Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, February 20, 2015
The Last Thing the Middle East Needs Is More Democracy
President Barack Obama gave a speech at the White House's summit on countering violent extremism this week, which was crammed with predictable feel-good ideas for combating the imaginary root causes of Islamic extremism. And in the midst of arguing that radicalism is principally driven by anger over colonialism, illiteracy and unemployment, Obama proposed an idea that we should have abandoned trillions of dollars and many years ago: more democracy. Here's how the president laid it out in the Los Angeles Times: "Efforts to counter violent extremism will only succeed if citizens can address legitimate grievances through the democratic process and express themselves through strong civil societies."
Obama the Unwitting Recruiter
President Obama seems more interested in defending the religion of Islam than in defending the United States against the threat of Islamic jihad, but Islam isn't under attack; we are. Obama has created a straw man -- or fattened one up that others created. The United States isn't at war with Islam -- or even radical Islamists, for that matter. By incessantly and wrongly suggesting we are hostile to Islam proper, Obama is giving credence to that charge and planting a seed in the minds of Muslims, thereby aggravating the problem he claims he wants to diminish. Nor do we target Muslims as Obama recklessly suggests. Last time I checked, our authorities don't profile Muslims in any way, at any time, in any capacity. Have you ever seen the Transportation Security Administration, for example, singling out Muslims for special scrutiny at the airport? If anything, this administration is so paranoid about creating that impression that it has a policy of erring on the side of coddling jihadis -- as opposed to protecting national security -- such as when it declined to pursue leads concerning U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan's ties to radical clerics that might have prevented his fatal shootings at Fort Hood in 2009.
Fifty Shades of Sickness
Here's one obvious sign that we live in a profane world. "Fifty Shades of Grey," the "mommy-porn" book turned into a movie, complete with its whips and chains and erotic punishment, debuted to far less controversy than "The Passion of the Christ" in 2004. The media toasted "Fifty Shades" as the biggest February movie opening weekend ever at $83.8 million, just a shade more than "The Passion." But Mel Gibson's Jesus film debuted on Ash Wednesday, not on Friday. According to BoxOfficeMojo.com, in its first five days, "The Passion" grossed $125.5 million; "Fifty Shades" stood at $98.5 million. It received a lousy C-plus CinemaScore from audiences, so its ticket sales may begin to trail off.
Silly Denials of Islamic Terrorism Bring a Silver Lining
"Could this argument be any dumber?" That's how I began a column over a month ago in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. My point was that by making it an ideological priority to deny the Islamic nature of Islamic terrorism, the White House was in fact encouraging people to talk more about terrorism and Islam, not less. It's a simple fact of human nature that if you deny the obvious, you invite people to debate the obvious. If you don't believe me, walk into a bar and insist that Michael Jordan didn't play basketball. Or proclaim that we didn't win World War II. One month later, the answer to my rhetorical question -- "Could this argument be any dumber?" -- is, on the one hand, absolutely yes. On the other hand, maybe not.
Barack Obama's 'Reckless Disregard' of the Law
Reckless disregard. It's a phrase in legal writing that means "gross negligence without concern for danger to others." And it's a phrase that characterizes much of the attitude toward law of an administration headed by a man sometimes described as a constitutional scholar. The most recent case in point is the decision by federal district judge Andrew Hanen in Texas enjoining the operation of Barack Obama's order barring prosecution of something like 4 million illegal immigrants. The administration has a plausible legal argument: the president is ordering immigration authorities to exercise discretion, just as a prosecutor does not bring all possible indictments. In his 123-page opinion Judge Hanen disagrees. "The DHS cannot reasonably claim that, under a general delegation to establish enforcement priorities, it can establish a blanket policy of non-enforcement that also awards legal presence and benefits to otherwise removable aliens."
Abolish the Filibuster
I've been radicalized. By Harry Reid and Barack Obama. Goodbye moderation and sweet reason. No more clinging to constitutional and procedural restraint. It's time to go nuclear. In the fourth quarter of his presidency, Obama unbound is abusing presidential authority at will to secure a legacy on everything from environmental regulation to immigration, the laws of which he would unilaterally suspend. Republicans find themselves on the sidelines bleating plaintively about violations of the separation of powers. They thought they found an instrument of resistance in funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The House has funded the whole department except for the immigration service, which was denied the money to implement Obama's executive amnesty.
Declare Victory and Act
A Texas judge handed the GOP a gift this week by issuing a temporary restraining order barring the Obama administration from granting temporary status and permission to work to some four million illegal immigrants. But it's unclear whether the party's congressional leaders will be able to convince their members to declare victory and move on to vote for a clean bill funding the Department of Homeland Security, without House-passed immigration amendments. They'd be smart to do so, because the alternative would virtually guarantee that DHS will run out of funding at the end of the month. If that happens, there is no question which party will bear the blame. Polls show that a majority of Americans (53 percent in a recent CNN survey) would blame Republicans for a DHS shutdown, just as they did in 2013 when squabbles over funding for Obamacare led to a 16-day government-wide shutdown. In that debacle, support for the GOP fell dramatically, with only 32 percent of Americans saying they held a favorable view of the party in a Gallup poll after the shutdown. It took a year before Republicans gained back the support they'd lost, ultimately winning a huge victory in last fall's election.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest
Where does the Obama Administration find these people? How did Marie Harf — the deputy spokesperson for the State Department's Bureau of Public Affairs — get her job? On Monday she provided the latest proof that Barack Obama and the people he's surrounded himself with are not just dangerously incompetent, they're idiots. Appearing on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," Harf said the best way to fight Islamic terrorism is not with guns and bombs but with job programs.
GOP Double-Crossing Traitors
Now that a federal judge has held Obama's illegal executive amnesty unconstitutional, perhaps U.S. senators will remember that they swore to uphold the Constitution, too. Back when they needed our votes before the last election, Republicans were hairy-chested warriors, vowing to block Obama's unconstitutional "executive amnesty" -- if only voters gave them a Senate majority. The resulting Republican landslide suggested some opposition to amnesty. Heading into the election, college professor Dave Brat took out the sitting House majority leader and amnesty supporter Eric Cantor in a primary, despite being outspent 40-1. It was the greatest upset in history since the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" at the Lake Placid Olympics: Never before has a House majority leader been defeated in a primary. And Brat did it by an astonishing 55.5 percent to 45.5 percent.
Agriculture Chair Won't Cowtow to Left
"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask..." In these challenging times, no one needs more guidance in their jobs than our leaders. Sadly, the Left is doing everything it can to keep them from asking for it! In the House Agricultural Committee, the majority party is acknowledging that someone else is in control: God. As proof of the change that Congress has undergone since the last election, Chairman Michael Conaway (R-Texas) has decided to kick off every meeting with a prayer. "We've got a lot of meaty things to deliberate on," Rep. Conaway told reporters, "and invoking God's wisdom and guidance on our deliberations is, I think, the proper thing to do." Of course, not everyone agrees. National atheist groups are convulsing over the idea, which -- the Supreme Court ruled last year -- is perfectly constitutional. With the chisel of political correctness slowly chipping away at the First Amendment, the justices agreed that it was entirely within a legislature's rights to ask for God's blessing -- as long as no one is forced to join. And if opening prayer is good enough for Greece, New York, then surely it's good enough for the U.S. Congress!
Could 'Grover the Good' Win the White House Today?
When Grover Cleveland ran for president in 1884, he was endorsed by Joseph Pulitzer's *New York World*, which listed four reasons for encouraging its readers to send Cleveland to the White House: "1. He is an honest man. 2. He is an honest man. 3. He is an honest man. 4. He is an honest man." As a prominent Democratic newspaper, the *World*'s support for Cleveland, the Democratic nominee, was to be expected. But such insistent praise for a candidate's truthfulness and honor was as remarkable then as it would be now -- voters in the Gilded Age, like voters in the Digital Age, had ample grounds to regard "honest politician" as a contradiction in terms.
Reliving the 1930s
World War II was the most destructive war in history. What caused it? The panic from the ongoing and worldwide Depression in the 1930s had empowered extremist movements the world over. Like-minded, violent dictators of otherwise quite different Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan and Communist Soviet Union all wanted to attack their neighbors. Yet World War II could have been prevented had Western Europe united to deter Germany. Instead, France, Britain and the smaller European democracies appeased Hitler.
Au Revoir, Jon Stewart
The irrepressible New York Times is at it again! First it destroys the credibility of the most trusted newsreader in America, Brian Williams, and leaves him in a heap exposed as a flagrant liar. Now it is destroying the credibility of the most trusted comic in America, Jon Stewart, and intent on leaving him, too, in a heap exposed as a flagrant liar. All poor Stewart ever did was to sally forth into the realm of irony, saying on Twitter and Facebook that "Finally, someone is being held to account for misleading America about the Iraq War." He was, as fate would have it, joking about his erstwhile collaborator in comedy, Williams. Then, whammo, the Times publishes its heavily documented piece divulging how the CIA and the American army, after vanquishing Saddam Hussein's forces, undertook a very effective program, Operation Avarice, for "acquiring and destroying at least 400 Borak rockets, one of the internationally condemned chemical weapons that Saddam Hussein's Baathist government manufactured in the 1980s ..."
War Authorization's Difficult Debate
Americans, a litigious people, believe that rules for coping with messy reality can be written in tidy legal language. This belief will be tested by the debate that will resume when Congress returns from a recess it should not have taken, with a war to authorize. The debate concerns an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the Islamic State and also against ... Well. The debate's difficulty defines its urgency: It is hard to say precisely against what (does the Islamic State's name make it a state?), and therefore where, force should be authorized. This debate will demonstrate the limits of legalistic precision in war. Which is why, once war begins, limiting presidential war-making power is like lassoing a locomotive with a cobweb. So, this overdue debate -- six months and approximately 2,000 U.S. airstrikes into the war on the Islamic State -- properly should preoccupy Congress for weeks.
Hyper-Left Elizabeth Warren: Democrats' Fresh Face?
A shocking new poll shows Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., ahead of Hillary Clinton in Iowa, the first caucus state, and in New Hampshire, the first primary state. The YouGov poll, paid for by Moveon.org, found Warren ahead of Clinton in Iowa, 31 percent to 24 percent, among likely Democratic primary and caucus voters. In New Hampshire, Warren's lead was 30 percent to 27 percent. Other polls, however, show Clinton enjoying a substantial lead. This poll is an outlier, and the upstart 15-year-old polling firm gathers its data via the Internet, using complex methodology and algorithms. Some of their polls in recent years have been astonishingly accurate, even beating out the traditional big polling firms.
Chris Cuomo: 'Our Rights Do Not Come From God'
"...the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God." (John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961) It isn't often that a member of the media reveals the philosophy behind his political ideology, but last week, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo outed himself. In an exchange with Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore about Moore's refusal to adhere to a federal appellate judge's order to ignore the state constitution and begin granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Moore said "...our rights contained in the Bill of Rights do not come from the Constitution, they come from God." Cuomo disagreed: "Our laws do not come from God, your honor, and you know that. They come from man."
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
What Does the Strong Dollar Signal?
2015 is off with a bang of higher currency volatility than in past years. Switzerland's mid-January surprise abandon of its currency peg to a declining Euro -- causing an overnight 16 percent upward spike and instant revaluation of the Swiss Franc -- looks to be followed by Denmark. The long established exchange-rate of the Krone that Denmark pegged to the German mark and now the successor Euro currency is about to break for the same reasons that prompted the Swiss move. These are the consequences of currency wars from countries seeking to "beggar-thy-neighbor" through currency devaluation, a policy with winners and losers that has led to real wars in the past. Surprisingly, the legitimacy of currency wars has just been embraced at the G-20 meeting of finance ministers on Feb. 11. Currency devaluation helps export-dependent countries, like Japan and Germany, by making their exported goods cheaper foreign markets.
Islam as a Victim Civilization
President Obama's scolding of Western civilization at the National Prayer Breakfast ("Lest we get on our high horse...") may go down in history as the emblematic moment of his presidency. It was atrociously ill timed and characteristically sophomoric. My colleague Jay Nordlinger observed that Obama sounded just like the students in the 1980s who, when presented with evidence of the Soviet gulag, would respond with the tu quoque rejoinder: "Well, what about racism?" During the Cold War, we called this the "moral equivalence" fallacy, because however grave our flaws were (and some were serious), they didn't exist on the same plane as those of the Soviet Union or China or Cambodia or North Korea or the other communist nations that amassed a body count of more than 90 million souls in their seven decades of tyranny. There were other reasons the moral equivalence argument was fallacious (We had independent courts, a free press and other mechanisms for fighting injustice; they had none of those.), but that didn't prevent it from issuing from the mouths of nominally educated people until the Berlin Wall was hacked to pieces. And even after.
Is Israel the Problem, or Are Jews the Problem?
In the aftermath of the killing of a man at a Copenhagen synagogue by a member of the Religion of Peace, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "This wave of attacks is expected to continue. Jews deserve security in every country, but we say to our Jewish brothers and sisters, Israel is your home." Russian emigre Natan Sharansky echoed Netanyahu's call, stating, "There is no future for Jews in western Europe." In response, European leaders shouted down Netanyahu. "We know there are doubts, questions across the community," said French President Francois Hollande, who was elected with in excess of 93 percent of the Muslim vote. "I will not just let what was said in Israel pass, leading people to believe that Jews no longer have a place in Europe and France, in particular." The same week, Jewish tombstones were spray-painted by the hundreds in eastern France.