That idea isn’t overwhelmingly popular on the left. “I’m not really into cutting [spending] right now,” Sen. Minority leader Harry Reid announced. Fine, but what are you into?
Meanwhile, with no ideas of her own to promote, Pelosi had to steal one of ours -- sort of. “I would give [my earmarks] up to help Katrina victims,” Pelosi told the San Francisco Chronicle. “The people of San Francisco would be proud of that.” They might be even more proud if she hadn’t later announced she would consider giving up $70 million in earmarks but was certainly going to keep $50 million set aside for the Golden Gate Bridge.
Conservatives also want to ease environmental regulations and encourage private organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity or local churches, to replace bureaucrats in the rebuilding process.
Because there are so many ideas on the right, liberal columnist Bill Berkowitz recently warned, “Hurricane Katrina could prove to be the mother of all testing grounds for a passel of active Heritage Foundation domestic policy initiatives.” Berkowitz, who calls himself “a longtime observer of the conservative movement” must be aware that when those ideas succeed, people in the Gulf Coast region will be better off. Meanwhile, faced with the failure of government at every level to protect people, liberals still will be trying to figure out how to respond. No doubt they’ll blame President Bush somehow.
Former President Bill Clinton gets it. He told his former flack George Stephanopoulos, now an impartial journalist for ABC, “The country in 2008, and I think in 2006, will be in a desperate mood to come together and move forward.” Clinton probably would agree that to move forward you need ideas, and to come together you must be positive.
Keep the pointless attacks coming, liberals. There’s another election coming soon, and every day the outcome becomes easier to predict.