2008-What a long, strange year it's been

Cross Posted at The Lonely Conservative

Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals and moderates can all agree that 2008 was an interesting year, to say the least. Who would have thought the New York Football Giants would have bested the New England Patriots in the Superbowl? If you thought that would be the strangest thing to happen this year you don’t follow politics too closely.

2008 kicked off in the midst of the Presidential primary season. Democrats bickered over who cared more about the impoverished and who wanted our troops out of Iraq sooner. Republicans went back and forth, each claiming to be the most conservative, while Republican voters kept wondering how they could channel Ronald Reagan. It was all but assumed that Hillary Clinton would be the nominee of the Democratic Party while the Republican field was wide open. Mike Huckabee did well with Christians and John McCain did well with Democrats and the New York Times.

Some Romney supporters were screaming “It’s the economy stupid!” and “Never nominate the candidate endorsed by the New York Times!” but much to their chagrin, Charlie Crist spoke, John McCain became the Republican nominee and Rudy Giulianni’s Florida vacation came to an abrupt end. In the mean time New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was brought down by a hooker. Hillary Clinton was fighting for her life against Barack Obama and the Main Stream Media throughout the spring. She vowed to take things all the way to the convention, and who could blame her? She was going up against a rival who began his presidential campaign almost immediately after being elected to his first term as a US Senator. But just as John McCain was the media’s darling before going up against the New Messiah, Hillary and her supporters finally understood what conservatives have complained about for years. There is media bias! Poor Hillary couldn’t catch a break, and Bubba didn’t help.

The media helped propel Barack Obama to the top of the Democratic ticket. Gas prices soared over the summer while the Democrats and John McCain railed against the obscene profits of oil companies. Showing how little he knows about the economy, Barack Obama swore he would fund his goodies with a windfall profits tax on the evil oil companies. Republicans spent the summer wishing for a primary do-over. The junior senator from Illinois travelled abroad over the summer where he announced we are all citizens of the world and under his leadership America will soon become a beautiful collectivist utopia. Thousands of German concert goers cheered The One while listening to a free rock concert and swilling beer. J

John McCain kept a low profile until the end of August when he announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. The world was stunned while conservative rejoiced! Maybe John McCain did have a conservative bone in his body! They finally had something other than his heroic war record to cheer about. Conservatives found a reason to go to the polls in November and wouldn’t even have to be drunk to do so! John McCain actually pulled ahead of Barack Obama in the polls. McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin was so brilliant that the left was enraged and the media went into a frenzy. Reporters and investigators were air-dropped into Palin’s home town of Wasilla, Alaska to dissect every aspect of the woman’s life. They spent more time digging into Sarah Palin’s past in a week than they did to Barack Obama in two years.

Feminists loathed her for not aborting her baby when she learned the child would have Down’s Syndrome. Yes, Sarah Palin was a conservative dream. A really middle class American who put her money where her mouth is and didn’t just talk the talk. Unfortunately for Palin, she had to go on television and defend John McCain’s record in her early interviews. That would be a hard, if not impossible task for any good conservative. The networks’ editing of her answers didn’t help either. But Sarah Palin didn’t let it stop her. She wasn’t there to please Washington’s elite media. Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as a running mate really wasn’t a joke and the two went on the stump together.

Gaffe after gaffe were ignored by the adoring media, while every aspect of Sarah Palin’s life was put under a microscope. Barack Obama’s “God D*mn America” pastor was ignored but it was reported that Sarah Palin speaks in tongues. Going to 57 US states was suddenly not impossible, yet a corruption-fighting, self-made governor with an 80% approval rating inexplicably became a liability. The media’s love for their Chosen One grew deeper with each passing day. One famous commentator admitted on live television to a thrilling physical reaction when the debonnaire democrat spoke. This love affair was a sight to behold. William Shakespeare himself couldn’t have conjured up such complete devotion.

After the government rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the resulting failure of Lehman Brothers, John McCain failed to defend his and President Bush’s proven record of urging more oversight of Fannie and Freddie. Instead he blamed the whole mess on greed. Then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson appeared on TV to announce that if we the people didn’t immediately hand over nearly a trillion dollars to him that the economy would immediately collapse. The strategy of manufactured crisis was coming to fruition right before our eyes and Republicans played right into their hands.

President Bush suddenly befriended Democrats even though they persisted in calling him names. John McCain announced he was suspending his campaign until an economic rescue bill agreement could be reached in Washington. He called on Barack Obama to join him. Barack Obama and his staff had high fives all around in celebration of their upcoming victory. Mr. McCain went to Washington and did…..absolutely nothing! He didn’t insist on an immediate reduction in capital gains taxes to keep capital flowing into the US economy. He didn’t insist on suspending mark to market accounting rules which would have eased the balance sheets of our financial institutions. Heavens no! Had he done that he may have appeared to be conservative.

The maverick whose campaign theme was “I am not George W. Bush” went along with George W. Bush and sidekick Hank Paulson like a devoted puppy. 70% of the public was against the rescue plan, so naturally it passed with bipartisan support, save for a few lonely conservative republicans and moderate democrats. The economy immediately went into a tailspin and Americans watched their life savings disappear into thin air. John McCain continued to blast greed while Barack Obama’s poll numbers went up. Barack Obama kept at it, blaming the economic crisis on the failed economic policies of the past eight years. He and the media forgot all about Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid.

The drum beat from the Democrats and the media played on and on. It was the Republican’s fault and so what if Fannie and Freddie gave more money to Obama and the Democrats than anyone else? So what if Democrats were complicit in the failure of the GSE’s or made statements that caused a bank to fail and the entire US insurance industry to take a one day stock loss of 30% and up. The public had no need to know that useless information. Heck, they didn’t even know that Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress since 2006. Yes, it was a good year to be a Democrat. Had it been reported that Republicans failed to stop the Democrats, perhaps things would have turned out differently, but alas, it was not to be. Then Mr. Obama showed up in the yard of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher who had the nerve to ask him a question.

The media and the left went after Joe the Plumber with a vengeance not seen since Sarah Palin hit the campaign trail. They had to work overtime in their attempts to destroy and discredit two conservatives at the same time. Even coastal conservative elites with ivy league degrees joined the chorus against Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. (Let’s hope those “conservatives” are enjoying the DC cocktail party circuit!)

How dare these two regular people show up and act all normal, middle class and conservative!? What happened to the big tent? The elites even turned on their own moderate maverick John McCain when he started pretending to be conservative. Granted, he was sending mixed messages, like calling Barack Obama a socialist and in the next breath promising to bailout delinquent homeowners. But hey, he was convinced by the media and Colin Powell that Americans only like liberals.

A few maverick reporters had the nerve to ask some tough questions of Obama and Biden. Let’s just say they learned their lesson. Newspaper journalists whose editors failed to endorse Barack Obama were kicked off his campaign plane. They learned their lesson, too. But Obama promised a new transparency in government. As expected, the media lapped it up. Sarah Palin finally broke free of the McCain campaign’s bubble of suppression at the same time Joe Biden was put in the corner after one too many gaffes.

There are only so many ”paying higher taxes is patriotic” statements a politician can make before the voters start to catch on. Conservatives flocked to McCain rallies to see Sarah Palin. Despite McCain’s mixed messages it seemed there was hope for his campaign. The stock market rallied just before the election, only to suffer deep losses after the results came in. Job losses in November soared higher than we’ve seen in a generation. Nobody can figure out what investors and business owners know that the media doesn’t.

Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn in as the next President of the United States. The world now knows what most conservatives believed all along, that America is not a hateful racist country that would never vote for a black man who is willing to throw family members and life long friends under the proverbial bus when it suits him.

Gay Americans aren’t convinced we’re now a nice nation, but again, sometimes supporters have to be thrown under the bus in the name of unity and hopeandchange. President elect Obama wasted no time in putting together his new team. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich also got busy trying to sell Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder. So busy, in fact, that the poor fellow didn’t even have time to visit his barber. Democrats across the land stepped out of character to denounce a fellow Democrat caught up in scandal. Americans were surprised again when Barack Obama announced he would appoint Hillary Rodham Clinton to be the next Secretary of State. They weren’t surprised that nobody’s concerned about former President Bill Clinton’s funny money dealings with foreigners. No, they were surprised at Caroline Kennedy’s unexpected desire to be appointed to Hillary’s senate seat. But hey, now that we’ve elected the most inexperienced candidate for President the sky’s the limit. So what if she hasn’t held a full time job, she’s a Kennedy! We’ll have to wait and see how that plays out.

The accidental governor of New York, David Paterson has bigger things to worry about. He’s presiding over an enormous budget deficit (unless you compare it to California) and wants to raise taxes on everything from iPods to malt liquor. He’s convinced that new and creative taxes will lure new business to New York State.

He should just wait until Obama takes office and then stand in line with his hand out. Bailouts continue with more to come in 2009. The Bush administration caved in to the UAW, oops…the auto companies, giving about $17 billion to GM and Chrysler to tide them over until the real Santa Claus comes to town in January. And it isn’t just the auto companies who can expect to be stimulated by the stimuli promised by our President elect. He promises to create 3 million jobs by taking money out of the private sector (aka - taxation) and “investing” it in technologies that aren’t profitable for the private sector.

Let’s hope it works, since he also said he would bankrupt the coal industry. (Be sure to save your energy bills from 2008, just for the sake of nostalgia.) Despite scientific evidence that solar activity causes our climate to change, Mr. Obama has promised to spend…oops again…invest billions of taxpayer dollars to combat man made global warming. This after the coldest fall we’ve seen in a number of years. But scientists be damned! Carbon is bad and we must stop it! We’ll have to figure out how to make plants grow without carbon at a later date, after we figure out how to pay for the trillions of dollars we need to spend eliminating carbon and ”saving” our economy.

Things aren’t all bad for conservatives. The surge in Iraq produced results beyond even Barack Obama’s wildest dreams. There are so few Republicans left conservatives no longer have to spend much time defending them. Gas prices are lower now than we’ve seen in years. (Enjoy it while it lasts as any hopes of increased domestic oil production are dashed.) And with any luck Joe Biden will receive enough media coverage to offer some comic relief for the next few years, we’re sure going to need it. Happy New Year!