That Light in the Tunnel is Still a Locomotive

Kyle-Anne Shiver
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:00:00 -0800
Opinion

Tuesday night, when my financially-flogged, nerve-wracked husband announced the election returns, he breathed a deep sigh of relief and beamed, "It may not be much, but I finally see a light at the end of the tunnel."

To which I replied, "Yep, but it's still a locomotive." He threw a pillow at my head and switched to the ultimate fight on Spike TV.

So, down to brass tacks on saving the republic. Did the two GOP victories this week — in purple Virginia and bluer-than-blue New Jersey — signal a beam of sunshine in a tunnel gone dark with fear and gloom? Or, is that light conservatives see just the same old Obama locomotive?

Not to in any way disparage the euphoria, which momentarily swept Republican hearts Tuesday night, I still see that Obama locomotive steaming down our tracks and the end of the line remains a hairy-high cliff from which there may be no returning.

Our national security hangs in the balance all over the world, especially in Afghanistan. Yet, the Ditherer in Chief chose to spend yesterday in a Wisconsin high-school gym giving another blame-it-all-on-Bush speech to a bunch of kids. Meanwhile, real Americans are giving their lives in battle, becoming more discouraged by the hour, and our enemies are chomping at the bit from Russia to Asia to the Middle East. They can smell a wimp thousands of miles away.

The Israelis, so far, are taking up a lot of the Obama-engineered U.S. slack. Tuesday night, while the president watched a football game, the Israeli navy intercepted a weapons cargo ship filled with hundreds of tons of Iranian rockets and ammunition, which was bound for Hezbollah in Syria. Americans of all political stripes ought to be sending candy-grams to Netanyahu, but still, thinking the sun has overtaken the Obama locomotive seems wildly premature.

Next Monday, Nov. 9, is the 20th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. President Obama has already sent his regrets; he will not attend the ceremony. Apparently, it wasn't enough to pick the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland to inform the Polish people of his decision to completely abandon our planned missile-defense, a crucial element in dealing with the openly resurgent Russian Bear. The Russians have been practicing a nuclear invasion of now-abandoned Poland. President Obama follows up his abandonment of Poland by scorning the Berliners in a barely veiled invitation to Putin's conquests. Not much for celebration by liberty lovers here.

On the domestic front, while Obama's eternal campaign mode distracts the American electorate, his locomotive roars down the tracks barely noticed. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal tallied a few of the Democrats' "Quiet Changes." Hidden in defense-policy legislation, signed last week, was a long-sought liberal prize, the broadened definition of hate-crimes, which will now include sexual orientation and gender identification. Pedophiles and transvestites celebrate, while the rest of us have to worry about securing our children.

The speed of Obama's liberal locomotive has been so fast that the country barely had time to notice how his jobs-creating rhetoric was meaningfully belied by legislation to make it far easier for women to sue for equal pay. Another new law provided environmentalists a long-sought set-aside of millions of acres in the West from development. That land has been geologically surveyed and is rich in energy potential. Meanwhile, we the people get stuck with escalating utility prices.

Ordinarily, citizens can reliably depend upon politicians to worry about re-election enough to put the brakes on unpopular policy. But from where I'm sitting, it doesn't seem to be bothering our trio of mad, ideological social engineers up there in D.C. Obama, Pelosi and Reid are still steaming down those tracks to the cliff.

This week, Pelosi plans a vote on her 2,000-plus page health care power-grab, which is nothing but pure insanity wrapped in mounds of legalese, to the financial tune of $1.2 trillion. I'm waiting for some brave TV personality to shout out Rick-Santelli style: "This is America! How many of you want to pay for your neighbor's hypochondria, promiscuity, gluttony and drug addiction?" Raise your hands. Show of hands notwithstanding, Pelosi plans to vote by Saturday.

The Senate poured more fuel into Obama's locomotive engine yesterday with important committee action on a climate change bill. As real scientists jump — with more haste and larger numbers each day — from the global-warming hoax car, Democrats apply their Gore-enabled blinders and forge straight toward that economic cliff.

So, call me a pessimist. Call me skeptical. Call me anything whatsoever but a locomotive-denier.

And in the meantime, if you do love America, call your congressman 20 times a day, seven days every week. Tell them you're storing up on tar and feathers, and you will not rest until they're run out of town on rails if they vote for any more of this liberal insanity.