Dear Friend,
This was not a good week for the Democrats. With a revealing bungle on their platform and a terrible jobs report bookending the convention, President Obama's disappointing address last night was a non-event. Today I'll talk about all of this, plus Bill Clinton's convention speech, and Mike Gallagher's new book, 50 Things Liberals Love to Hate.
Obama Has A Worse Jobs Record Than The Previous 11 Presidents Combined
The drop in the unemployment rate to 8.1 percent wasn't the most important number in today's jobs report. Nor was it the disappointing 96,000 jobs created (far below expectations). The most important statistic was that last month, 368,000 people left the work force, driving labor force participation rate down to the lowest point since 1981.
So the unemployment rate didn't fall because the Obama economy actually added jobs. It fell because so hundreds of thousands of people were no longer counted as actively looking for work.
As my friend David Winston noted, since 1948 there have been 82 months of unemployment over 8 percent. Forty-three of those months have been under President Obama – more than the previous 11 presidents combined.
Clinton Highlights Obama's Failure One of the best records among those 11 presidents was Bill Clinton, whose tenure coincided with the creation of 22.7 million new jobs.
That's one reason why Clinton's convention speech was such a big risk for President Obama: his own record is terrible in comparison.
Clinton spoke of how Democratic presidents have historically created jobs. The unspoken comparison: unlike Barack Obama.
Clinton cited balancing the budget and welfare reform as historic bipartisan accomplishments during his presidency. But they are unlike anything in Barack Obama's record. Obama has refused to work with a Republican House. He's racked up trillions in new debt and failed to pass a budget. He forced Obamacare and the stimulus through with zero Republican support. And he has gutted welfare's work requirement (regardless of Clinton's attempt to cover for him).
To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, "I worked with Bill Clinton and Obama is no Bill Clinton."
In comparison to Clinton, Obama's record is pathetic. And in comparison to Clinton's convention speech, Obama's was a non-event.
It was practically copy and pasted from the same Obama lines we've been hearing for two years now.
A Glimpse Behind The Mask The most telling moment of the Democratic convention came as they were trying to recover from an astonishing error -- the removal of references to God and Jerusalem from the Democratic Party platform. The Democrats realized after hearing the public's outrage that they'd made a major political mistake, and tried to force the 2008 language back into the platform.
That was where things got interesting.
When Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called the vote to restore the references, he was greeted with a far louder contingent voting against than voting in favor. He asked for another vote, and again the "no's" were much louder than the "ayes." On his third try, the voices against were the loudest yet – but he concluded that in his judgment the motion had achieved a two-thirds majority and , to a chorus of boo's, declared it passed.
Callista and I were honored to have our
documentary on Ronald Reagan shown at the Republican Convention. But judging by this incident and what it revealed about the Democratic base, perhaps we should have travelled to Charlotte as well to show the delegates one of our other films:
Rediscovering God in America.
A Book About Liberals That Makes You Laugh And Think At The Same Time Mike Gallagher's new book does just that. It is called
50 Things Liberals Love to Hate, and it is smart, funny, and uses satire and wit to take apart the left.
If Jon Stewart had writers who were conservative, they'd write a book like this.
Mike Gallagher is the perfect person to write this book, because few have his lifetime experience. He's made a life study of liberals, but not in theory, and not at fancy schools. Mike's experience is the kind that matters most – real life living experience.
He spent much of his adult life living in the cauldron of liberalism, New York City. He has something few conservatives have – a SAG card (Screen Actors Guild). Mike has worked extensively on the stage (including a stint on Broadway and the national tour of "Memphis"), and has an appreciation of theater and the arts that positively confuses and confounds his liberal friends.
What did he learn about liberals while working and living with them? Here's what Gallagher says in his prologue: "I learned that they spend a whole lot of time thinking about America's faults, and how to correct them. About America's ills, and how to cure them. Liberals love to hate things most Americans love, and spend the rest of their lives endlessly trying to take those things away from us. And they are convinced they do it all because they love us."
Here are just a few of the 50 chapters, things liberals love to hate: NASCAR and Steakhouses, The Pilgrims and John Wayne, Walmart and McDonalds, conservative women and black Republicans, babies and seniors citizens, the Second Amendment and the First Amendment, the Bible and the Constitution, The South and The West, football and freeways, doctors and patients, apple pie, the V-8 engine, the military, the states, science, teachers and my favorite, algae.
I
recommend Mike's book because it does what we conservatives don't do often enough – instruct with common sense insight, real life experience, and a sense of humor. It's the kind of book you can actually give to an independent friend, and even some Democrat friends, and they'll laugh too.
I urge you to
pick up a copy or two for you and your friends.
Your friend,
Newt
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