GOP: Either Kick the Ball or Get Out of the Way!

NPR.

PJ O’Rourke calls it the “MEGO” piece (my eyes glaze over), featuring episodes that discuss some pitiful part of the world, or the dangers of plastic bags, and drones on in a boring and earnest fashion to make its point. In my house, I refer to as an NNNNNN-PPPPPPP-RRRRRR piece. And I do a killer impersonation of their style, how they can take a boring subject and make it even more boring, and how they can speak of something interesting but are so lacking in humor or personality and so overbearing in their earnestness the only people who listen are those who take themselves too seriously. The only impersonation that beats mine is this piece in “Parks and Recreation”:

Is it just me, or do you find our side is slipping into an NPR-style of discussion?  For me, politics is a passionate subject and these days, I only want to listen to those willing to make the other side weep.  For about the past 15 years, national politics have become more important in our lives for two reasons:

1.  The rest of the world started following through on promises to try to destroy us.
2.  A far-too-big federal government has inserted themselves into every aspect of our lives.

Obamacare has been rolled out and people are going nuts with frustration trying to sign up. And if they can manage to sign up, they go insane when they see the price. The Feds have screwed it up just as much as we knew they would, and no one has actually even tried to make a doctor’s appointment yet.

What’s going to happen then? During the Clinton presidency, I watched with humor every scandal that erupted (which never affected my life in the slightest). I believed I was getting my tax dollars’ worth in entertainment.  Did it really matter to me what he was doing during his administration’s government shutdown? Not as much as it did to Monica Lewinsky. And at the end of the day, did I care who was running the White House travel office?  Anyone with half a brain knew Clinton was a scoundrel long before he got elected. Government was smaller and we also knew Clinton needed to be loved, and that eventually he would tack back to the center to gain more admirers. So every few months some scandal emerged and accusations would fly. Bill would bite his lip and tell us that no matter that the other side wanted to play partisan games, he would continue to do the job the American people elected him to do.  Then, like Lucy and the football, the Republicans would attempt to kick the ball, inevitably over reaching, only to have it yanked away. It was all great fun to watch.

But now that football is my very livelihood and I can’t find anyone to even try and kick it. My own insurance has gone from expensive to literally unaffordable. But at least my husband, our four children and me (at age 55), are all covered for a sex change operation. This is not making me feel any better when I look at the bill. And should a star rise in the East, I’m also covered for pregnancy. So I got that going for me.

Despite the mess we’re in today, I still regularly hear people say, in a laborious and ponderous tone: “But really, was Mitt Romney the best we could do?” And I shout at the radio or at my computer screen, “He’s a helluva lot better than what we ended up with!”  And yet out of all those in DC who are willing to take a kick at that football–Ted Cruz comes to mind—they are being challenged and criticized by those who should be his political allies.

So when I’m listening to talk radio, why am I not hearing the same passion regarding Obamacare and the ridiculous shut down that I heard about a stupid stained dress? Instead I visualize Michael Medved rolling his eyes when talking about how there weren’t really a million vets at the Million Vet March…I hear about how Obamacare is here to stay, there’s nothing we can do about it, or various appeasing versions of, “Maybe we can make some adjustments and niggle around the edges…”

Instead we should be hearing every single day from everyone on our side that out of 17 government shutdowns, not once have our national monuments and parks been closed. We should be hearing every single day that not only is Obamacare going to deliver questionable health care, but there’s also going to be a huge negative impact on the economy when that much money is sucked out of people’s wallets and thrown down the black hole of Obamacarebureaucracy!

It should be screamed from every rooftop that finally, it’s now even obvious to the most passionate Obama supporter: You might like him, but he doesn’t like you. It’s as if everyone in Washington DC is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

So it’s up to us—We the People–now.  Obamacare is no longer a theory; people are opening their mail every day and finding out the high cost of an insurance policy they didn’t choose but which elites have decided will serve them better. People have seen for themselves the petulance of President Obama and his administration during the shutdown. They saw Veterans maltreated while illegal aliens were accommodated.

Let’s not leave it to our so-called Republican leaders to fight the battle. All of us know someone who voted for President Obama and we need to reach out to them now. Current events have provided ample evidence as to why the Left’s policies are unsustainable and destructive for society. And if they never understood the concept of liberty, they are getting examples every day, now that they are seeing firsthand what the lack of it looks like. Let’s not wait for the media to set up the ball like Lucy, only to have our leaders whiff it away. This is our moment. Let’s not blow it.