Rick Santorum opposes public schooling

Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
Memory is convenient. ...isn't it? The Tea Party was born after Rick Santelli's rant on CNBC in Feb, 2009. During the Bush administration, many Republicans and Libertarians complained of excessive spending and bailouts. Remember "Porkbusters"?
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Feb 2009 was during the Bush administration?
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
Memory is convenient. ...isn't it? The Tea Party was born after Rick Santelli's rant on CNBC in Feb, 2009.
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And that contradicts what I said how exactly?

Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
During the Bush administration, many Republicans and Libertarians complained of excessive spending and bailouts. Remember "Porkbusters"?
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And yet they didn't go out and protest about it until Obama took office. Again, just an amazingly convenient coincidence.
 
johnny karate said:
And that contradicts what I said how exactly?
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I suspect the objection is here:

johnny karate said:
It's like when the Tea Party suddenly decided to become upset about "reckless government spending" immediately after Obama was sworn into office. It's not hypocrisy, just an amazingly convenient coincidence.
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Santelli's rant happened about a month after Obama's inauguration, so that's not what many people would call "immediately".
 
Ziggurat said:
I suspect the objection is here:



Santelli's rant happened about a month after Obama's inauguration, so that's not what many people would call "immediately".
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When you had a few years to complain & keep quiet until the other guy steps into office, yeah its immediately.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
I rebut the "immediately after Obama was sworn into office" part. I rebut the implication that the objection to deficit spending is partisan. These are two separate rebuttals.
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So he didn't rant until Obama was in office, but its not partisan?
 
johnny karate said:
...And yet they didn't go out and protest about it until Obama took office. Again, just an amazingly convenient coincidence.
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To quote Strother Martin in "The Wild Bunch": "Who the hell are 'they'?" "Porkbusters" and the Cato Institute were screaming about Bush's refusal to use the veto power long before Obama became President.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
To quote Strother Martin in "The Wild Bunch": "Who the hell are 'they'?" "Porkbusters" and the Cato Institute were screaming about Bush's refusal to use the veto power long before Obama became President.
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& yet the Tea party came out... when?
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
And yet Porkbusters came out...when?
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2005. Did the Tea Party grow out of Porkbusters? If not then, IMO, Porkbusters is irrelevant. I don't think anyone is claiming that no conservatives cared about govt spending prior to Obama. They are questioning the timing of the Tea Party.

If the Tea Party is directly connected then you might have a point.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
During the Bush administration, many damned few Republicans and Libertarians complained of excessive spending and bailouts. Remember "Porkbusters"?
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Just trying to be factual here.

I'd really like to see a news content analysis of various major news media (NY Times, CNN. FOX, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.) looking for the phrase "deficit spending" (or something similar) between, say, 2002 and 2012. I'd especially like to focus on the periods when the wars were authorized and when the Medicare Part D was being debated. Because I'm biased, the things I remember are Wolfiwitz (or was it Pearl) saying the war would cost <$50B or that Iraq revenues would pay for it; Shinseki(sp?) saying we'd need 500,000 troops and being show the door; and that CBO analyst estimating how much Part D would really cost and being shoved out the door.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
I rebut the "immediately after Obama was sworn into office" part. I rebut the implication that the objection to deficit spending is partisan. These are two separate rebuttals.
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Your supposed rebuttal of "immediately" does nothing to rebut the underlying point. That point being that the Tea Party protests didn't start until after Obama took office.

Nor did you rebut anything regarding partisanship. The Tea Party took to the streets after Obama took office to protest economic policies that had been in effect for years under Bush. That is a fact. You can call it partisanship if you like, but you can't deny the chronology of events.

Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
To quote Strother Martin in "The Wild Bunch": "Who the hell are 'they'?" "Porkbusters" and the Cato Institute were screaming about Bush's refusal to use the veto power long before Obama became President.
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"They" is the Tea Party.

And seriously... Porkbusters? You're comparing an e-mail campaign among bloggers to a massive, widespread national movement?

I've never suggested that no conservative - anywhere, ever - protested Bush's economic policies. But nothing on par with the scale of the Tea Party occurred under Bush. Not even close.
 
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Ziggurat said:
When I connect the dots, I conclude that people aren't always in a position to do what they would ideally like to be able to do. That's not hypocrisy. That's reality.
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That's what bugs me about political commentary such as this. A President Santorum is not going to eliminate public education. At the margin, he'd probably do damage to the Department of Education. Comments such as this are obviously just campaign rhetoric to persuade voters that he feels their pain (thanks, Willy). They don't represent policy ideas that would actually be pursued.

Worse, they detract from policy issues to do matter. Environmental policy, fiscal policy, foreign policy, defense policy, etc. The media should be hammering on these constantly with all candidates. But nooooo, we get endless drivel about Obama's war on religion, for example.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
Nothing on the scale of Obama's deficits occurred under Bush, either. Not even close.
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So... not only did the Tea Party not care when a Republican was racking up record deficits, but they could also see into the future to a time when the Democrat who just took office would increase the deficit they didn't seem to care about until just then?

Truly amazing.
 
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