During last year’s Republican National Convention, South Carolina GOP leaders were regularly calling in to talk radio station WTMA to provide event coverage. On the day they were supposed to talk to me, I was informed that Republican Party officials did not wish to speak to Jack Hunter. A denouncer of big government and all its works, I never saw any reason to make special exceptions for Republicans, and for my anti-GOP sins I had become persona non grata.
Today, everyone is denouncing big government. Since Obama’s election, tea party protests have sprung up across the country and conservatives are now rallying loud and clear against Washington’s spending. But liberal politicians and pundits who are calling conservative activists “crazy” — or to borrow MSNBC host Chris Matthew’s phrase, “wing nuts” — have it exactly backwards. It was crazy that anyone who might claim the label “conservative” would also claim to be a part of George W. Bush’s GOP. Today’s conservatives haven’t lost their sanity — they’ve regained it.
In the meantime, the Left has gone completely nuts. Worshipping a president who promised “change,” liberals continue to ignore the fact that little has. On foreign policy — the Left’s primary gripe against Bush — Obama’s war mentality is remarkably similar to his predecessor. In drawing down in Iraq, Obama has simply transferred the massive U.S. presence from Iraq to Afghanistan. Meanwhile, controversial war on terror-era measures like the Patriot Act, extraordinary rendition, and warrantless wiretapping remain intact.
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