Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Obama's Taliban Tools and Treachery
To call President Obama's Afghanistan policy a mess is a colossal understatement. To call it a coherent "policy," for that matter, is a gut-busting exaggeration. It's a bloody, incompetent and treacherous disaster. Our military heroes and families, God bless them, refuse to stay silent about the consequences. Consider these three national security fiascos: 1. Washington is awash in conflicting reports this week that the Pentagon may -- or may not -- charge Taliban tool Bowe Bergdahl with desertion. I first reported on Bergdahl's betrayal and abandonment of his post in July 2009. A military source tells me that the Obama administration has "slow rolled" the investigation and prosecution -- while withholding vital intelligence gathered from Bergdahl's debriefing last summer.
Harvey Weinstein's P.C. Oscar Campaign
The Academy Awards is meant to be the world's most prestigious honors for achievement in movies. Politics should have nothing to do with it, but, increasingly, that's not so. Hollywood is now regularly treading beyond "artistic excellence" and letting political overtones sway the outcome. For months now the "diversity" crowd has wailed and gnashed its teeth over the lack of Oscar interest in "Selma," as if Hollywood harbors a racist underbelly. They will not accept that maybe the movie wasn't *that* good. Even worse, they won't accept that the studio executives at Paramount stupidly screwed up by not sending DVD screeners to all the Oscar voters. But older culture watchers remember 1985, when "The Color Purple" with a largely black cast went from a potential Oscar sweep of 11 nominations to an Oscar shutout -- zero statues. Why? Activists like the Coalition Against Black Exploitation charged that the film "exacerbates the current schism between black males and females, degrades both sexes and portrays the black family in an exceedingly negative light to the world at large." Art took a backseat to politics.
Iowa Pitfalls
Rep. Steve King's Iowa Freedom Summit last week was not the most fortuitous launch for Republican presidential hopefuls, but it could have been worse. The Iowa congressman has embarrassed himself and the GOP with his anti-immigrant rhetoric over the years, which is no doubt why some prominent would-be candidates had "scheduling conflicts" that kept them away. Missing from the forum were Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Mitt Romney, whose missteps on immigration last time helped cost him the election. Most of those attending managed to keep their remarks civil -- attacking President Obama's use of executive action to grant legal status to some five million persons in the country illegally rather than the illegal immigrants themselves.
A Better Cuba Deal
Cuban President Raul Castro has issued new demands for normalizing relations with the U.S. He wants us to lift the trade embargo, remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terror and give Cuba the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Truly. You can look it up. One can imagine President Obama being awfully tempted to give Guantanamo to them. He's planning to close the prison there piecemeal anyway. And who needs naval bases these days when, as Obama schooled Mitt Romney, "We have these things called aircraft carriers now..."?
Saudi Arabia Opens Window of Opportunity for Obama
Have you heard about the secret conspiracy between the Saudis and the White House? I haven't either, probably because there isn't one. But events are playing out exactly as one would expect if such a conspiracy existed. With no help from Barack Obama, the U.S. has launched an energy revolution, becoming the world's leading oil and natural gas producer. This has dismayed environmentalists and donors in and out of the Obama administration. After all, Obama bet big -- really big -- on green energy. The oil and gas boom is not the energy revolution Obama was looking for. Saudi Arabia and other petro-monarchies aren't happy about it either (which is one reason the United Arab Emirates and other OPEC states bankroll anti-fracking propaganda in the West). Until recently, Saudi Arabia was the world's biggest oil producer, and it is still arguably the most important one in global markets because its oil is so easy to get out of the ground. The cheaper it is to extract, the easier it is to maintain profits when prices go down. That means the Saudis have an outsized ability to affect the global price of oil.
Obama's Narcissistic Dissing of Israel
It is just like the Obama administration to twist its own mistreatment of Israel into an opportunity to slander Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer. Like petulant children, Obama and his crew treat any resistance to their agenda as unprovoked hostility, personally directed at Obama, and lash out personally at those who would resist their dubious and aggressive behavior. Despite Obama's persistent slighting of Israel, he simply will not let pass Netanyahu's acceptance of House Speaker John Boehner's invitation to speak before a joint session of Congress. It doesn't matter that he refused to meet with Netanyahu, disingenuously citing concerns over interfering with the upcoming Israeli elections. Truth be told, he'd like nothing more than to interfere with those elections in an effort to unseat Netanyahu. In fact, unconfirmed news reports have circulated that an Obama political team is in Israel working on that very goal.
Obama Keeps Bowing in the Middle East
At the World Economic Forum last week, Secretary of State John Kerry argued that though extremists may cite Islam as a justification for terrorism, the world should refrain from using the term "Islamic radicals." Extremism, Kerry maintained, is apart from Islam, and the millions who support or engage in violence in its name are driven by "criminal conduct rooted in alienation, poverty, thrill seeking and other factors." This soothing, half-baked philosophy is cant in the Obama administration. So when the Islamic State group took credit for the beheading of Japanese hostage Haruna Yukawa, it shouldn't have been surprising that the most important thing Rick Stengel, undersecretary of state for happy thoughts, could think to tweet to his followers was that there was "nothing religious about it."
Auschwitz, Today
Amid the ritual expressions of regret and the pledges of "never again" on Tuesday's 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a bitter irony was noted: Anti-Semitism has returned to Europe. With a vengeance. It has become routine. If the kosher-grocery massacre in Paris hadn't happened in conjunction with Charlie Hebdo, how much worldwide notice would it have received? As little as did the murder of a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse. As little as did the terror attack that killed four at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. The rise of European anti-Semitism is in reality just a return to the norm. For a millennium, virulent Jew-hatred -- persecution, expulsions, massacres -- was the norm in Europe until the shame of the Holocaust created a temporary anomaly wherein anti-Semitism became socially unacceptable.
My Mistakes About 2016 Presidential Race
Some columnists write New Year's columns chronicling the mistakes over the last year. I don't, but as this January has rolled on, it's become clear I've made many about the 2016 presidential race. One is that I assumed Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush wouldn't run. Now it seems both are. I thought that Romney would not mistake the affection Republicans have shown for his debate performances and now-vindicated criticisms of President Obama's foreign policy for a yearning for a third Romney candidacy. Evidently he has. And I thought that Bush would be deterred by concerns about his family, business ties and his rustiness (his last campaign was in 2002). I thought he would be deterred by the unease over nominating the son and brother of former presidents and the overshadowing, for many Republicans, of his fine conservative record as governor by his stands on immigration and Common Core. Wrong again.
The Grand Slam of Climate
I introduced something on the O'Reilly Factor several years ago called the "Triple Crown of Cooling." I called it that because back in 2007 I thought a 20-30 year period of cooling would start, resulting in global temperatures returning to 1978 levels by 2030. I also introduced the concept that this cooling may cause a "time of climatic hardship" — in other words, the natural process of cooling after a process of natural warming could produce an uptick in extreme events. The increase in this is not clear, though one can argue it is occurring off the East Coast. The Atlantic still is in its warm cycle and will be for several more years, so the coastal water is warm. It is the reason I am very worried about the East Coast with hurricanes similar in magnitude to storms of the 1950s, though it has not yet occurred. That's right -- Irene, Sandy and Arthur can't hold a candle to eight major hurricane hits in seven years. None of the aforementioned storms was major.
The Challenge: When Life Gets Hard
Why do bad things happen? It's a question that we all ask at least once in our lives. Sadly, the question torments some people so dreadfully that they come to the hopeless conclusion that there is no God. How do we reconcile the truth that life can be hard -- often cruel -- with the truth that there is an all-powerful God who is good? Some of the bad things that "happen" to us are the direct and natural results of our own sins. In other words, many of life's hardships are entirely avoidable. But we all sin. While God always forgives anyone who genuinely seeks forgiveness, he usually does not remove the earthly consequences of our sins. And those natural consequences can cause untold suffering.
Sen. Cruz: Plant the Flag for School Choice!
"It's time to plant the flag on school choice," Sen. Ted Cruz told a Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by the Heritage Foundation recently. Sen. Cruz told of his efforts to reach across the aisle -- willing to work with the very liberal Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee (D) to help parents choose good schools for their kids. Promising to make this an issue in the 2016 presidential campaign -- with a knowing wink -- the senator related his work when he served as an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). There, he supported serious studies of the effects of competition in the formerly regulated monopolies -- telephones, railroads, and airlines. Cruz said he wanted researchers to look not just at the customer satisfaction of those who exercised their new options and chose new carriers. He *also* wanted the FTC investigators to look at the consumer satisfaction of those who remained with their original carriers. What several FTC studies showed, he said, was that while the customers who left their old regulated service providers were enthusiastic about their new options, *those who remained with the formerly regulated utilities reported either increased satisfaction or, in some cases, felt they were no worse off after de-regulation*.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
How Much Is That Psychology Degree Worth?
The Republican leadership in Congress still hasn't held hearings on why college is so expensive, although I proposed the idea two weeks ago. Of course, it's been a month since the GOP took control of Congress, and they also haven't voided Obama's unconstitutional executive amnesty, passed e-Verify, a fence bill or the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act. Democrats are on offense all the time, even when they've just had their legs cut off. They announce absurd agenda items and then indignantly demand to know why Republicans are refusing to deal with the free unicorn-rides proposal. Obama is a lame-duck president and, three months ago, his party was slaughtered in midterm elections. And yet, I gather that his State of the Union address consisted of a litany of insanely expensive, utterly pointless ideas.
Obama's Illusionary Economic Recovery
The big news from [last] week's State of the Union address is that the economic "crisis is over." Apparently, we've been rescued from a second Great Depression and everything this president has done to fix the economy has worked. All that was missing from Mr. Obama's celebration was the old "Icky Shuffle" end zone dance. This no doubt came as a bit of a shock to voters since the economy has been sickly for a long, long time. As recently as this fall, half of Americans were saying that the country is still in recession. Conditions have improved in the last six months for sure, with growth accelerating, inflation low and stable, hiring picking up and gas prices tumbling.
Bench Splinters over Marriage Case
Alabama's Ten Commandments judge is issuing one of his own: Thou shalt not trample state law. Unlike most people in his profession, Chief Justice Roy Moore actually seems to understand the limitations of the bench. And undermining the expressed will of the people is one of them. Last week, when another U.S. District Judge junked 697,591 votes on Alabama's 2006 marriage amendment, Justice Moore had a word for his colleagues: enough! If the courts are ignoring the Constitution that granted their authority, then Judge Moore will ignore the courts! "Be advised," he wrote to Alabama Governor Robert Bentley (R), "that I stand with you to stop judicial tyranny and any unlawful opinions issued without constitutional authority… As you know, nothing in the United States Constitution grants the federal government the authority to redefine the institution of marriage."
Conservatism Is Now Everywhere
There is a problem with the Internet. Its commentary is too often dominated by pinheads. H.L. Mencken used to complain that only idiots write letters to the editor. That might have been true of his day -- the 1920s and 1930s -- but in our time writers of letters to the editor of newspapers and even of websites are occasionally quite well-informed and even lucid. But others, I am afraid, are indeed pinheads, sitting in their underwear back home, foaming at the mouth, believing that the whole world is profoundly interested in their every word, until the authorities arrive at their homes to take them away. Friends have informed me that this is the case with those crybabies who protest that conservative columnists are insufficiently conservative, weak-kneed and fatuous. In the correspondence pages of newspapers and websites, they bawl for some extravagant idea about immigration, the Common Core, or some other hare-brained notion that they, in their delusion of grandeur, believe is the true conservative position on this or that. A friend suggests that I should remind these fantasticoes of "how far conservatives have come from the early 1950s when the leading exponents of conservatism could all fit quite comfortably into the corner telephone booth of a major city."
NFL Tough Guys Need Dads, Too
"What do you think you missed not having a dad around?" Marshawn Lynch, the grumpy, often-fined National Football League star for the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, was asked that question. Lynch, raised on the mean streets of Oakland, California, by a single mother, said: "Nothing. My mama played both parts." When asked, however, why he finds it difficult to "trust" people, Lynch tells a story about his father: "I think it started earlier, when Mom would (take me over to my dad's) house. And when I get there, my dad like, 'Oh, OK, I be right back,' and then you don't see this guy for like, two days or something. And then after a while you, like, sh--, you build up numb feelings to that. So you start to expect the worst out of people."
Another Snow Job
The network meteorologists barely had time to come up for air while "forecasting" the latest snowstorm non-disaster. Politicians, fearing what might happen to their approval numbers if a blizzard hit, went on TV to announce they were taking proactive measures. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio shut down tunnels, bridges, even the subway to prepare for the worst. Governors Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie announced road closings in New York and New Jersey. When wide-scale devastation failed to materialize, though New England was hardest hit, those same forecasters explained that snow is "unpredictable" and began backtracking faster than a four-wheel drive pickup on an icy road. One year ago, on January 31, we were treated to another of these "Snowmageddon" scenarios. At the time, USA Today quoted Gary Szatkowski, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, as saying: "It's a little surprising that people are falling for this."
Abraham v. Muhammad
I am Jewish, but not very Jewish. I had Jewish parents and Jewish grandparents, but I am not religiously observant, don't keep kosher and never even had a bar mitzvah because my secular parents left it up to me whether after six hours of junior high I wanted to spend my afternoons attending Hebrew school or playing ball. I only mention this as a matter of full disclosure, so you will understand that when I take Israel's side against its Arab and Muslim neighbors, it's understood that I do so because it is a western-style democracy that shares America's traditional values and not because it is a Jewish state.
Can Israel Survive?
Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. Eight million Israelis are surrounded by some 400 million Muslims in more than 20 states. Almost all of Israel's neighbors are anti-Israeli dictatorships, monarchies or theocracies-- a number of them reduced to a state of terrorist chaos. Given the rise of radical Islam, the huge petrodollar wealth of the Middle East and lopsided demography, how has Israel so far survived? The Jewish state has always depended on three unspoken assumptions for its tenuous existence. First, a democratic, nuclear Israel can deter larger enemies. In the Cold War, Soviet-backed Arab enemies understood that Israel's nuclear arsenal prevented them from destroying Tel Aviv.