-By Warner Todd Huston
Once again I am attending the Conservative Political Action Conference here in Washington D.C.–well, not D.C. exactly but outside the city in National Harbor, Maryland, a 20 minute drive from downtown.
The morning started off with Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, U.S. Representative Allen West, and Senator Pat Toomey and a few others.
CPAC’s early group discussion on Thursday was all about cultural diversity with a panel titled “Respecting families and the rule of law: a lasting immigration policy.” This panel addressed the thorny issue of the conservative position on the current problems over immigration, illegal or otherwise.
You can catch video of many of these speeches at the CPAC website. And during the event, see the live feed below.
CPAC Live Feed
Live Video app for Facebook by Ustream
This year is very different for me because this year all media, new and old, is considered just plain ‘ol media. This is different than in years past when the bloggers had a sponsored room for them to use.
The drawback is that I no longer have the exclusive access to the CPAC speakers, politicians and guests as I’ve had in years past. And, as you might expect, the conservative politicians and speakers aren’t too keen to come into the nest of regular, left-wing media folks and offer themselves for interviews!
And left wing they are. I sat among the Old Media all day today and heard a lot of huffing and puffing and conversations denigrating the speakers It was quite amusing to sit there listening to them scoff as all the while they were ignorant that I was a Breitbart writer.
As the evening ended, I attended BlogBash hosted with the help of Representative Tom Price, and the folks at the NRCC and NRSC.
We all gave a salute to the dearly departed Andrew Breitbart and got a surprise visit by Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
The Capitol on a clear and beautiful Wednesday afternoon.
Larry Solov of Breitbart News about to raise a toast to the memory of Andrew Breitbart
Texas Senator Ted Cruz addresses BlogBash
Finally, I want to relay some interesting tidbits from the private meeting I had with several GOP Congressmen and staffers on Wednesday evening. I can’t tell you the names of these elected officials because it was all on background. But I can tell you a bit about that Wednesday late afternoon meeting that the Republicans and President Obama had on the budget.
First of all, every member of Congress I spoke to said that they could tell that Obama was not in the least bit serious about working with them to solve the sequester problem in particular or the budget in general.
These Representatives said that Obama merely came to them with the same stump speech, the exact same campaign speech he’d been giving earlier that day to media outlets.
The biggest joke of the night was the so-called Q&A period. Only some five or so questions were allowed and none of them were spontaneous, all having been submitted ahead of time.
One good exchange did occur between the President and Congressman Peter Roskam of Illinois’ 6th District. (Roskam is the Chief Deputy Whip and the number three Republican in the House.)
Roskam reminded those gathered that the President comes from one of the worst states in the union in just about every way measurable and when they all hear him talking about solving the budget problems, he’s coming from the failed Chicago way.
“When they hear the president talking about how he approaches the economy, they fear he’s leading in the same direction Illinois is now,” Roskam said to the President. “Pursuing revenues, not dealing with the underlying spending problems. Higher than average unemployment. What they hear is avoidance behavior.”
This President has failed miserably to address this nation’s budget problems and just demanding tax hikes when the economy is still at its bottom is simply no solution.
The Representatives in our Wednesday evening meeting all said to a person that the President did not offer any serious solutions in thir meeting.
(Roskam was not in our private meeting Wednesday night, by the way, just to note that clearly.)
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.