Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Carly Fiorina: Major Leaguer
To invoke a baseball metaphor, Carly Fiorina has been called up from the minors to the major leagues. After her widely praised debate performance last week, she can expect "fastballs" to be thrown at her head, not only by some of her Republican opponents, but by Democrats. It has already started. The first pitch at Fiorina is the number of jobs lost during her tenure as the CEO of Hewlett-Packard. While some say she is technically correct that the company's income grew while she ran it, thousands of people lost their jobs, as did many others during the 1990s economic downturn in the technology industry. There is a good answer for this beyond the technical one she has been giving and it can be grafted into an argument about the need to reduce the size and cost of the federal government.
Keeping Faith at Army's Length?
How serious is President Obama about addressing the crises in his military? Not very, if his latest nomination is any indication. With the troops already fighting an internal war over recruitment and retention, the president wants to raise the stakes by appointing openly gay Eric Fanning as Army Secretary. Fanning, who conservatives remember from the Phillip Monk controversy, has spent his last several years lobbying for open transgenderism in the ranks as Air Force undersecretary and later as the defense secretary's chief of staff. His efforts paid off when both bosses, Deborah Lee James and Ash Carter, publicly supported the idea, insisting that "times change."
Obama's Faith Isn't the Issue, But...
Once again the media are hyping an issue that has nothing to do with the problems confronting this nation. Shame on them for trying to manufacture a controversy — again — about President Obama's faith. During a town hall event for Donald Trump in Rochester, New Hampshire, Thursday night, a questioner said that Obama is a Muslim and that "he's not even an American." Democrats, the media and some Republicans pounced on Trump for not condemning the questioner. For all the media's obsession over it since, you'd think Trump himself called Obama the 12th imam. They are badgering every other candidate to repudiate Trump and affirm that Obama is a wonderful Christian.
What Pope Francis Should Tell America
I, as with almost all of my fellow Catholics, am awaiting Pope Francis' arrival this week with Christmas-morning type anticipation. This relatively new pope is maybe the most popular man on the planet as he spreads the core Christian message of loving thy neighbor and caring for the least among us. He is an apostle of hope and virtue, and he comes at a perfect time when so many millions of Americans are mesmerized by such false idols as egomaniac Donald Trump. A national publication recently labeled me one of Francis' four most severe Catholic critics, along with Ken Langone, a founder of Home Depot. My critique has been over the Vatican's alliance of late with anti-Christian environmental groups on global warming and his recent encyclical letter attacking free-market capitalism — which he says leads to "poverty and income inequality."
Are Our Familiar Political Alignments Suddenly Changing?
As the 2016 presidential selection process proceeds, there is increasing evidence that the political patterns we have grown used to, that we have come to consider permanent, might be suddenly changing. Those patterns include a polarized and closely divided electorate, with partisan preferences highly correlated with degree of religiosity, with clearly defined demographic constituencies within each party and general elections decided consistently by narrow margins. With just a few exceptions, you could have forecast pretty well the state-by-state results of the 2012 presidential election from looking at the 2000 presidential elections. You could have forecast the 2010-2014 popular vote for House of Representatives by looking at that of the 1994-1998 popular vote.
Turning a Blind Eye, Muslim Mania, Poll Position
Just when you think you've heard everything, here comes an unbelievable story in the New York Times. It is a part of the culture of Afghanistan, and apparently in other parts of the Islamic world, for men to rape young boys. Decent, moral U.S. soldiers who have witnessed such atrocities reacted the way you would expect them to — they tried to stop the rapes. Unbelievably, orders were issued saying this was part of the Afghan culture and to interfere would cause ill-will toward the United States. Our soldiers were ordered to turn a blind eye to sexual child abuse. Captain Dan Quinn and Sgt. First Class Charles Martland, both Green Berets, nonetheless intervened to prevent such a rape. Quinn was relieved of his command and retired early. St. Martland is now being drummed out of the U.S. military.
John Von Kannon, R.I.P.
The modern conservative movement has lost one of its real heroes. John Von Kannon, "the Baron," has passed to a better place after a long struggle with cancer. Someone wrote that John had been battling cancer for more than a year. That's true, but as Bob Tyrrell, the longtime editor of The American Spectator and John's first boss, reminds us, John also battled cancer early in his life. In the mid-1970s, Bob and a group of us threw a party for John in New York City because he was dying of leukemia. But John managed to overcome it then, and shared with all of us another 40 years of friendship, fellowship, leadership and wise counsel.
Monday, September 21, 2015
Hearing Impaired
[Friday], in a loud and chilling statement, every Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives but five voted against a measure that protects babies born alive after a failed abortion. Thankfully, Rep. Trent Franks's Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act passed the House anyway, with unanimous Republican support. The bill makes it a criminal offense for an abortionist to allow a born alive infant to die, whether by neglect or by actively killing the child.
Opinion Polling's Heyday Has Come and Gone
*As the Republican presidential hopefuls converged for their debate at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., each was hoping to reap political advantage from the national TV exposure. But for most of the candidates who would appear on the stage, any hope of a surge was, at best, a longshot. After all, virtually every poll since the beginning of the campaign had shown the same candidate in the lead: the brash New Yorker with the multiple ex-wives and the take-no-prisoners style.*
Under Mr. Obama, Drug Law Enforcement Lapses
Like too many politicians of his generation, President Obama seems to think that proper enforcement of our nation's drug laws would be hypocritical. We know from David Maraniss' highly acclaimed biography, *Barack Obama: The Story*, that the marijuana-smoking "Choom Gang" was all too much a part of the young Obama's days at Hawaii's exclusive Punahou prep school.
Power, Even a Little, Corrupts
Let me make it perfectly clear that I think that even the notion of same-sex marriages flies in the face of nature and commonsense. Still, I do not support Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who refused to grant marriage licenses to homosexuals, who had the legal right to receive them. Unlike the bakers, photographers and wedding planners, who drew the line at servicing such events, homosexuals help pay her salary. The right that was hers was the right to resign.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
The Quiet Counter-Revolution Gets Louder: Essential Lessons for the GOP
For some years, below the surface, a quiet counter-revolution has been advancing in the base of the Republican Party and in the country in general, while the party's establishment elites in Washington have continued on with business as usual, seemingly oblivious to the unrest of the rank and file, as if fly-over red state voters could be taken for granted. This counter-revolution was conceived and undertaken to change the trajectory of America's departure from its founding principles — to bring reform to the GOP rather than to overthrow the party. In short, the hope was to reverse Republican establishment diffidence about out-of-control, unaccountable government and its attendant crony corruption.
The New Left: Envy, Resentment and Hate
Bernie Sanders is angry. Who is he angry at? Rich people. Why rich people? That's not clear. At Liberty University, Sanders complained about a small number of people who have "huge yachts, and jet planes and tens of billions" while others "are struggling to feed their families." In Madison Wisconsin, Sanders called for a "political revolution against greed."
Francis' Fact-Free Flamboyance
Pope Francis embodies sanctity but comes trailing clouds of sanctimony. With a convert's indiscriminate zeal, he embraces ideas impeccably fashionable, demonstrably false and deeply reactionary. They would devastate the poor on whose behalf he purports to speak — if his policy prescriptions were not as implausible as his social diagnoses are shrill. Supporters of Francis have bought newspaper and broadcast advertisements to disseminate some of his woolly sentiments that have the intellectual tone of fortune cookies. One example: "People occasionally forgive, but nature never does." The Vatican's majesty does not disguise the vacuity of this. Is Francis intimating that environmental damage is irreversible? He neglects what technology has accomplished regarding London's air (see Page 1 of Dickens' "Bleak House") and other matters.
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Obama's Guest List
President Obama met with Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler at the White House [Thursday]. It's about time. Skarlatos, Stone and Sadler are the American heroes who tackled a radical Islamist on a French train four weeks ago, saving scores of lives. While Obama praised their courage, his statement completely ignored the attacker's motives. Never once did the words "radical Islam" or "jihad" cross his lips. Nevertheless, it was a good a photo-op, which the White House needs given the brewing controversy with the Vatican.
The Fallacy of Anchor Babies
If a few people tell enough lies, a lot of people are sure to believe them. That is certainly the case when it comes to the 14th Amendment. When it was adopted in 1868, its clear intention was to grant citizenship to black slaves, people who were captured and brought to America against their will. In the years since, it has been twisted into a defense for granting the children of those who sneaked into the country the same rights as those born to American parents. You don't have to be a constitutional scholar to understand that nowhere else are people allowed to be the beneficiaries of criminal acts. You can no more make the legal case for anchor babies by saying that the babies didn't commit a crime than you could argue that just because the children of a bank robber didn't drive the getaway car, they get to keep the money.
Who's the Lawless One Now?
Most liberals and even some conservatives are arguing that Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis must either issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples or quit her post. Where you stand on this issue too often comes down to a case of where you stand on the question of whether same-sex nuptials are now "the law of the land" because Justice Tony Kennedy and four of his black-robed cohorts say so. Setting aside that thorny question for a moment, let's look at some *other* "law of the land" issues that are being skirted.
'Non-Political' Ellen Endorses President Hillary
Ellen DeGeneres is a comedian as well as a daytime TV star. Apparently she deployed both those talents when she said this with a straight face in January: "I don't have an agenda. I'm not here to brainwash anyone. ... The only way I'm trying to influence people is to be more kind and compassionate with one another. ... That is the message I'm sending out." In reality, Democratic politicians regularly use her program to promote themselves and their agenda. President Obama's appearance to promote Obamacare is one of countless examples. Ellen booked a big star for her first week of the fall season, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and gushed all over her about how she was the *only* choice for president.
Friday, September 18, 2015
