Columnist.
You know things are bad when you can't wait for the return of a TV character to demonstrate what resolve and leadership really look like. Yes, after a four-year hiatus, the show "24," featuring Jack Bauer (played by Kiefer Sutherland), returns May 5 to the Fox network. Bauer displays many of the traits once found in, or at least expected of, American presidents and top military leaders. He doesn't waffle or wiggle; neither does he negotiate. He wins. If you think I am about to draw a contrast between Bauer and the current president of the United States you are right. The headlines are depressing: "Obama Suffers Setbacks in Japan and the Mideast" (New York Times); "Pentagon: (Defense Secretary Chuck) Hagel's Russian Counterpart won't return his calls" (Fox News); and these two from the May issue of Commentary Magazine: "China Rises As America Weakens"; "He's Made It Worse: Obama's Middle East."
Honestly, unless you are a big government liberal, how many people think the federal government should have more power than it already exercises over its citizens? Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, 94, thinks the Constitution needs at least six amendments in order to bring the country more in line with what he believes is good for us. He outlines them in his new book, "Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution." It is a revealing look into liberal thinking and the ideological opposite of radio talk show host Mark Levin's book, "The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic." More about that in a moment.
One of the reasons our political structure has become dysfunctional no matter which party is in power is that too many of us are living in the moment. The closest we get to history is the instant replay. It is as if there is nothing the past can teach us; no wisdom that might be culled from those who have gone before. We buy guidebooks, or go online for information about countries or cities we plan to visit, trusting those who have been there to tell us the best places to stay, see and eat. When it comes to more momentous things, like health care, too many people believe government does best, regardless of historical and even contemporary evidence to the contrary.
The cult centered on "global warming" alarmism is getting hot under the collar. People seem to have stopped paying attention and polls show "climate change" barely registers on a list of voters' concerns. This can only mean, as losing politicians like to say, that their message isn't getting through. What to do? Why shout louder, of course. A recent story in The New York Times sought to help alarmists raise the decibel level: "The countries of the world have dragged their feet so long on global warming that the situation is now critical, experts appointed by the United Nations reported Sunday, and only an intensive worldwide push over the next 15 years can stave off potentially disastrous climatic changes later in the century."
Dictionary.com offers two definitions for scapegoat: "1. A person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place; 2. Chiefly biblical. A goat let loose in the wilderness on Yom Kippur after the high priest symbolically laid the sins of the people on its head. Lev. 16:8,10,26." Both definitions seem to fit last week's announcement of the "resignation" of Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, who presided over the disastrous rollout of the government's website, healthcare.gov, which was supposed to provide easy access for people who wished to sign up for Obamacare.
After his spectacular, but predictable, failure to move forward the "peace process" between Israel and the Palestinian side, Secretary of State John Kerry says the United States will now "evaluate" its role in the Middle East. Let me help: The peace process in the Middle East isn't working and it can't work when one side -- that would be the Palestinian leadership -- has no intention of settling for anything less than their ultimate goal of removing the Jewish people from the region. Kerry's cynical ploy suggesting that convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard could be released from prison in exchange for even more Israeli concessions was another indication of how desperate he is to get something -- anything -- to work.
The Fiscal Times reported last week that the State Department has missing files or incomplete files for more than $6 billion in State Department contracts. Steve Linick, State's inspector general, issued a "management alert" warning that "significant financial risk and a lack of internal control at the department has led to billions of unaccounted for dollars over the last six years." "For instance," writes the FT, "a recent investigation of the closeout process for contracts supporting the mission in Iraq, showed that auditors couldn't find 33 of the 115 contract files totaling about $2.1 billion. Of the remaining 82 files, auditors said 48 contained insufficient documents required by federal law." State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf says the $6 billion isn't missing, but that State is merely experiencing "bureaucratic issues," which it's addressing.
When people speak of a legacy, they usually mean something other than what the late economist Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose, left behind, namely the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice (edchoice.org). The foundation has just released a small book entitled "The ABC’s of School Choice: The comprehensive guide to every private school choice program in America." The Friedman philosophy can be summed up in two sentences, which are posted on their web page: "School choice gives parents the freedom to choose their children's education, while encouraging healthy competition among schools to better serve families' needs. School choice lets parents use the public funds set aside for their children's education to choose the schools -- public or private, near or far, religious or secular -- that work best for them."
It wasn't so long ago that conservative Christians believed Hollywood to be evil and some preachers instructed their congregations not to go to movies lest they be tempted beyond their ability to resist. Now Christians are debating film content. That's progress of a sort. The main complaint from critics of the film "Noah," which opened last Friday with an impressive opening day take of an estimated $44 million in ticket sales, is that it doesn't accurately reflect the rather slim biblical account in Genesis. Here's some breaking news for the critics: Noah didn't speak English, as Russell Crowe does in the film, so right there we have a departure from biblical accuracy. One should not turn to Hollywood for theological truth. In his book "Hollywood vs. America," critic Michael Medved refers to the film industry as "The Poison Factory," not the "dream factory" it likes to call itself. There is plenty of evidence -- and he includes it in his book -- to support that conclusion, but there are also many independent films being made today that act as antidotes to that poison if people seek them out, buy tickets and spread the word.
"Well, then," Jesus said, "give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God." (Mark 12:17 Living Paraphrase) When considering what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, what happens when the federal government seeks to replace God by defining "church" and when life begins to have value, the latter having been done in Roe vs. Wade and subsequent court rulings? While there are other issues in the Hobby Lobby case argued before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, these are the major ones.
My parents taught me never to speak ill of the dead, but in the case of Fred Phelps, who died last week at the age of 84, I think they would have made an exception. The man, who will be referred to in this column without the modifier "reverend," because there was nothing reverent about him, defined the word "odious." He and some of his family members constituted the entire membership of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. It was BINO, Baptist in name only. Phelps and some members of his family (though not all) picketed military funerals with signs that read, "God hates fags," "God hates Jews," and "thank God for dead soldiers." Phelps was an equal opportunity bigot.
What is it about Western leaders from Neville Chamberlain to George W. Bush who want to find good in men of bad character? Acting as if he were endowed by special insight bestowed upon no one else, President George W. Bush declared in 2001 that he had looked Vladimir Putin in the eye and "was able to get a sense of his soul." According to the Daily Caller.com, in a 2010 interview with talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, Bush, who was promoting his book "Decision Points," was asked about his ability to see into the souls of men. The former president explained, "The reason why I said that is because I remembered him talking movingly about his mother and the cross that she gave him that she said she had blessed in Jerusalem."
What happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may eventually be discovered, but there is something else that has been missing for much longer and its "disappearance" has far greater implications for America. It is our foreign policy. Can anyone say what it is? With Russia's Vladimir Putin behaving like a modern Catherine the Great in his efforts to annex Crimea and possibly all of Ukraine, what is our policy toward Russia, which is behaving increasingly like its former, supposedly dead, communist self? In a New York Times op-ed column last week, Arizona Republican Senator John McCain wrote: "...Crimea has exposed the disturbing lack of realism that has characterized our foreign policy under President Obama. ... For five years, Americans have been told that 'the tide of war is receding,' that we can pull back from the world at little cost to our interests and values. This has fed a perception that the United States is weak, and to people like Mr. Putin, weakness is provocative."
Every year we are subjected to lists. Forbe's magazine lists the world's wealthiest individuals. Time magazine lists the most "influential" people, though real influence is difficult to define or quantify. What I've never seen is a list of satisfied people, much less stories about how they attained satisfaction. Arianna Huffington is trying to fill that gap. One of the world's biggest Type A personalities, Huffington, who launched The Huffington Post in 2005 and whose picture appears alongside celebrities, politicians and business icons, is now asking a question popularized in an old song by the late Peggy Lee: "Is that all there is?"
The first "people" I recognized on arriving at last week's Conservative Political Action Committee gathering just outside Washington were two "stormtroopers" and a Wookiee from the 1977 film "Star Wars." Some of the speeches also expressed sentiments from the past, though not as cleverly as those in costume: Obama is a bad president, even a bad man. America looks weak before the world. Government is too big and taxes too high. "The Force" seemed to have left the building, or perhaps it never arrived. Perhaps the most interesting speaker was the outgoing governor of Texas, Rick Perry, who has experienced a minor makeover. Those dark-rimmed glasses he now wears give him a more serious appearance. Perry also seems to have taken a crash course in public speaking because he revealed a passion that was lacking in his brief 2012 presidential campaign.
The Obama administration is showing it can be tough on foreign policy. Unfortunately, that toughness is not directed at Russia and its incursion into Crimea, but at Israel, America's ally. In an interview with President Obama, prior to the Washington arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg.com writes that the president planned to tell Netanyahu "that his country could face a bleak future -- one of international isolation and demographic disaster -- if he refuses to endorse a U.S.-drafted framework agreement for peace with the Palestinians." Goldberg adds, "Obama will warn Netanyahu that time is running out for Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy."
In Arizona has come a test of the motto conservative Christians like to invoke: "Hate the sin, love the sinner." Republican Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed the "religious freedom bill" passed by the Republican legislature. While there is no mention in the bill of same-sex marriage, or even homosexuals, most people believe same-sex marriage and homosexuals were the targets of the proposed law. Proponents asserted Senate Bill 1062 was written to protect the "free exercise of religion" for businesses and their employees. U.S. citizens already enjoy that protection under the First Amendment, but the bill's backers believed that further protections were needed due to the aggressive posture taken by many gay rights advocates pushing for legal and societal approval of same-sex marriage.
What you think of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) depends on who you believe. Is the freshman senator on an "ego trip," putting himself before country (Dana Milbank, The Washington Post), or is he standing on his principles (Cruz's conservative supporters)? ABC chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl says Cruz is "so hated" among GOP senators that "he's going to need a food taster."
After much criticism from conservative quarters, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has decided, at least for now, to withdraw plans for its proposed study of how media organizations gather and report news. The expressed goal of the survey was to determine if the "critical information needs" of the public are being met. In making the announcement on Friday, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler indicated the survey would be "revised" and that the government agency had "no intention" of regulating political speech of journalists or other broadcasters. You couldn't prove that from reading the initial study.
Kathleen Willey is back. For people who have forgotten, she is the former volunteer aide to President Bill Clinton who claims he sexually harassed her 20 years ago. She wrote a book about it called "Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton." What, you say you didn't read it? Neither, it seems, did most of America, which long ago yawned at Bill Clinton's exploits and Hillary's apparent enabling of his extramarital liaisons. Willey is telling anyone who will listen that "Hillary Clinton is the real war on women" because of the way she treated her and the other women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment. Remember "bimbo eruptions," a term coined by Clinton aide Betsey Wright, who was charged with monitoring them and then discrediting accusers?
