Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
After Reagan Comes Trump?
Norman Podhoretz, the former longtime editor of Commentary Magazine, is no longer an Inadvertent Conservative for Hillary, or ICH. He is voting for Donald Trump for president. The prospect of Clinton in the White House is too grisly for Podhoretz. It probably also is for his wife, Midge Decter, the gifted essayist. Both are reasonable neoconservatives, which is to say erstwhile liberals who moved over to conservatism sometime in the 1970s. I have known them for years. In the late 1970s they made a similar calculation. They were two of only four neoconservatives to attend a dinner I held for the Republican candidate for president. That would be Ronald Reagan. (For those millennials in my audience, Reagan was elected president in 1980, and he did pretty well for a guy over 30.) Other neocons would not attend the dinner. Even Irving Kristol would not attend.
Putin’s Post-Factual Politics
Documents inconvenient to the regime went into the Ministry of Truth’s slits and down to “enormous furnaces.” Modern tyrannies depend on state control of national memories — retroactive truths established by government fiat. Which is why Russia’s Supreme Court recently upheld the conviction of a blogger for violating Article 354.1 of Russia’s criminal code. This May 2014 provision criminalizes the “Rehabilitation of Nazism.” The blogger’s crime was to write: “The communists and Germany jointly invaded Poland, sparking off the Second World War.” The secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact have gone down one of Vladimir Putin’s memory holes.
The Legacies of Barack Obama
On his recent Asian tour, President Obama characterized his fellow Americans (the most productive workers in the world) as “lazy.” In fact, he went on to deride Americans for a list of supposed transgressions ranging from the Vietnam War to environmental desecration to the 19th century treatment of Native Americans. “If you’re in the United States,” the president said, “sometimes you can feel lazy and think we’re so big we don’t have to really know anything about other people.” The attack on supposedly insular Americans was somewhat bizarre, given that Obama himself knows no foreign languages. He often seems confused about even basic world geography. (His birthplace of Hawaii is not “Asia,” Austrians do not speak “Austrian,” and the Falkland Islands are not the Maldives).
Congenital Liar
In 1996, The New York Times columnist William Safire diagnosed Hillary Clinton’s real problem. He called her a “congenital liar.” Congenital is defined as “having by nature a specified character.” Following Hillary Clinton’s health scare Sunday in New York, we may have reached the conclusion author Mary McCarthy did when speaking of playwright Lillian Hellman: “Every word [Hellman] writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.” A person’s character is a clue to the entire person and both Clintons have displayed over many years severe character deficiencies. Abraham Lincoln said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
Congress to Embrace Its Favorite Pastime, Kicking the Can
Election cycles can be unfriendly to serious policy debates on critical issues, such as Washington’s ongoing addiction to excessive government spending and debt. The circus of this election cycle has been particularly devoid of serious discussion on this paramount problem. We see minimal concern that deficits are growing again, no serious solutions being offered to control the exploding federal debt and a failure to recognize the overdue need to rein in the government’s major entitlement programs. Instead, members of Congress from both parties are hoping to avoid yet another last-minute tussle over the annual federal budget process so they can focus on November’s high-stakes elections.
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
What if Hillary Collapsed After Winning the Election?
“Concealing one’s true medical condition from the voting public,” the historian Robert Dallek wrote in a 2002 essay, “is a time-honored tradition of the American presidency.” During the presidential campaign of 1960, John F. Kennedy went to extreme lengths to hide from voters any hint of his severe medical problems, which ranged from Addison’s disease to crippling spinal degeneration. By comparison, Hillary Clinton’s recent dissembling over pneumonia and fainting spells is small potatoes. Kennedy’s deception succeeded not only because disclosure standards were so different in his time — public figures were accorded far more privacy than they are now — but also because he was a young man, just 42 when he ran for president. Candidates today can’t expect to keep their medical problems secret, especially not candidates as old as Clinton (almost 69) and Donald Trump (70). Last month, the Clinton campaign snorted that Republicans questioning her health were peddling “deranged conspiracy theories.” That won’t fly anymore.
Time: Best Friend or Worst Enemy?
1... 24... 168... 8,760. You might be wondering what the above numbers have in common? Or perhaps what they even have to do with you? Of course, you may have also already figured them out. The truth is, the above numbers apply to all of us equally. Over the next 60 minutes, one hour will tick away. This time tomorrow, 24 hours will have passed. One week from now, 168 hours will have come and gone. And this time next year, 8,760 hours will be in the books. So big deal, right? The same has held true since the beginning of time. Some might say time is neutral. That it is neither good or bad. Neither friend or foe. I say differently. Time is either your best friend or worst enemy.
A 9/11 Story: How Hope Found Redemption One Tuesday Morning
My friend Karen Kingsbury, the New York Times best-selling author, sent me the most wonderful suggestion for a story the other day. It’s about a woman named Hope Painter from Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and her nine-year old son, Kingston. Hope was in Lower Manhattan on that fateful Tuesday morning 15 years ago. She was being evacuated when the second plane hit the World Trade Center towers. She saw things — unspeakable things — that caused her unimaginable trauma. The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months yet Hope was unable to escape from the memories of September 11, 2001. Years later, someone gave her a copy of Karen’s novel about the events of that day, called “One Tuesday Morning.” It’s a story about sacrifice and redemption.
BDS: Anti-Israel and Anti-American
A recent event I attended on Capitol Hill opened my eyes. It was hosted by the Endowment for Middle East Truth and the subject was “Exposing BDS: The Movement That Seeks to Destroy Israel.” BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. It is a movement trying to conduct economic warfare against the state of Israel by encouraging, through these actions, severing global economic relations with the Jewish state. Among the many miracles surrounding the re-birth of the state of Israel 68 years ago is the economic growth that has occurred there. From swamps and desert, Israelis created a modern country with per capital income on par with modern Western industrialized nations. Several years ago, Israel was welcomed as a member of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. Its membership consists of 35 nations with the world’s most advanced economies.
Ripple Effect
Yesterday I mentioned that Hillary’s weekend health scare was leading to some whispers among Democrats about the possibility of finding a new nominee. It didn’t take long before those whispers became audible. Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler yesterday called for Plan B. Stressing the urgency of the situation, Fowler said, “I think the plan should be developed by 6 o’clock this afternoon. . . It’s something you would be a fool not to prepare for.” Fowler added that Clinton had better get some rest “because if she gets back out there too soon, it might happen again.”
CNN’s Deplorable Smear of Pence
The CNN screen graphic at 6 p.m. on Sept. 12 was blunt: “PENCE REFUSED TO CALL DAVID DUKE ‘DEPLORABLE.’” Donald Trump running mate Mike Pence had granted Wolf Blitzer a 30-minute interview, and what he received in return was a reckless leftist smear. Let’s be clear about this interview. Blitzer offered 39 hostile questions or interjections about Trump’s tax returns, medical records and charities, and made offensive remarks before asking a single question about policy. In the middle of this contentious exchange, Blitzer arrived at Hillary Clinton’s recent gaffe of calling Trump backers a “basket of deplorables.” Blitzer obnoxiously underlined that some Trump backers were truly deplorable: “David Duke, for example, (and) some other white nationalists, (would) fit into that category of deplorables. Right?”
Zika and You Shall Find
Funding America’s Zika response is turning out to be peskier than the mosquitos Congress is fighting! With Hill leaders chomping at the bit to get back to their districts and campaign, the House and Senate are trying to race through crises like the virus and end-of-year spending. But, if there’s anything we know about a divided Congress, nothing is easy. And the latest clash over the federal budget is no exception. Once again, members are so busy trying to keep their jobs that they’re neglecting to do them.
Mulan vs. the Diversity-Mongers
Let’s get down to business. The casting kerfuffle over Disney’s live-action remake of the 1998 animated hit “Mulan” brings honor to none. It’s a politically correct tempest in a Chinese teapot. More than 90,000 angry activists have now signed a petition “to tell Disney that we demand to see them cast an Asian Mulan.” The lead instigator, Michigan children’s librarian Natalie Molnar, vented against the practice of “whitewashing” — that is, employing “white Caucasian actors and actresses in roles originally meant to be characters of color.” Extreme racial and ethnic bean-counting is necessary, even in the remake of a cartoon, the petitioners argue, because “children benefit from finding themselves represented in fiction.” Skin color-based casting entitlements and quotas: “for the children.” Of course.
Stop Big Government, Seek Bigger Growth
Seventeen years ago, near the close of the 20th century, the typical American household had a higher income than it did in 2015. The Census Bureau’s annual report on income and poverty in the United States, released this week, did not focus on that fact. But it did note that real median household income was higher in 2015 than in 2014. “Median household income was $56,516 in 2015, an increase in real terms of 5.2 percent from the 2014 median of $53,718,” the report said in its “Highlights” section. “This is the first annual increase in median household income since 2007, the year before the most recent recession,” the report said. In 2007 — nine years ago — real median household income (in constant 2015 dollars) was $57,423, according to Table A-1 in the report. America has not gotten back there yet.
Sausage Party Politics
Seth Rogen, co-writer, co-producer and co-star of the animated comedy “Sausage Party,” is unhappy with me — for defending him. His movie was attacked by some online commentators for using ethnic and sexual stereotypes, as cartoons often do. What was remarkable is how incensed some people get over a cartoon, even one about talking food. A reviewer for a site called Autostraddle at first praised the movie, including its depiction of a talking lesbian taco voiced by Salma Hayek. But then the site replaced the review with a 2,600-word apology. Autostraddle calls itself a “progressively feminist online community for a new generation of kickass lesbian, bisexual & otherwise inclined ladies.” Its endless apology said, “After we received feedback about (the “Sausage Party” review) from our Trans Editor (and others including Facebook commenters), we decided to un-publish the piece.”
Hillary Clinton Sees Her Own Voters as the 47 Percent
How many times must the left tell Americans what it thinks of them before Americans realize a simple fact: Leftist leaders simply don’t like half the country? In 2012, the media lost its mind over former Gov. Mitt Romney’s statement that 47 percent of Americans “who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them” would vote for President Obama. This apparently demonstrated that Romney hates everyday Americans. Disdains them. Sees them as moochers. In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama claimed that small-town Americans in the Midwest are benighted hicks. “It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” he said. This received attention from the conservative press, but was downplayed by the mainstream media, or brushed off as accurate.
Academic Giants and Dwarfs
The University of Chicago’s president, Dr. Robert J. Zimmer, wrote a Wall Street Journal article, titled “Free Speech Is the Basis of a True Education.” In it, he wrote: “Free speech is at risk at the very institution where it should be assured: the university. Invited speakers are disinvited because a segment of a university community deems them offensive, while other orators are shouted down for similar reasons. Demands are made to eliminate readings that might make some students uncomfortable. Individuals are forced to apologize for expressing views that conflict with prevailing perceptions. In many cases, these efforts have been supported by university administrators.” Sharing the president’s vision, the University of Chicago’s dean of students, John Ellison, sent a letter to freshmen students that read, in part: “Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”
Election Year Books
Election year politics generates much rhetoric and confusion. And the media often adds its spin. But, fortunately, there are some books around that deal with reality and can cut through the nonsense. Most of these books were not written during this election year, but what they presented can be very eye-opening on the issues raised by politicians this year. If you are concerned about issues involved when some people want to expand the welfare state and others want to contract it, then one of the most relevant and insightful books is “Life at the Bottom” by Theodore Dalrymple. It was not written this year and is not even about the United States, much less our current presidential or other candidates.
Hillary’s Health Is a Valid Issue
One of the most amusing spectacles of this election season has been the whipsawing of the loyalists. Repeatedly, spinners for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been sent out to hammer this or that talking point, only to be left holding the bag when the candidate goes another way. So far, Trump has been narrowly ahead in this important competition. But after Sunday, Clinton may have taken the lead. For weeks, the official position of the chattering classes was that any inquiry into Clinton’s health was “sexist.” As Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Sept. 2, “I have seen her personally. You’ve seen her personally, Andrea. She is in shape. She is strong. She just has a ton of energy. And I find this actually quite sexist when these guys are saying this. I think that that is not an issue at all and the American voters know that.”
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
What’s Deplorable Is Hillary’s Basket of Grossly Generalistic Rhetoric
Hillary Clinton exposed her true nature Friday night at the LGBT for Hillary Gala, launching into a hateful smear against Donald Trump supporters. “To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables. Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.” The only thing deplorable was Hillary Clinton’s basket of grossly generalistic comments. “And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up,” she went on to smear. “He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.” Hillary seems to think she can win the White House by insulting millions of God-fearing, patriotic Americans.