Gandhi or Che?

The CPAC meeting continues to spill out amazing moments. Newt Gingrich says that Obama has galvanized the conservative movement as nothing before and that the GOP is poised to take over the House in 2010. House Republicans said they have taken the measure of Obama in their various meetings and says the man is averse to confrontation and that they sense his weakness. The Senate Republicans boasted they are in great shape for 2010. FYI--from my count, Republicans could lose an additional five seats in the Senate.

Newt also linked George W. Bush to Obama claiming there is a continuity in their love for big government. Odd, we didn't hear Newt say that during the W years.

Tom Coburn (R-Ok) says that the death of America's newspapers favor Republicans.

CPAC found their new leader--13-year old Jonathan Krohn, who wowed the audience.

The war drums are pounding on the Right. Bill Levinson writes that Obama's carbon cap proposal could force the energy dependent and industralized South to secede from the Union. Conservatives also see any move to ban the Assault Weapons as the ticket they need to ride back into power. Larry Kudlow has announced that Obama has declared war against corporations, investors and shareholders. The TeaBag parties held around the country only drew handfuls of people with the exception of St.Louis, where roughly 1,000 people came out to protest the stimulus package.

Conservatives don't know how far to protest taxes. (Note: everyone gets a tax break until 2011 when the top 5% of earners get hiked.) Some propose organizing a massive tax protest by either mailing in blank tax forms or mortgage coupons or car payments with requests the government pay them. A million people burning fake tax forms is one idea. Others want to send their IRS forms to the White House in care of The Squatter. Those arguing a tax boycott claim that the American tax base is almost exclusively Republican and that without that revenue the silent majority will have made a powerful statement. That sounds as constructive as the earlier project, "A Day Without Conservatives" where conservatives would simply stay home from work. No one seemed to notice.

So conservatives have moved far beyond the boycott of Krispy Kreme for handing out donuts to celebrate the inauguration. A few posters on Freerepublic ominously hint that it is going to take something more serious to turn things around.

A laugh moment was the booing of the mention of American intervention into WWI--not II, but I.

Michelle Bachman told Michael Steele "You be da Man."

There is a real cognitive dissonance in all this.( A correction--It was not that the Obama Administration was one of Gays, Porn and Abortion. It was Porn, Pot and Abortion.) New Gingrich is coaching Eric Cantor of "Back in the Saddle" fame in how to take back the House. The playbook neglects to understand that unlike Clinton, Obama was elected by a clear majority with the largest popular vote count in American history. Also, Republicans had controlled both houses of Congress for 6 out of the last eight years, the White House for eight years, and selected 7 out of 9 Supreme Court Justices. And we ended up with the most catastrophic economic situation since the 1930s. As conservative Doug Brooks said,"calling for smaller government right now is a form of nihilism."