversy to keep the focus off the real news, the behind-the-back deals and slow erosion of everything for which America stands.
          And that has been the way it has been for the whole ride. The New Democrats take turns creating controversy and everyone else, shocked and dismayed, defend, deny and talk about it for a few days, a week, egged on by Obama’s devoted mainstream press.
          One day it’s Harry Reid, another day it’s Nancy Pelosi. Sometimes they pull in supporters from outlying areas like Chicago and Rahm Emanuel to attack private businesses and the First Amendment.
          A Hilary Rosen snipes at the "never worked a day in her life” Ann Romney and it’s worth a week or so worth of coverage. Sandra Fluke makes a case for a Catholic university being remiss for not providing her with proper contraception coverage and the next day miraculously gets an audience before a congressional committee and is now "touring” with the president on the campaign trail.
          And from time to time Debbie Wasserman Schultz is thrown in for pure comic relief.
          With what Mark Levin calls, "Catch me if you can” tactics, Obama smugly does exactly what he pleases and the courts, rule of law, Congress, the people, the states, our allies, you name it, be damned.
          And Jay Carney and David Axelrod are there to run interference, talking, talking, talking, interfacing with us peasants to explain what we are seeing isn’t really what we are seeing. And if there is criticism of Obama, the detractors are called racists.
          So for starters, let’s talk about how Obama has been busily sewing up votes from any group he can in any way he can.
          We all know about and watched him as he bypassed Congress and granted back-door amnesty for illegal Mexican immigrants by presidential fiat.
          And we know about Obama’s relentless and continuous assault on U.S. states to insure votes for himself -- suing the states who want voter I.D. laws and putting them on hold until after the election, suing the states who want to stem the flood of illegal immigrants across U.S. borders, reducing work requirements for welfare recipients and using shameless politicking by our attorney general before black audiences to stir up racial division.
          But here’s the latest. Recently the administration told contractors in the defense industry not to send layoff notices to workers who are losing their jobs because of defense cuts that will kick in on January 2013.
          Aren’t there laws against that? Yup. Federal law (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice Act) obligates these employers to give employees a minimum 60 days notice before potential mass layoffs.
          That’s the law, and Obama knows it, but all he cares about is looking bad. Notices would go out to thousands of workers just days before the presidential election and that would mess up his jobs numbers.
          Besides it’s a law he doesn’t want to enforce, so he won’t.
          Next, this week the Obama Campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party came up with another innovative lawsuit, challenging the fairness of Ohio’s early voting rules for the military.
          The Campaign wants a court order to invalidate the Ohio statutes claiming this is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the law.
          How many votes does that mean? Not sure, but it’s on Obama’s checklist to inflate his voter bottom line because Ohio is a seminal state in the upcoming election and because he doesn’t mind marginalizing any voters he thinks may not vote for him. I guess that’s the military.
          A passionate, committed candidate should be able to talk about these things. It’s crucial.
          But we should focus they say on "job creation,” "growing the economy.”
          Job creation? Ask the president why he nixed the Keystone XL Pipeline and let other countries drill in our waters. Ask him about his many bankrupt green companies.
          Grow the economy? Ask him for numbers on how Obamacare will really impact every area of American life and how much the "Dreamers” will cost the American people. Ask him what the reason is he will not enforce border security and why he actively persecutes states that do.
          Ask him why he panders to illegal immigrants while Americans go jobless.
          There are people who aren't afraid to ask hard questions -- Ed Koch, Chris Christie, Sarah Palin, Allen West, the late Andrew Breitbart. They have the strength of their convictions. They can actually speak extemporaneously because they know what they believe. They tell it like it is.
          This week Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) told it like it is when he defended small businesses on the floor of the House and railed against the endless red tape with which this administration has deliberately encumbered small businesses. He received a standing ovation and chants of "USA” on the floor of the House for it.
          Even Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus had the strength of his convictions this week when he took on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s claim about Romney’s unpaid taxes.
          "I’m not going to respond to a dirty liar who hasn’t filed a single page of tax returns himself, complains about people with money, but lives in the Ritz-Carlton here down the street.”
          But it never goes far enough. It never goes where the Democrats are unafraid to tread.
          Americans have indicated they want strong leaders, unafraid to speak their minds such as Gov. Chris Christie when he said, "I am pro-life, I believe in exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. That’s my position, take it or leave it. "
          Or Rep. Allen West when he said, "No one talked about the fact that in this year under the Obama administration you’ve seen the highest casualties in Afghanistan. And the fact that it took him almost 90 days to figure out what his strategy was going to be was absolutely appalling.”
          Or Sarah Palin when she said, "People have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation – much like building a mosque at Ground Zero.”
          But no, friends she’s not invited to the GOP Convention even though Independents and Tea Party supporters would like to see her there. The Republican Establishment would rather cut off their nose to spite their face than admit they owe anything to the Tea Party.
          The sad fact is that Republicans will take Tea Party and Independent votes, but will refuse to admit the Tea Party movement is real and here to stay or even that the Republican party has a strong conservative component. They will take the 2010 midterm victory, but won’t admit the Tea Party had anything to do with it.
          They do not hear the urgent need for change that we Americans are expressing.
          Last week you didn't have to be a political strategist to know that the American people were behind the Chick fil A controversy for what it was: an assault on the First Amendment and that they wanted a candidate who addressed this shameless attack by liberal mayors.
          It was a good opportunity for Gov. Romney to drive home support for capitalism, business enterprise and the First Amendment. A great opportunity to support the very businesses the Obama Administration dislikes and to pinpoint the severe differences between the right and the left's way of doing things.
          But he didn’t. It wasn’t on his campaign talking points.
          The broad brush, keep the gloves on approach is frustrating.
          And here we are again.
          Hold the line, America.