My journey into the belly of the beast

Here's a terrific column from the Washington Times by Milton R. Wolfe, MD.  He's a political neophyte from Chicago who became active in the Tea Party movement out of anger and disgust with Washington DC...

I told them I will be the first to defend Barack or anyone from personal attacks. Besides, I'd rather win in the marketplace of ideas. But for the sake of our republic, I would launch the mother of all family feuds, if that's what it takes, and take my cousin Barack to task not for some petty, spun-up inference, but for his actual policies. It would be an epic showdown for the heart and soul of America.


I would make him defend the bank bailouts, the failed $814 billion stimulus, double-digit unemployment and the auto-industry takeover. Make him defend the disastrous health care takeover, the 16,000 new IRS agents. Make him explain why he broke his eight pledges to hold health care hearings in public.

I'd make him explain why he became our appeaser-in-chief, bowing (sometimes literally) to the demands of dictators. Make him explain why he abandons Israel, our strongest ally in the Middle East, but won't "meddle" in Iran while it is racing for a nuclear bomb. Make him explain why he wants to grant constitutional rights to the Sept. 11 terrorists but disregards his own constitutional obligation to defend America's borders from invasion.

I'd make him explain why taxpayers should pony up for yet another borrowed-money stimulus when the first one failed so miserably. Why he gave a second round of permanent big-bank bailouts but ignores Main Street businesses that actually create jobs. Make him explain why he broke his pledge not to raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 and, for that matter, why he thinks families making more than $250,000 - the people who actually create jobs - aren't already taxed enough. Make him explain why each baby born today is welcomed into America with the shackles of more than $40,000 of debt.
I'd make him explain why a government that can't even plug an oil leak can somehow manage the complexities of our lives better than we can ourselves. It's time he explained why he or any president should exercise the unholy power to choose which Americans will be winners and which will be losers.

It's not a smear to say Barack Obama is just flat-out wrong. To disagree with him is not racist, and it's not a personal attack to say he's got some explaining to do. But even that's not the point.

The Tea Party movement exists, I told them, not because of the Democrats. We know who they are, with their tax increases, endless spending and Washington-knows-best takeovers. No, the Tea Parties exist because of the failures of the Republican Party. We were supposed to be the ones Americans could trust.

For too long, the Washington establishment - including Republicans - has been more interested in growing its own power than honoring the ideals upon which generations before us have built the greatest nation in history.

I realize that other serious issues exist. Some of those, in fact, are very important to me. But our nation is in a collapse of our own making because we have violated these basic principles, and if we don't get them right and do it now, we won't survive long enough to fight for those other causes. There comes a time when we must be Americans and take a stand, not for party, but for nation. That time is now.

Incidentally, he's a cousin of Barack Obama...but more importantly this is just the average heretofore, not been involved politically.  He's the typical Tea Partier...but all of his points are exactly what our "political elites" have done (on both sides of the aisle) to screw up our country.  I'm not sure if it will be possible to unfuck the mess that they, collectively have made.  The highlighted/bold is my emphasis, not the author's.