Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Self-Flagellation Republican Style
The Republican National Committee is out with a 100-page analysis of how the party can revive its sagging fortunes. Doubtless many of the recommendations are good ones -- more outreach to minority and women voters, better candidate recruitment, fewer debates during the primaries, openness to immigration reform, competing with Democrats in absentee and early voting and much more. Some of these things may help, or at least, as my grandmother would have said about chicken soup for a cold, they can't hurt. Others sound a little desperate, such as "Republican leaders should participate in and actively prepare for interviews with The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, MTV, and magazines such as People, Us Weekly, etc., as well as radio stations that are popular with the youth demographic." Maybe, but only if they're naturally witty and hip. I don't see Mitch McConnell walking away as a conquering hero from such encounters (though he's probably twice as smart as Stewart or Colbert).
Monday, March 18, 2013
The Great Cyprus Bank Robbery
It is well known that there are a number of countries in Europe that are in dire financial straits. So dire that they make our $16.7 trillion national debt look manageable. We know about Greece and Italy, Portugal and Spain. Not only are they drowning in debt, but they have high unemployment (Spain's is nearly 25 percent) and negative GDP growth. But the scariest news over the weekend came from the tiny country of Cyprus.
Training Kids to be Traumatized Wimps
Americans concerned about the future of the Second Amendment likely have little idea about the insidious efforts progressives will undertake to turn the nation away from supporting an individual right to bear arms. Forget for a moment the current bills being debated in Washington, D.C. and state legislatures across the nation. Those are focused on the here and now. Progressives are much more patient than that: they are teaching younger generations of Americans to embrace an irrational fear of firearms -- which is why a seemingly comical incident that occurred at Park Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland is anything but. It was there that second-grader Josh Welch received a two-day suspension for chewing a breakfast pastry into what his teacher thought was the shape of a gun. "It was already a rectangle. I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top of it and kind of looked like a gun," said Josh. "But it wasn't." "All I was trying to do was turn it into a mountain but, it didn't look like a mountain really and it turned out to be a gun kinda," he added.
What I Saw in Israel
As President Obama prepares for his first trip to Israel, I hope when he gets there he sees what I saw. Several weeks ago I returned from my first trip to Israel. I went with a delegation headed by Governor Mike Huckabee, who visits Israel at least once every year. What did I see? I saw kids, no more than 18 years old, walking down the street, waiting at bus stops, wearing Army green khakis, and carrying machine guns on their backs. One young girl was as black skinned as me.
Ah, Sweet Mysteries of Life
With all the questions swirling around in my brain, it's a wonder I can ever fall asleep. Some nights, the only solution is for me to count Senate Democrats jumping over a fence. For instance, liberals regard themselves as the salt of the earth and view conservatives as a bunch of cold-hearted rotters. And, yet, research has shown that not only do conservatives donate far more to the needy, but they do it out of the goodness of their hearts. On the other hand, it always seems as if the only way that liberals can be persuaded to cough up anything for charity is through the purchase of concert tickets. Remove Bono, Bruce Springsteen and Elton John, from the mix and liberals would forget that Africa even exists.
Jimmy Carter's Libel Israel Week
Some politically correct colleges in America and Western Europe observe something they call "Israel Apartheid Week." It's another opportunity to libel Israel for building a defensive perimeter to keep out Arab suicide bombers. These misguided young people who libel the only democracy in the Mideast look to former President Jimmy Carter for their inspiration. Carter was the most prominent person in the world to apply the hated term *apartheid* to Israel's purely defensive barrier. Carter's book, *Palestine: Peace not Apartheid*, has served as a text for the libelers of Israel. The French have an apt expression for what Israel is doing: "This animal is very vicious; when you attack it, it defends itself." What Israel did in building a barrier between them and those territories that were staging areas for suicide bombers is entirely understandable. Americans are clamoring for more effective borders -- north and south -- and we have not yet, thank goodness, experienced suicide bombers in our pizza parlors.
Supreme, Yes. But Infallible?
The archbishop of Buenos Aires became the supreme pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church when he pronounced the word "*accepto*" -- Latin for "I accept" -- in the Sistine Chapel last week. From that moment, according to Catholic theology, Pope Francis had "full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church." Most notably, he was endowed with what the catechism calls "the charism of infallibility": When the pope, in his role as the church's supreme pastor and teacher, definitively proclaims "a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals," he is incapable of error. The dogma of papal infallibility, approved at the First Vatican Council in 1870, was fiercely challenged by Lord Acton, the celebrated English historian and champion of liberty. Though a devout lifelong Roman Catholic, Acton fervently opposed papal absolutism -- so fervently that he traveled to Rome to organize a campaign against the infallibility doctrine, which he was convinced would be used to justify wrongdoing and suppress freedom of conscience. "The theory of infallibility ... stands on a basis of fraud," he wrote.
Support for Same-sex Marriage Crosses Party Lines
In an opinion article in the Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman announced that he has changed his mind and now supports same-sex marriage. He wrote that on learning that one of his sons is gay he "wrestled with how to reconcile my Christian faith with my desire for Will to have the same opportunities to pursue happiness and fulfillment as his brother and sister." He is not the only prominent Republican to come to this view in this way. Former Vice President Dick Cheney is another. And at the Conservative Political Action Committee convention, a panel sponsored by the Competitive Enterprise Institute drew a large and approving crowd for a discussion labeled, "A Rainbow on the Right: Growing the Coalition, Bringing Tolerance Out of the Closet."
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Into Uncharted Territory
WASHINGTON -- When on March 26 the Supreme Court hears oral arguments about whether California's ban on same-sex marriages violates the constitutional right to "equal protection of the laws," these arguments will invoke the intersection of law and social science. The court should tread cautiously, if at all, on this dark and bloody ground. The Obama administration says California's law expresses "prejudice" that is "impermissible." But same-sex marriage is a matter about which intelligent people reasonably disagree, partly because so little is known about its consequences. When a federal judge asked the lawyer defending California's ban what harm same-sex marriage would do to the state's interests in "the procreation purpose" of heterosexual marriage, the lawyer said, "I don't know." This was mistakenly portrayed as a damaging admission. Both sides should acknowledge that, *so far*, no one can know.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Bait and Switch
It's hard to believe almost any budget numbers coming out of Washington, D.C., these days. The reason? The Obama administration is cooking the books. Okay, it's not actually violating any law. But perhaps it should be against the law for the Office of Management and Budget to do what it routinely has been doing: putting out budget forecasts that everyone inside the Beltway knows are not real. If a private CPA did that, he would lose his license to practice. Here's the backstory. Health care spending in this country has been growing at twice the rate of growth of our income on a real, per capita basis. Although there has been modest slowing during the Great Recession, that's been the trend for the past 40 years and the United States is not unique. Our health care spending growth rate is in the middle of the pack among developed countries.
From Behind Enemy Lines
Because I am a conservative living in California, I often find myself thinking that, like those members of the French underground in World War II movies, I should be transmitting my dispatches by way of a shortwave radio. How crazy is California, you ask? Well, for openers, the voters back in November, voted to raise the state income taxes. And why did they do that, you ask? Because Governor Jerry Brown told them it was a good idea. That's how crazy California is. But there's more. Now it's been discovered that the world's largest deposit of shale oil lies beneath our feet. Not only could it provide jobs for tens of thousands of unemployed people, but it might even lower our gas prices 50 or 60 cents-a-gallon, finally putting us in range of the national average. But for all the good that oil is likely to do us, it might as well be lying beneath the feet of Martians. That's because nearly every wealthy Democrat in California is a devout environmentalist.
From The Comedy Store
Wall Street celebrated as the Dow Jones hit the highest level in history. The brokers credit Obama. Wall Streeters still think President Obama is a capitalist-hating socialist bent on destroying free enterprise, but he is so bad at it, he's the toast of the town.
Optimism in the Air
You might not know it from the acrimonious political debate on cable and broadcast TV, or on talk radio, or on websites and blogs. But here's a counterintuitive observation: Amidst all the negativism out there, I believe *optimism* is in the air. That's right. *Optimism.* Sometimes you have to search for it, or read it in the fine print. But I believe the political economy is getting better, not worse. Let me make a few points to defend what most folks believe is an indefensible position.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Is Global Warming Causing More Snow and Less Snow at the Same Time?
In the Woody Allen comedy classic, "Bananas," there is a scene where the CIA is sending US troops to fight on both sides of a revolution because they're afraid of being on the wrong side. While many of us laughed at such things then because of the absurdity of it, we find that the same kind of strategy is being used by AGW propagandists that seek to claim every idea they have as the correct one. So in this piece, I will examine a recent claim that climate change is causing extremes that rational people know is not a sign it's getting warmer (such as bigger *snow*storms -- snow is a sign it's cold). Irrational people are the ones that will claim the opposite answer of what they said before was right, because they will use any answer to justify their ideas.
Donors to Obama 'Non-profit' Pay $50K for Night of Access
President cashes in on swanky soiree with Organizing for Action mega-funders.
Time to Opt Out of Creepy Fed Ed Data-Mining Racket
Last week, I reported on the federal government's massive new student-tracking database, which was created as part of the nationalized Common Core standards scheme. The bad news: GOP "leadership" continues to ignore or, worse, enable this Nanny State racket (hello, Jeb Bush). The good news: An independent grassroots revolt outside the Beltway bubble is swelling. Families are taking their children's academic and privacy matters out of the snoopercrats' grip and into their own hands. You can now download a Common Core opt-out/disclosure form to submit to your school district, courtesy of the Truth In American Education group.
Codify the Drone War
WASHINGTON -- In choice of both topic and foil, Rand Paul's now legendary Senate filibuster was a stroke of political genius. The topic was, ostensibly, very narrow: Does the president have the constitutional authority to put a drone-launched Hellfire missile through your kitchen -- you, a good citizen of Topeka to whom POTUS might have taken a dislike -- while you're cooking up a pot roast? The constituency of those who could not give this question a straight answer is exceedingly small. Unfortunately, among them is Attorney General Eric Holder. Enter the foil. He told a Senate hearing that such an execution would not be "appropriate." Appropriate being a bureaucratic word meaning nothing, Holder's answer was a PR disaster. The correct response, of course, is: Absent an active civil war on U.S. soil (of the kind not seen in 150 years) or a jihadist invasion from Saskatchewan led by the Topeka pot roaster, the answer is no.
Operation Iraqi Freedom 10 Years On: Part I
WASHINGTON -- Some holidays are unforgettable. If I sit down and think about it, I can recall where and with whom I celebrated nearly every Christmas of my life. That's not the case with St. Patrick's Day -- an inexcusable lapse, given my maternal Irish heritage. But wait! There is one St. Paddy's Day that springs instantly to mind. It was exactly a decade ago, and I vividly remember it, for I was being chafed and chided by scores of old friends for how badly I had embarrassed myself -- on live television. It had nothing to do with Guinness stout, green beer or Irish spirits. As our friends in the States prepared for St. Patrick's Day 2003, Griff Jenkins, my Fox News cameraman/field producer, and I were embedded with the "Red Dragons" of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268 at Ali Al Salem Air Base in northern Kuwait. There was little of anything colored green in our part of the world. The Marine aviators and Navy corpsmen we were assigned to accompany on the attack across the border into Iraq had even exchanged their green flight suits for desert khaki.
'No Holds Barred' Obama Questions?
ABC News really knows how to cause a coffee spit-take. All you have to do is introduce George Stephanopoulos talking to President Obama and put these hyperbolic words on screen: "No Holds Barred." Someone should tell the geniuses at ABC that's a term suited for competitive wrestling. It doesn't describe Democrat chitchat that demonstrates about as much as dramatic confrontation as other morning TV fare, such as "Bubble Guppies" and "Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends." To be fair, the questions were about policy, including budget matters and North Korea. But they weren't challenging. Ask any conservative Republican about "no holds barred" media questions, and I'll show you the tire tracks on his back.
Hoping for the Real Deal in Francis I
My favorite talk show host is John Batchelor, whose often expressed, playful worry is that he isn't being cynical enough. The wisest (or is it the most cynical?) among us recognize that a degree of caution is always advisable when dealing with fellow human beings, and that the world has never lacked for frauds, liars, and hypocrites. Still, our age does seem to be more cynical than most, and with good reason. As Mark Twain said, "Man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to." When I was young, I admired presidents of the United States, religious leaders, explorers, teachers, great writers, military officers and my parents, among others.