Conservatives Must 'Obstruct and Delay' Obama: Kristol

The “day of reckoning” has come for Republicans, writes William Kristol in the Washington Post. On Tuesday, President Obama delivered “the most unabashedly liberal and big-government speech” since Lyndon Johnson, and seems poised to undo the whole Reagan agenda. “Conservatives can’t win politically right now,” says Kristol. Their only hope is to “find reasons to obstruct and delay” Obama’s agenda.

Republicans “can’t allow Obama to make of 2009 what Franklin Roosevelt made of 1933 or Johnson of 1965,” Kristol argues. If they can raise doubts, pick their battles, and break Obama’s momentum, they can get a fair hearing for arguments against “big government, liberal-nanny-state social engineering.” Otherwise, they’ll be “reduced to the unpleasant role of bystanders or the unattractive status of complainers, as Barack Obama makes history.” (More William Kristol stories.)