Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Always shrewd, genial, and insightful, Bill Kristol has throughout the primary season also proven splendidly wise. His latest, from the current issue of The Weekly Standard:
Freedom is the word for what we have to lose if the Obama administration gets a second term. The issues at stake this year aren’t whether Rick Santorum voted for earmarks as a senator from Pennsylvania, or whether Mitt Romney checks every box of conservative orthodoxy. The issue is whether Obamacare, an unprecedented assault on our freedoms, will be exposed as such and repealed. The issue is whether our ballooning debt, an unforgiving threat to our future freedoms, will be addressed decisively. The issue is whether the entitlement state, inimical to a politics of individual liberty, will be transformed into a limited government worthy of a free society. The issue is whether our Constitution, guardian of our freedoms, will be reinvigorated. The issue is whether threats to a world in which we and others can enjoy freedom—in particular, a nuclear Iran—will be stopped.
Who would be better at preserving our freedoms and strengthening a free society? Republican primary voters haven’t yet decided. And why should they have?
I'm with Bill. Let the contest grind on.
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Dec '10
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Peter,
I concur with Mr. Kristol.
Regards,
Jim
Jun '10
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Romney is a fine human being, I'm sure, but you don't usually pick fresh converts to do your preaching.
Aug '11
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Who would be better at preserving our freedoms? I know it's not the guy who came up with Romneycare, and still thinks it's a wonderful plan.
Oct '10
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
In the end, Kristol is right ONLY if the GOP winner goes on to accomplish the repeal of O-care. And for that, we have only the past actions of the presidential candidates, those of the candidates for House and Senate, and in the final analysis, the GOP itself.
As much as I want Kristol to be right, there isn't a lot of recent history to back him up.
Oct '11
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Obamacare has turned our country upside down. It turns our inalienable rights, freedom of religion etc., and turns them into privileges dispensed by government at the whim of political goals. Favored political allies receive waivers and enemies are forced to comply. This cannot stand.
Jul '10
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Etoiledunord, I'm not so sure I agree. Converts have a much deeper insight into how to reach nonbelivers than those born faithful. Romney seems to be the best candidate to pull independents, better than lightning rod Gingrich and cultural crusader Santorum.
Feb '11
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Then there was a young Jewish scribe named Saul of Tarsus...
May '10
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Welcome to the party. That much was obvious four years ago when Obama was but a candidate. The details of Obamacare weren't known, but that something like Obamacare would come to be was patently obvious to anyone who paid attention. But the Republican party was no where to be found for fear that expressing POLICY disagreement would get one branded a racist. The Republican party may be our only hope, but it is a slender, shallow rooted, and unreliable reed upon which to pin our hopes.
May '11
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Peter,
I think Bill Kristol nails it here. Our candidate can't just promise to get our numbers better. He's got to pledge to make the government more free and just. Those two things are linked, and they are not about whether unemployment is 8.3% or 7.9%.
Jonah Goldberg wrote a few weeks back that Romney might be safe for conservatives because he will "owe us." We won't be able to bring him to account unless he has explicitly endorsed our principles. He's got to stop focusing on his business acumen at squeezing out percentages and start talking about freedom and the threat to it posed by progressivism.
Aug '11
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Jordan Rodriguez
Then there was a young Jewish scribe named Saul of Tarsus... · 4 minutes ago
Yeah, but he had a rather obvious conversion. Now, if the ghost of William F. Buckley appeared to Mitt, caused him to go blind, and then sent him to the house of, oh, let's say Sarah Palin for a few months . . .
Mar '11
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Bill Kristol parroting Sarah Palin.
At least somebody's paying attention.
Apr '11
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Forgive me if I'm somewhat skeptical of Bill's and Peter's mantra of "Let the contest grind on". It's obvious that both Bill and Peter would rather shove sharp stick's in their eye before accepting a Romney nomination. I suspect that they would be the first one's calling for party unity if someone they approved of was leading the race at this time. I have no issue if the campaign continues because I want to harden our candidate in the fall, but can we stop this bogus call for continuing the campain based on the voters needing more time to fully grasp what's truly at stake with this election. I find it somewhat insulting and more than arrogant that Bill and Peter feel they need to educate us on the 'right way' to think about this election, considering I'm dubious of their motives.
Nov '11
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Where do you see that Bill and Peter are talking about the voters? I thought they were talking about the candidates.
Feb '12
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
'Freedom is the word for what we have to lose' says Bill Kristolofferson.. always so sungcint.. and Obama doesn't seem to get those blue dog blues..
Sep '10
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Mark,
Peter and Bill aren't arguing that voters need to be educated. The issue is that the remaining candidates still need more time in selling themselves to the voters. They still have not finalized the deal.
Edited on Feb 12 at 2:40pmAug '10
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Yes. This. The "big tent" of the GOP isn't a masterful joining of identity politics and special interest groups, it's a gathering of liberty loving voters that cuts across mere demographics. All we have to do is--
Well, shoot. Now I'm back to my earlier fatalism. Thanks, raycon!
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
I'll go you one better--actually, two better. I'd rather take a sharp stick to myself than see Romney wrap up the nomination now...or than see Gingrich wrap up the nomination now...or than see Santorum wrap up the nomination now. (I myself don't want to see Paul wrap up the nomination now or ever.)
None of these candidates has earned the nomination. None has persuaded Republicans to unite energetically and enthusiastically behind him. Let them--all three of them--keep at it.
May '10
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
Gus Marvinson: Bill Kristol parroting Sarah Palin.
At least somebody's paying attention. · 7 hours ago
Bill said it first. By a pretty good margin.
Apr '11
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
By that standard, I am not sure that anyone is going to "earn" the nomination. It seems more likely, as of this day, that we are going to have a nominee because all of the primary and caucus days came and went and people had to pick somebody and someone happened to have the most votes. It really is a shame.
Sep '10
Re: Bill Kristol: The Issue is Freedom
My gut tells me in a year or two someone will make a lot of money writing a book laying out in detail how Mitt Romney and his inner circle in 2010-12 cost him the electection when he unsuccessfully tried to defend Romneycare to the GOP base and at times argue that repeal of Obamacare was not possible. It is as if Mitt Romney is a allien who came to this planet in 2011 and is oblivious to the entire 2010 election and the Tea Party. If Mitt had not written that what he did in his book, emphatically stated Romneycare was a mistake and never stated (or had surrogates say likewise) that Obamacare cannot be repealed. Hard to forgive someone who doesn't repent.