Prof. Paul A. Rahe: After 30 years of ineptitude and betrayal by Republicans in Name Only, "The iron is hot; it is time to strike"

As Angelo M. Codevilla argues with great eloquence in the current issue of The American Spectator, we may have two parties but we are governed by a single political class, and most Americans recognize that neither party actually represents them.

The first obstacle might seem to be insuperable. As a number of critics of my book pointed out, and as one such critic, William Voegeli, has argued with considerable verve in his fine new book Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State, it is hard to imagine that today’s conservatives can succeed where Reagan failed. There are, however, two reasons why we should think the improbable now within our grasp. In two different regards, we are now better situated than was Ronald Reagan.

First, where he had Carter, we now have Barack Obama. President Carter lost in 1980 because he had persuaded the American people that he was not up to the job. President Obama has, to be sure, done the same thing – but he has also done something else of very great importance. As the emergence of the Tea-Party movement demonstrates, he has alarmed Americans. They fear that his policies will ruin their lives, and they fear in a tangible way that he is intent on taking away their liberty. His predecessors were surreptitious; he has chosen audacity. And in threatening to take access to medical care out of our hands into those of his minions, he strikes at our freedom to manage our own lives in a fashion that only the willfully blind can miss.

Second, the welfare state that Barack Obama inherited from his predecessors is bankrupt. The birthrate in this country has dropped, and our fellow citizens are living longer lives. As a consequence, there has been a dramatic decline in the ratio of those working to those retired; and, this year, for the first time, the Social Security Administration is paying out more than it is taking in. Medicare and Medicaid are similarly insolvent. To maintain the current system, it would seem to be the case that we would have to raise taxes drastically – but we cannot do that, as Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt proved in the 1930s, without restricting economic growth, and, in the absence of economic growth, we will be unable to support Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. As Richard Lamm, a Democrat who served three terms as Governor of Colorado, recently observed, “The New Deal is demographically obsolete. You can’t fund the dream of the 1960s on the economy of 2010.”

In short, the first of the two obstacles I identified in my book is no longer what it was. More Americans fear federal intrusiveness than would like more; their fears are palpable; and their alarm coincides with a crisis likely to be fatal to the welfare state. We can no longer pay civil servants as we have; we can no longer maintain Social Security in its current form; and we can no longer sustain Medicare and Medicaid. Something has to give. Even if Barack Obama had not thrown away a trillion dollars in so-called “stimulus” measures designed to reward constituencies supportive of his party, even if Congress had not enacted a healthcare reform guaranteed to radically increase costs, we would have had to face the facts before long. As things stand, Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and Emanuel have brought things to a head. In their zeal not “to waste” one crisis, they have precipitated another – the crisis of the administrative state.

The second obstacle – the one posed by the ineptitude of the Republicans in Congress and by their repeated betrayal over the last thirty years of the people whom they pretend to represent – is more serious. Here lies a problem that must be addressed. And the clock is ticking. The first Tuesday in November draws nigh, and this problem must be solved within the next few weeks or the moment will pass and the opportunity will be lost. The iron is hot; it is time to strike.

Obama could face challenge from "left fringe" - a cast of millions

Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said last week on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that it is not impossible to imagine a primary challenge to President Obama in 2012 from an anti-war progressive who opposes the administration’s policy in Afghanistan

 A spokesman for Rendell clarified the governor’s remarks to The Daily Caller saying that such a challenge would only come from a candidate from the “left fringe” of the Democratic Party.

Though no one has yet suggested they would throw their hat into the ring to challenge Obama in 2012, we at The Daily Caller have come up with our own list of four potential intraparty insurgents:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich

The leftwing Ohio congressman ran quixotic presidential campaigns in 2004 and 2008 and is ardently opposed to the surge in Afghanistan. He may be one of the few Democrats who would seriously consider challenging Obama in 2012. After all, how else could the UFO-seeing, former “boy mayor” of Cleveland grasp any shred of relevancy?

Former President Jimmy Carter

A sprightly 85, Carter still has another term of eligibility. What’s more, for some, Obama’s handling of the economy may have done the impossible and made the Carter years look pretty good comparatively. And the campaign slogan is irresistible: “Four More Years of Malaise!”

Rev. Jeremiah Wright

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama threw his long time pastor and confidante under the bus, disassociating himself with the fiery reverend who famously asked the Almighty to “damn America” in a sermon. The radically leftwing Wright is no doubt disillusioned with Obama’s surge in Afghanistan, and may be still embittered at Obama’s public flogging of him in 2008. You might say that a primary challenge by Wright would amount to Obama’s chickens coming home to roost.

Supreme Court bars any support to U.S.-designated terrorists; Jimmy Carter and other leftists think it will crimp their style

The US Supreme Court has put international humanitarian workers on notice that any assistance to a US-designated terrorist group could land them in an American prison.

On Monday, the high court upheld a federal law that outlaws providing “material support” to any group on a State Department list of terrorist organizations.

The prohibition extends beyond knowingly facilitating illegal operations. The law – part of the USA Patriot Act – makes it a federal crime to provide any help or support to a terror group – even support designed to teach a violent group how to use legal and peaceful means to achieve political change.

Violators face up to 15 years in prison.

Organizations and individuals involved in international peace and humanitarian efforts expressed disappointment with Monday’s ruling.

“The ‘material support law’ – which is aimed at putting an end to terrorism – actually threatens our work and the work of many other peacemaking organizations that must interact directly with groups that have engaged in violence,” said former President Jimmy Carter, founder of the Carter Center.

“The vague language of the law leaves us wondering if we will be prosecuted for our work to promote peace and freedom,” he said.

The 36-page majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, says that Congress intended to establish a broad prohibition against any assistance to terrorist organizations. To prove a violation, prosecutors must show that the individual providing the help or support knew the receiving group was on the US terror list or was an organization that had engaged in terrorist activities.

Justice Stephen Breyer and two other justices dissented, arguing that the statute’s scope was narrower than the majority had found. The law should apply only when the assistance facilitates an illegal act by a terrorist group, Justice Breyer wrote.

Stagflation president picked as best ex-president

"For nearly one-out-of-three voters (32%), Jimmy Carter is the living ex-president who has done the best job since leaving the White House, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Carter, who served in the White House from 1977 to 1981, ranks first among the four surviving presidents. George W. Bush, who has only been out of office seven months, comes in last with nine percent (9%) support."