Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Who'll Stop the Rain?
The great John Fogerty classic was a testament to bad news and deception that seemed to be coming from all angles. It was truly a free-thinking song, ripping socialist agendas as enslaving ("Five year plans and new deals wrapped in golden chains") and also a rallying point for those who questioned the Vietnam War. I have no idea where Mr. Fogerty stands on any of the issues of the day, but to me this song has always represented a true free-thinking man's challenge to authority in pursuit of the truth. That is how I view this art. A song is valuable when both sides think it's an anthem for them. What I took from the song was that deception came in a form that seemed to have good intentions, but was trapping people and enslaving them. Taken to the limit, anything short of the truth is a lie, and lies are meant to do evil no matter how they appear.
Living in Obama World
Barack Obama is living in his own dream world. To hear him tell it, thanks to six glorious years of his leadership, America is in great shape again at home and overseas. According to his boasts, which the mainstream media rarely challenge, the economy has rebounded from the Great Recession and federal budget deficits have been sliced in half under his watch. Never mind that we're in the slowest economic recovery since FDR's awful policies prolonged the Great Depression. Never mind that the "official" unemployment rate of 5.7 percent is a statistical fraud because it doesn't count the millions who've dropped out of the job market.
The Challenge: Aching Hearts on Valentine's Day
Sitting by a fire on the beach of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me?" Perhaps you know the story. Peter replied, "You know I love you." But the word Jesus used, "agape," means unconditional, sacrificial love. Jesus was asking Peter, "Do you love me unconditionally? Do you love me enough to lay down your life for me? Do you love me the way I love you?" When Peter responded, he used a different word: "phileo," which expresses a lower type of love. Peter was saying only, "You know I am your friend. You know I am fond of you."
Brian Williams: Selective Outrage and Double Standards
If Brian Williams, the anchor and face of NBC News, goes, others should march right out the door behind him. Williams, in 2003, filed a report about his experiences in Iraq. He accurately reported that a helicopter an hour in front of his took fire from an RPG. But over the years the story morphed into Williams claiming that his helicopter took an incoming RPG and other small arms fire. Other stories Williams told and filed are under review, including apparently exaggerated or false claims filed or stated during Hurricane Katrina. Williams claimed he saw a dead body floating in the street outside his New Orleans hotel, and that his hotel had been assaulted by gangs. Neither of which apparently is true. Due to concerns about the credibility of the $10-million-a-year newsreader, NBC announced Williams' six-month unpaid "suspension." Now six months is forever. When his replacement, the capable Lester Holt, settles in, soon it will likely be, "Brian, who?"
Bobby Jindal for President?
Gov. Bobby Jindal's name is not first on most people's list of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, but maybe we should at least start paying attention to him. If one's political enemies are any indication of potential strength, Jindal of Louisiana may be a more formidable force than some people realize. During a visit to Washington Monday, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank couldn't wait to attack Jindal and his record. Why bother with someone he and others consider a lightweight from a small Southern state, unless there is more there than the elites think? In an interview with me, Jindal gave long and rapid-fire answers. The governor, ineligible for re-election due to term limits, seemed in a hurry. He said he'd decide in "two to three months" whether to run for president.
Brian Williams' Future
On the vexed matter of Brian Williams my friend and colleague Wes Pruden raises a fundamental question. "Brian Williams, the tall tale teller for NBC News, has had a rough few days, but he's likely to survive," writes Wes. "He'll probably be back," Wes speculates, even overcoming the derisible endorsement of Dan Rather. Dan, your endorsement could be the kiss of death to poor Brian. Is there no reality-check on these egomaniacs? My view is at variance with Wes's. He will never return to NBC Nightly News. Within a week of publicly apologizing for claiming to be on a helicopter that endured enemy fire in Iraq in 2003, Williams saw his ranking among America's most trusted public persons drop from 23 to 835, according to a leading research firm that gathers such preposterous findings for advertisers and marketing executives, the New York Times tells us. In six months his ranking will be in oblivion. The Times also tells us that Williams is "distraught," and "according to people close to him, [he is] telling friends that if he could go door to door and apologize to each of his viewers he would do so." I suggest that he start doing so, and after he has apologized to his last viewer he might return to NBC and ask for his job back. The job will be gone, as will some management at NBC News.
True Lies
"NBC Nightly News" anchorman Brian Williams frequently fabricated a dramatic story that he was under enemy attack while reporting from Iraq. NBC is now investigating whether Williams also embellished events in New Orleans during his reporting on Hurricane Katrina. Williams always plays the hero in his yarns, braving natural and hostile human enemies to deliver us the truth on the evening news. Former CBS anchorman Dan Rather tried to pass off fake memos as authentic evidence about former President George W. Bush's supposedly checkered National Guard record.
Obama Suffers From Truth Decay
It's a good thing President Obama doesn't work for NBC -- or else he might have been suspended for lying too! Like the NBC's Brian Williams, voters would have a difficult time narrowing down all the untruths to one. This President has told so many whoppers that Burger King should name a sandwich after him! David Axelrod, a former political advisor, spilled the beans about one of the President's most unconvincing fibs in his new book, *Believer*. Although it was no secret to anyone who followed Obama's early career, the candidate-and-later-President was fully on board with same-sex "marriage" from Day 1. Before he was an Illinois senator, the up-and-coming Democrat was clear on a questionnaire about where he stood -- only to change his position when it wasn't politically advantageous.
A Gift Horse Named Obama
Not since Santa Claus was in short pants has anyone been as generous as Obama when it comes to bestowing gifts. But unlike Santa, Obama insists on rewarding those who have been naughty and turning into Scrooge when it comes to those who are nice. Although all it would take to bring about immigration reform is for Obama to build a 21st century fence along our southern border, he keeps it as porous as possible because he wants the nation flooded with future Democrats. Actually, before erecting a barrier that would solve the problem for the states in the southwest, Obama would be more likely to officially cede Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, back to Mexico, and let Nevada, Oregon, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and Colorado, inherit the border problem.
Bryan Cranston: From Meth Cook to Hitler Apologist
The magnificent new book Hollywood Traitors by Allan Ryskind, son of Hollywood royalty (Marx Brothers screenwriter Morrie Ryskind), has been published just in time for the release of "Trumbo," in which Bryan Cranston will portray Hitler apologist Dalton Trumbo as a hero. I'm guessing the movie skips over Trumbo's aggressive efforts to prevent America from joining the fight against Hitler. To that end, Trumbo wrote two of the most ghastly anti-war films ever made, "Johnny Got His Gun," released as a novel in 1939, and "The Remarkable Andrew," published in 1941. To place this in context for Hollywood half-brights, in 1938 Hitler invaded Austria and seized the Sudetenland -- sweeping through the rest of Czechoslovakia the following year. On Sept. 1, 1939, the Fuhrer invaded Poland, finally forcing France and England to go to war with Germany.
The Pence Paradox
Although he is always preternaturally placid, Mike Pence today exemplifies a Republican conundrum. Sitting recently 24 blocks from Capitol Hill, where he served six terms as a congressman, and eight blocks from the White House, which some Republicans hope he craves, Pence, now in his third year as Indiana's governor, discussed two issues, Common Core and Medicaid expansion, that illustrate the following: Today's president, whose prior governmental experience was meager and entirely legislative, probably has strengthened voters' normal preference for actual executives -- governors rather than legislators -- as chief executives. Governors actually govern, which means continually making choices and compromises. So, with the Republican nominating electorate increasingly persnickety about ideological purity, governors often are more disadvantaged than senators as candidates.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Michelle Obama's Self-Serving 'Cheese Dust' Disdain
Before the nation's Food Nanny guilt-trips you into ditching boxed dinners on a frazzled night, know this: The first lady profited from cheese dust before she was against it. In the new issue of Cooking Light magazine, Michelle Obama takes another sanctimonious stand against processed foods. The occasion of this latest hectoring is a month-long celebration of the fifth anniversary of her Let's Move initiative. This time, she spins a slickly crafted tale of how her former personal chef challenged daughter Malia several years ago to turn a block of cheese into powder. "She sat there for 30 minutes trying to pulverize a block of cheese into dust," Mrs. Obama claims. "She was really focused on it, and it just didn't work, so she had to give up. And from then on, we stopped eating macaroni and cheese out of a box because cheese dust is not food," snob momma Obama pontificated.
Getting Real in the Middle East
President Barack Obama, who has acted unilaterally on everything from making war in Libya to granting work permits to illegal aliens in the United States, now wants a war authorization from Congress. What Congress should make him do first -- but probably will not -- is embrace a realistic foreign policy that makes sense because it makes Americans safer. When Obama wanted to intervene in Libya's civil war in favor of those seeking to overthrow Moammar Gadhafi, he did not seek an authorization from Congress as required by our Constitution.
Brian Williams Must Step Down
Brian Williams has ruled the roost at "NBC Nightly News" for more than 10 years. Right before he took over, he saw Dan Rather's career go up in flames at CBS over phony National Guard documents marshaled against President Bush. The anchorman's career has imploded for another reason. He seemingly can't stop telling falsehoods about himself. He was in Iraq reporting during the war and certainly had powerful copy, with visuals, to present -- but it wasn't enough. He had to embellish, from one audience to the next.
Begging to Die
The Curiously Circumscribed Nature of the Suicide Right Recognized by Canada's Supreme Court
Shut Up, Because the Crusades
This week, President Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he proceeded to inform an audience of Christians that they ought not judge radical Muslims currently engaged in beheading journalists, defenestrating gays, crucifying children, and engaging in mass rape of women. Why, pray tell, should Christians remain silent? Because, Obama informed them with Ivy League pride, "Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. So it is not unique to one group or one religion." At some point in our collective history, our ancestors engaged in tribal warfare and cannibalized their fallen enemies. So shut up about the Nazis, you hypocrites.
Spontaneous Order
Most of life happens without a central planner. Yet people think we need one. Suppose you'd never seen a skating rink, and I told you that I want to lay down some ice and charge people money to strap sharp blades on their feet. They will zip around on the ice -- young and old, skilled and unskilled. My only rule: Go counter-clockwise. Hillary Clinton would say the rink needs regulation. She calls herself "a government junkie." Government junkies like government plans. Hillary'd probably demand that my rink have an official who tells skaters when to zoom left or right, when to slow down.
Crony Capitalism and Marxist Generals
As Congress holds hearings on President Obama's change in Cuba policy, we are seeing the question of who in Havana will benefit from U.S. trade come up repeatedly. This focus is right on point. Unless Congress acts to stop it, the normalization of ties with Cuba would soon see crony capitalists here striking deals with Marxist generals there -- all financed by the U.S. taxpayer. Cubans will pay, too -- by seeing their nightmare prolonged for many years. Some of the generals involved are members of the Castro family, which means that U.S. consumers and taxpayers could end up helping the regime transition into a North Korean-style communist dynasty just 90 miles from our shores.
Give Choice a Chance
Barack Obama is a Washington, D.C., resident – and one with a high income. As he likes to openly admit, he's one of the privileged 1 percent who he thinks can afford to pay more taxes. Barack Obama also has all sorts of choices that many middle-class Americans don't have, and almost all poor people are denied. The Obamas have opted out of the Washington, D.C., public schools and send their daughters to Sidwell Friends, a first-rate school with very high achievement standards. The Obama girls surely benefit from this enriching educational environment. What parent wouldn't want that for his children? Which brings me to, arguably, the most unconscionable policy choice hidden in President Obama's $4 trillion budget. Mr. Obama proposed no funding next year for private school scholarship vouchers in the District of Columbia. The $20 million annual program, which began under George W. Bush, has proven extremely effective. Thousands of kids have benefited from these scholarships – which typically amount to about $8,000 to $10,000 a year.