David B. Levenstam
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On the article Rep. Gerry Connolly Calls VP Pick Ryan an ‘Amicable Radical’
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On the article Rep. Gerry Connolly Calls VP Pick Ryan an ‘Amicable Radical’

David B. Levenstam
3:13 pm on Tuesday, August 28, 2012
The baseline budget called for an increase of $155 billion. Ryan originally promised a "cut" of $100 billion, meaning an increase of only $55 billion. By the time Ryan was done compromising with Democrats, his "cut" of $100 billion turned into only $12 to $35 billion (depending on who was doing the scoring), meaning an increase of $120 billion to $140 billion. There's nothing radical about that sort of mushy moderate smaller increase budget.
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On the article Rep. Gerry Connolly Calls VP Pick Ryan an ‘Amicable Radical’
David B. Levenstam
2:38 pm on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
ReplyMark, you've insulted people on this thread, so spare us your outraged hypocrisy. You weren't man enough to apologize for your hypocrisy and personal attacks, so talking to you is a waste of time.
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On the article Rep. Gerry Connolly Calls VP Pick Ryan an ‘Amicable Radical’

David B. Levenstam
10:44 am on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
You seem a bit slow today, Mark. I just did to you what you were doing to conservatives here. As for expecting an apology, I didn't. I suspected you'd attack me again like you did, but I wanted to give you a chance to repudiate your bad behavior and be a mensch.
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On the article Rep. Gerry Connolly Calls VP Pick Ryan an ‘Amicable Radical’

David B. Levenstam
9:25 am on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Hi Don! Good catch on the "racial" instead of "radical." We all belong to one race or another, so I guess everything is racial in a way. :-D
Seriously though, I think you're right about Mark. I'd like to believe that beneath that posturing first one way and then another, under the hypocrisy and media-parroting, that there's a decent guy.
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On the article Rep. Gerry Connolly Calls VP Pick Ryan an ‘Amicable Radical’

David B. Levenstam
9:22 am on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Don, do you know if 242 is their record? We only have 60-some on this article. :-D
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On the article Rep. Gerry Connolly Calls VP Pick Ryan an ‘Amicable Radical’

David B. Levenstam
9:20 am on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Abigail, it's funny too that anyone who supports Obama would even utter the word "inexperienced"--not with a straight face, anyway. :-)
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On the article Rep. Gerry Connolly Calls VP Pick Ryan an ‘Amicable Radical’

David B. Levenstam
9:19 am on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Thanks, Don! Being a conservative in academia I've heard more than my share of leftist Rand-bashing. It's funny too because my of my best friends going all the way back to high school went on a Rand/Objectivist kick and I used to tease him (gently) about it. He has a good sense of humor, fortunately, so he would joke about getting together with his Objectivist group and handing out pamphlets at the airport to Hare Krishnas. :-D
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On the article Rep. Gerry Connolly Calls VP Pick Ryan an ‘Amicable Radical’

David B. Levenstam
8:27 am on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Good point, Don. The DC suburbs are the most affluent counties on the country because of the presence of so many highly-compensated federal bureaucrats--virtually all of whom vote Democrat.
Back in the 1980s when I was at the University of Colorado (Denver) we had a couple of Cadillac Marxists in the economics department. It was funny to hear them spew Marxist class rhetoric as they drove cars too expensive for me to afford. These days though the Cadillac is passé and the local leftist can afford much better, so your term "Lexus leftists" is even more apt.
Another item that marks Carollla's prejudices as leftist is his obsession with whether someone ever said something good about Ayn Rand. Rand has long been the libertarian leftist love to hate--ironically, since Rand herself denigrated libertarians as anarchists with their heads in the sand while supporting the Cold War against communism (which they opposed). Rand tended to get nasty about her opponents, like the leftists and unlike the old country club mushy moderate Republicans, which is part of why they developed such a hatred for her--that and the fact that she pointed out that Big Government allowed, rather than rule by Plato's enlightened philosopher king (scratch a leftist and you'll find a wanna-be enlightened philosopher king), rule by the mediocre. They hated her puncturing their inflated self-image, and apparently, even decades after her death, still can't forgive her for it. :-D
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On the article Rep. Gerry Connolly Calls VP Pick Ryan an ‘Amicable Radical’
David B. Levenstam
7:51 am on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
ReplyHey, I wonder if the Patch gets to charge higher advertising rates the more comments that it gets. Comments suggest readership, and typically showing higher readership allows a paper to charge higher advertising rates. :-D
David B. Levenstam
3:15 pm on Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Just Joe is right--Obama can't run on his Great Recession record so he has to fall back on the tired old liberal canard that if you don't agree with explosive increases in spending, you're a racist. The Democrats of course are the real racists as they believe that blacks can't survive without explosive increases in federal spending.