Columnist.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid finally appeared in a debate Oct. 14 in Las Vegas with his Republican opponent, Sharron Angle. The appearance might come as a surprise to consumers of the national media. While Angle has been pounded relentlessly by national media outlets as being both dangerously radical and ridiculous, Reid has been left alone and untouched.
A major part of the Barack Obama narrative when he ran for president was his international roots, the global sweep of his life and how much more cosmopolitan he would be as president than the pedestrian George W. Bush. So it's a little weird to watch Obama yelling from the campaign podium that foreigners are funding political commercials and stealing our elections.
America was horrified by the story that erupted in the national news that Rutgers college freshman Tyler Clementi threw himself off a bridge because his new roommate used a webcam to tape a homosexual encounter in which he'd engaged. Media outlets quickly dispatched their cavalry to find the experts to explain why America is a land of incessant bullying.
It's a topsy-turvy, upside-down political world out there for people who thought Barack Obama would be cruising at a 70 percent approval rating while crushing the Republicans like bugs. In fact, the opposite has happened. The Senate majority leader is in grave danger of involuntary retirement. Everyone in Washington concedes Nancy Pelosi is unlikely to bang the gavel in January.
Don't read Newsweek magazine while drinking a beverage. A spit take is the obvious first reaction to a column by Julia Baird headlined "The Shame of Family Films." On the Internet, this article is coded as "Why Family Films Are So Sexist."
NBC Universal is getting ridiculous with its shameless courting of President Obama. On the morning of Sept. 27, NBC's Matt Lauer interviewed Obama for a half-hour with no commercials. But it wasn't just on NBC. Their devotion to El Jefe is so transparent they aired it live on most of their other cable properties, including MSNBC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, Oxygen, Chiller, Sleuth, Universal HD and Universal Sports.
The sexual revolution always seems to have another frontier. Indeed, the very idea of a "revolution" would be negated were there no frontiers to conquer. So deeper, ever deeper, we plumb the depths. Look at television: Every new frontier is just another titillating, initially shocking plot for a fictional or "reality" show, until there's a "new normal" and the novelty and naughtiness wears off.
Jimmy Carter is out with his 26th book, so that means he is on his 26th round of slavish liberal-media interviews hailing him as a genius and a peacemaker. No wonder we're so tired of him.
There's a telling scene in the Oscar-winning movie "The Hurt Locker." After all the tension of the action out in the field, trying not to fall victim to a sniper or drive over an explosive device, the soldiers return to the base ... and play war video games. It's hard to believe this genre has such a hold on (primarily) young men.
How long ago it seems now that Barack Obama was inaugurated, and the Great Uniter championed "hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics. ... (T)he time has come to set aside childish things."
It was some 30 years ago when I first caught a Charlie Daniels concert. He was the backup to the Marshall Tucker Band at the old Capital Centre outside Washington, D.C., and that night, he stole the show. When he finished his blazing set, the audience erupted and brought him back for an encore. When the Marshall Tucker Band finished their rather good performance, it made no difference -- the capacity crowd roared for yet another performance from Charlie Daniels.
The midterm elections this fall will feature young people born in 1992 -- in other words, four years after Ronald Reagan left office. What do they know about this man? It's quite likely that many of them have been told of Reagan's firm resolve to win the Cold War. But it's also likely they haven't learned about the Reagan budget policies that led to a historic economic recovery. Instead, liberal revisionists are working overtime to assign to the Gipper's tax cut policies the blame for deficits on his watch. Given the disastrous performance of Barack Obama, it's time to give this man a serious look once again.
Children today are often so voracious and versed in the latest communications technology that they make their parents feel like Myles Standish and Betsy Ross. Three-fourths of young people between 12 and 17 now own cell phones, reports the Pew Internet and American Life Project. And get this: 87 percent of those who send text messages told researchers that they sleep with or next to their phones. Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, and one in three send more than 100, or more than 3,000 texts a month. By contrast, only 30 percent of teenagers talk on those caveman "land line" phones.
The fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina recalls a horror show on two levels. There's the actual disaster, which killed hundreds of people, and then there's the media smear job on the Bush administration and first responders. No one should forget pompous grandstanders like "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams signing off three months after the floods from the Lower Ninth Ward: "This is a neighborhood that's been left to die."
The pop-music world is turning into a caricature of shamelessness, childish and even spoiled-brattiness. To get attention quickly, some pop stars will try absolutely anything. The soul singer Cee-Lo Green has a new album coming out. How's this for art: His first desperate single is titled "F--- You."
Last week, Dr. Laura Schlessinger announced on CNN that she was hanging up her headphones at the end of the year. If she could not exercise her freedom of speech, she said, she was not interested in the job.
Ever wonder what those teenagers are listening to while wearing those iPod earphones? Maybe you'd rather not know. You will be horrified.
It was deceptive. At a White House dinner with Muslims celebrating Ramadan, Barack Obama finally weighed in on the Ground Zero mosque controversy. Incredibly, he lectured Americans about the religious freedom of Muslims "that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan."
Hugh Hefner, America's most celebrated and legendary pornographer, has less and less reason to celebrate. His Playboy magazine empire is crumbling -- he may even be bought out by competitors -- and his prototypical leering pose with girls young enough to be his great-granddaughters is now just plain creepy. His 2009 Christmas card featured 83-year-old Hefner standing between two 20-year-old twins who are his newest live-in girlfriends. Each was wearing a pink tank top with "Hef" painted on it in white. Hefner's women are forever the plastic toys under his tree.
Terence P. Jeffrey has written a new book. It is required reading for any conservative worried about, but perhaps not understanding, exactly what the Obama regime is trying to do to America. That demographic includes every conservative who hasn't yet read Jeffrey's new book.
