Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, May 1, 2015
A Thug by Any Other Name
For most Americans, including President Barack Obama, the term "thug" seemed an appropriate appellation for the rioters who destroyed businesses, homes and other property in Baltimore this week. Now liberals are crying foul. The Baltimore Sun has editorialized, "Having city leaders apply it to the high school students and others who rioted throughout Baltimore tells the offenders that they weren't just wrong in what they did, but that they're also worthless because of it — something too many people already believe." Baltimore's mayor, after initially using the term, apologized on Twitter: "That night we saw misguided young people who need to be held accountable, but who also need support. And my comments then didn't convey that." Several commentators have likened the use of the term to the N-word.
Of Course Democrats Deserve the Blame for What's Happening in Baltimore
If a person happens to point out that Baltimore's criminally inept government has been run exclusively by Democrats since 1967 (with one Republican mayor since 1947) and features not a single city councilor who isn't a liberal, he may be called a lazy apparatchik. Because not everything, you see, is reducible to mere party politics. Now, if an economic renaissance sparked by the progressive policies of Stephanie Rawlings-Blake had lifted Baltimore from poverty, I imagine Democrats would be eager to claim credit for the accomplishment. Entire political debates are predicated on the effectiveness of partisan ideas. We blame presidents for recessions they probably have little to do with, yet according to liberal pundits, the party overseeing a city riddled with poverty, failing schools, high crime rates and racial tension bears no responsibility for what's happening.
Men Wielding Power in Hellish Times
"Wolf Hall," the Man Booker Prize-winning historical novel about the court of Henry VIII — and most dramatically, the conflict between Thomas Cromwell and Sir Thomas More — is now a TV series (presented on PBS). It is maddeningly good. Maddening because its history is tendentiously distorted, yet the drama is so brilliantly conceived and executed that you almost don't care. Faced with an imaginative creation of such brooding, gripping, mordant intensity, you find yourself ready to pay for it in historical inaccuracy. And "Wolf Hall's" revisionism is breathtaking. It inverts the conventional view of the saintly More being undone by the corrupt, amoral, serpentine Cromwell, the king's chief minister. This is fiction as polemic. Author Hilary Mantel, an ex- and anti-Catholic ("the Catholic Church is not an institution for respectable people"), has set out to rehabilitate Cromwell and defenestrate More, most especially the More of Robert Bolt's beautiful and hagiographic "A Man for All Seasons."
Liberals Do Themselves No Favor by Denying Their Ideology
For the last 20 years, give or take another 50, one of the most cherished baubles of Beltway conventional wisdom has been that the Republican Party has moved too far to the right. We'll come back to that in a moment. Another beloved trinket in the nest of notions that make up elite groupthink is that liberals not only haven't moved left, but they aren't even liberals at all. A week doesn't go by without Barack Obama insisting that he's merely a pragmatist and problem-solver, with nary an ideological ax to grind. Shortly after he was re-elected, Obama told David Gregory, then the host of "Meet the Press," the obvious takeaway of his presidency is that, "I'm not driven by some ideological agenda. I'm a pretty practical guy and I just want to make sure that things work."
Joan Walsh Does Not Think for Me
I read an opinion piece this week by liberal writer Joan Walsh decrying the presumed jubilation of "white America" and the media over a mother's public spanking of her son for participating in the Baltimore riots. Walsh quotes the mother, Toya Graham, as acknowledging that she "just lost it" when she saw her son on camera and went into action to get him off the streets. Walsh writes: "Her moment of losing it made her a hero to much of white America — and not just to the right. Coast to coast, the media is hyping Graham as 'Hero Mom' and her on-camera beating as 'Tough Love.'" She calls it "heartbreaking." Walsh continues, "Anyone white who's applauding Graham's moment of desperation, along with the white media figures who are hyping her 'heroism,' is essentially justifying police brutality, and saying the only way to control black kids is to beat the s--- out of them." Hysteria much, Ms. Walsh?
America's Politics Is Polarized, but Britain's Is Fragmented
Next week, Britain votes in its first general election in five years. Some aspects of its politics will be familiar to Americans. Polls show voters are dissatisfied with politicians of both parties, cynical about whether they will keep their promises and closely divided between two major parties, which have been in existence for more than 100 years. But there are differences as well, in contrast to decades when British and American politics seemed to move in tandem — the 1980s of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the 1990s of Bill Clinton's New Democrats and Tony Blair's New Labour. The most vivid difference is that while American party politics is increasingly polarized, British party politics is increasingly fragmented. Americans, even if they like to say they're politically independent, increasingly vote faithfully for one party or the other. Many don't think kindly of those who vote the other way.
Thursday, April 30, 2015
What Stands in Lindsey Graham's Way
Lindsey Graham once said his road to Congress ran through a coronary clinic because it involves so many South Carolina barbecues. Today, as a senator, he thinks he sees a path to the Republican presidential nomination. He has many strengths, but two substantial problems. Two clarifying issues efficiently reveal who actually is conservative and underscore two of Hillary Clinton's vulnerabilities. They are the U.S. attack on Libya, and her attack on freedom of political speech. Secretary of State Clinton helped initiate a protracted assassination attempt — eight months of chasing Moammar Gaddafi with fighter-bombers. This exercise in regime change succeeded in decapitating Libya's government. It was, however, progressive imperialism, supposedly humanitarian muscularity untainted by any clear and substantial U.S. national interest. Hence its appeal to a liberal administration, which neglected to ask the question conservatives have learned to ask before going abroad in search of monsters to destroy: "But then what?"
Until the Court Do Us Part?
In 2-1/2 hours of oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday, Justice Anthony Kennedy asked the right question: whether it is appropriate for the Court to discard a definition of marriage that "has been with us for millennia," adding, "it's very difficult for the court to say, 'Oh, well, we know better.' " Kennedy, who is regarded as the swing vote on this and many other controversial issues, may not answer his own question the way proponents of traditional marriage wish, but the question is not rhetorical. Should this court, or any court, re-define and force the states to accept a new definition of marriage that will not only affect same-sex couples, but open the door to other petitioners, for example, polygamists, who wish to "marry" more than one person? If human history, tradition, the Bible, the Constitution and biology are to be ignored or re-defined, on what basis do courts say "no" to anything? If "equality" and "fairness" are the new standard, one might as well have no standard at all because such emotional appeals could justify any relationship or form of behavior.
Man on Admission: Verrilli Reveals Taxing Truth
The biggest news from [Tuesday's] Supreme Court arguments isn't news at all to conservatives: Same-sex "marriage" is a threat to religious freedom. For once, that revelation didn't come from one of the lawyers on our side but from the Obama administration's own attorney. In a rare moment of candor, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli sent a clear signal on where this debate is headed, and it isn't to the marriage altar. As the President's chief attorney made stunningly clear, redefining marriage is — and has never been — the end goal of homosexuals. Silencing dissent is. And you can't silence dissent without punishing speech and belief — which is apparently what the government has in mind if the Court rules in the Left's favor.
An Ironic Drought in California
The present four-year California drought is not novel — even if President Barack Obama and California Gov. Jerry Brown have blamed it on man-made climate change. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, California droughts are both age-old and common. Predictable California dry spells — like those of 1929-34, 1976-77 and 1987-92 — more likely result from poorly understood but temporary changes in atmospheric pressures and ocean temperatures. What is new is that the state has never had 40 million residents during a drought — well over 10 million more than during the last dry spell in the early 1990s. Much of the growth is due to massive and recent immigration. A record one in four current Californians was not born in the United States, according to the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. Whatever one's view on immigration, it is ironic to encourage millions of newcomers to settle in the state without first making commensurately liberal investments for them in water supplies and infrastructure.
MSNBC Police Brutality Experts Are Incredible — Not in a Good Way
It's beginning to look as if the Democratic Party can't whip African-Americans into an anti-white frenzy to turn out on Election Day, and then say, "OK, thanks, guys! That's all we need." How else do liberals explain the upsurge in racial unrest since Obama became president? Why would white racism — their view — latent for the previous 15 years, burst forth meteorically just as the country elected its first black president? Did we elect this bumbling incompetent, then suddenly remember that we're racists? I have an explanation! It's subtly alluded to in the title of my book, "Mugged: Racial Demagoguery From the Seventies to Obama." What's theirs?
Tell People They're Victims — They'll Act Like Victims
In watching Baltimore burn, "progressives" run out of scapegoats. Over a week ago, a black man named Freddie Gray died after being arrested by police. Videotape shows Gray being dragged into a police van. Within a less than half an hour, his spine was somehow severed and he died seven days later. Did an officer or the officers intentionally or inadvertently cause the injury? Did the vehicle suddenly stop, causing a possibly untethered or poorly tethered suspect/passenger to break his neck? Why was Gray stopped in the first place? Given that he ran from the police, did this provide a basis for pursuit, search and arrest? Does this not underscore the importance of police body cams and car-dash cams? These are, of course, legitimate questions. And, in addition to the Baltimore police investigation, the Department of Justice announced that it, too, would examine the circumstances surrounding Gray's death.
Another Cover-Up for the Religion of Peace
Turkey's President Recep Erdogan, one of President Obama's new best friends along with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, was extremely unhappy last week as truth — tellers worldwide observed the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian genocide. By the time the killing concluded an estimated 1.5 million Armenians lay dead in Turkey, killed by soldiers serving the Ottoman Empire. One could accurately describe President Erdogan as a genocide denier. He claims the death toll is wildly exaggerated. What's more, according to him, there was nothing organized about the deaths. It was a time of civil war and unrest that just happened to be fatal to Armenians. Maybe they hadn't had their shots.
Holder’s Corrupt Legacy Lives on in Loretta Lynch
The lawless Attorney General’s perfect successor.
Can a One-Percenter Lead the Democrats?
Does it strike you as an indication of a political party's robust vitality that in a country of more than 300 million people that party has just one likely nominee for president? Notwithstanding the fact that she has at her disposal nearly a billion dollars, she is 67 years old and stands accused of committing at least one felony. What country are we talking about, the old USSR? No, we are talking about the contemporary U.S. of A. This is the condition in which the Democratic Party now finds itself, and it calls itself the party of youthful vigor. After Hillary Rodham Clinton, the next two candidates in line for her party's presidential nomination are 72-year-old Vice President, Joe Biden (ha-ha!), and a 65-year-old senator from Massachusetts whose Native-American heritage is widely viewed to be an opportunistic fiction and in some quarters a pretty good joke. After that there is a 73-year-old Socialist by the name of Bernie Sanders and the ex-governor of Maryland who benefits from being only 52 years of age — though last weekend, Baltimore, the city which he earlier presided over as mayor, erupted in racial rioting because of a police department whose strategies for policing are widely held to be brutal and devised by him.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Defending Traditional Marriage
This is a battle about redefining the values of our nation's culture and, hence, redefining our nation itself.
Courting for Marriage: Left Tries to Woo SCOTUS
Thousands of years of human history cannot be overruled by three hours of debate before nine imperfect people. But [...] that is the best liberals can hope for in the race to upend nature's law— and nature's God. Outside the U.S. Supreme Court, where the future of civilization was on trial, people from both sides of the marriage debate soaked in the sun while inside clouds gathered over the question that's shadowed America for the last 11 years: does the court have a right to force same-sex "marriage" on every state in the union? Two years ago, these same justices argued no. It was wrong, Anthony Kennedy warned, for courts to "put a thumb on the scales and influence a state's decision as to how to shape its own marriage laws." Now, a vocal minority is asking these nine justices to put — not just a thumb, but the body of America's highest court on the scales, toppling 240 years of self-governance. If they concede, burying the nation's democratic heritage under an avalanche of judicial activism, states' rights are forever at risk.
Obama's Bucket of Contempt
Liberals still glow when they talk about comedian Stephen Colbert ripping into President Bush at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2006. He told Bush they were alike. "We're not some brainiacs on the nerd patrol," Colbert announced. "I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the 'No Fact Zone.'" Nothing like that has happened to President Obama at these dinners. At this late date in Obama's tenure, the process seems entrenched: They giddily await his performance and when it's over, salivate over it. It's rather embarrassing, actually. This year's guest comedian, Cecily Strong (from "Saturday Night Live") announced ahead of time that she thought Obama was "an amazingly funny guy" and "maybe our funniest president." She adored Colbert's anti-Bush routine as "the coolest thing I have ever seen done." But she promised she'd say nothing "mean."
Give Every Child in Baltimore a $17,329 School-Choice Voucher
"The education system has failed them." That is part of the explanation that Billy Murphy, a lawyer representing the family of Freddie Gray — who died after his spine was severed while in police custody — gave CNN's Wolf Blitzer for why some young men in Baltimore rioted on Monday afternoon after Gray's funeral. "These kids have had bad experiences in school," Murphy said. "They are frequently harassed by the police," he said. "They are unemployed because there's no summer jobs, and so this is what you would expect in a tense time like this. That's not a justification, though, because what they're doing is wrong, and we need to stop them. And those of us who are more mature in Baltimore, black and white together, we need to have a demonstration that shows them the right way to do it, rather than permitting them to go without leadership, the way that they're going now."
Debunking Obama's Bilious Baltimore Babble
It's never enough. American taxpayers have surrendered billions and billions and billions of dollars to the social-justice-spender-in-chief. But it's never, ever enough. The latest paroxysm of urban violence, looting, and recriminations in Baltimore prompted President Obama on Tuesday to trot out his frayed Blame The Callous, Tight-Fisted Republicans card. After dispensing with an obligatory wrist-slap of toilet paper-and Oreo-filching "protesters" who are burning Charm City to the ground (he hurriedly changed it to "criminals and thugs" mid-word), the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner got down to his usual business: hectoring his political opponents and grousing that America hasn't forked over enough money for him to make the "massive investments" needed to "make a difference right now."