Me and the conservatives

Sir! What I have written has not been specifically directed to defending this president but from a generic hatred of extreme conservatism that has not diminished since I was a little boy during the Great Depression. I still believe that, like Orthodox communists, they are hopeless ideologues with no real grasp of reality and, as a result, without even realizing it, they are massive hypocrites.

Let’s take a current example. The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, is about as adolescent — No! Strike that! — juvenile as any political chairman in that party’s history. Since I am privileged to receive the weekly poop and talking points sheet, this is what he tells me I need to believe to be a true blue, all-American conservative. Do you agree, he asks? (My numbering.)

1. "We support smaller government.” Zat, so? Then why did we have the greatest growths in government sizes during the Reagan and Bush II administrations? And how can we operate with smaller governments if the population has grown from the 135 million of my youth to over 300 million today? Answer that one.

2. "We support smaller national debt.” Oh, yah? Then, why did these same presidents rack up two of American history’s greatest national debts, especially when Bush II went into office, President Bill Clinton had already gifted him with a surplus and in eight miserable years, he blew it all, big time, and dumped it on Obama?

3. "We support lower deficits.” Really? How do you do that after you’ve already committed the recklessness above?

4. "We support lower taxes.” Of course! How did we get into the messes covered above? Remember The Gipper’s policy, beloved by conservatives, that turned our country around 180 degrees from fiscal sanity? He campaigned against the democrats’ policy of tax and spend. Then he substituted the Reagan Revolution with a new motto: "NO taxes and BIGGER spending!”

5. "We support market-based health care reform.” You hypocrites! When in the past 100 years, with the exception of that renegade Richard Nixon, did any living, breathing conservative let the words health care reform slip through his or her pursed lips, until poked in the rear end by those damned socialist-liberal-democrats, with their majorities in the Congress and a president in the White House? Gimme some names!

6. "We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants.” Well, we agree on that one, we do! So, how about we introduce legislation to broadly open the doors to far more legal immigrants desperate to escape their corrupt governments and poverty and eager to share in our abundance? Or are you going to stick to the same sort of restrictive immigration policies conservatives insisted upon during the World War II period that refused entrée to those escaping from Hitler?

7. "We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges.” President Obama has already answered your prayers on that one and might, yet, pull your buns out of the fire for the wars you so eagerly plunged our nation into.

8. "We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat.” So does the current administration! So what better would you do if you were in power again? Wanna try invasions of two more countries? Sorry but, at this point, our military is running on near empty, with no more reserves and hanging in there only on the fumes in the two wars you guys have already started.

9. "We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act.” What are you defending that hasn’t been done to marriages by heterosexuals, already? In the state of California, alone, three out of four marriages already end up in divorce and four out of 10 births are to unwed mothers. If you need more information on the latter, check with Sarah Palin. She’s become an expert on that development.

10. "We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion.” Leaving out the abortion stuff, since I am not likely to need one (but, if I do, I won’t need to use a coat hanger because I am able to afford a doctor) right on with the rest of that stuff! I’m right there with you guys if those damned socialist-liberal-democrats try to slip any of that rationing and denial stuff into the health care reform bill. So, far they haven’t, but, believe me, I’m going to keep an eye on those inhumane, tricky, would-be commies and see to it that they don’t.

11. "We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.” I don’t even know why you threw this one in, since there are already more guns in this country than people and I’m all for that. Steadily, it helps reduce our overcrowding population and could be an answer to our illegal immigrant problems.

OK! So, I now know, as you tell me, since I disagree with more than three of the above policies, I will not be eligible for financial support from the Republican National Committee for a run for political office. So I think I’ll go over and help that rational Republican, Tom Campbell, get elected governor of the state of California. At least he’s got his feet on the ground and doesn’t eat chopped up mushrooms for breakfast to stay up there in "Never-Never Land” with Rush, Glenn Beck, Sarah, Dick Cheney and the rest of those "hopped up” dreamers.

As for Barack, I still don’t know what to think about him yet. For one thing, other countries are starting to like us better again and even some of the Cheney/Bush favorite enemies seem to be willing to, at least, talk to us again. And the fearful need not hide their guns anymore. No sign of him wanting to take any away yet.

And he may be one of those "moderates” who everyone loves to hate. The liberals seem to be mad at him for not giving them all they wanted when they voted for him and the conservatives are yearning even more for the good old days of Jim Crow, when a creature such as this could not have possibly built a nest for his family in the White House.

He’s appearing to more and more be an American rarity, "a thinking man’s and woman’s president.” And, like in Rudyard Kipling’s poem, "If,” he seems to be keeping his head about him even while Rush, Cheney and the cable boys are losing theirs. That’s one, hopeful, sign of sanity.

But there is a sign of insanity when he spends two years earning a job that is already burdened with two oil-supply-based wars, a depleted military, a collapsing economy, savaged civil liberties and most of the rest of the world hating us. At least he brought back lifesaving stem cell research from the burial grounds where conservatives send rational ideas to die.

There are only a few other things I know about him: He gives a lousy bow from the waist, but he does have the best, damned, straight-armed hand salute I’ve ever seen, even in the Army. And he sure has an elegant looking wife and two of the cutest kids I’ve ever seen. Maybe, he’s not going to become an Abe Lincoln, but he sure is a hellava lot better looking.

Keith Kreitman has been a Foster City resident for 24 years. He is retired with degrees in political science and journalism and advanced studies in law. He is the host of "Focus on the Arts” on Peninsula TV, Channel 26. His column appears in the weekend edition.