Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
The Choice
WASHINGTON -- "Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not." That was Barack Obama in 2008. And he was right. Reagan was an ideological inflection point, ending a 50-year liberal ascendancy and beginning a 30-year conservative ascendancy. It is common for one party to take control and enact its ideological agenda. Ascendancy, however, occurs only when the opposition inevitably regains power and then proceeds to accept the basic premises of the preceding revolution. Thus, Republicans railed for 20 years against the New Deal. Yet when they regained the White House in 1953, they kept the New Deal intact. And when Nixon followed LBJ's Great Society -- liberalism's second wave -- he didn't repeal it. He actually expanded it. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency, gave teeth to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and institutionalized affirmative action -- major adornments of contemporary liberalism.
Storm Saves Obama From Himself
If President Obama had the time for some introspection on the campaign trail, he might take offense at all the media speculation (and in many cases wishful thinking gussied up as speculation) that his response to Hurricane Sandy will give him the edge going into Election Day. In effect, people are saying: "Obama is doing the minimum requirements of his job, what a game-changer!" Now, one could quibble about whether he's really doing what a president should. He's handing out a bunch of checks, which is warranted, but he has staff to do that. Moreover, presidential photo ops at disaster sites aren't all that helpful. In his remarks Wednesday, the president thanked some local politicians and told people to visit the FEMA website, if they have electricity. The imperative for him to be the one delivering that message is no doubt obvious to all.
Down and Dirty
You could, without stretching, make an aesthetic case for voting against Barack Obama. Leaving aside the hobbled economy, the promised second term "flexibility" with Putin, the job-diminishing Dodd/Frank act, the Benghazi debacle, the train wreck called Obamacare, the assault on the free exercise of religion, the pretense that the Lilly Ledbetter Act codified equal pay for equal work, the limp response to Iran's nuclear threat, the many Solyndras, kicking Bowles/Simpson to the curb, the "free" contraceptives, the recommendation that Israel do some "serious self-reflection," the preening over bin Laden's assassination, the Bill Clinton ad saying Romney wouldn't have approved the mission, the pretense that Gabby Giffords' shooting should put us on the path to political civility, the savaging of Paul Ryan in a speech to which he had been specifically invited, and the fact that Obama didn't know the number when David Letterman asked about how big the national debt has become -- there are grounds for firing Obama that rest upon seemliness.
You're Fired!
WASHINGTON -- When Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman sat down to draft the Declaration of Independence, they began with a "Bill of Particulars" against King George III. They accused the monarch of "repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States." Now, 236 years later, "We the People" are about to decide whom we should hire as our chief executive and commander in chief. It's an appropriate time to review the grievances of our Founding Fathers -- and examine the offenses committed by our present head of state. Jefferson and his colleagues determined that the king had "refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good." That's certainly relevant to the incumbent administration, which repeatedly has rejected all efforts by Congress to pass a budget as required by our Constitution.
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Romney Is What the Country Needs Now
The single most important issue in this election is ending the national nightmare of Obamacare. If Obamacare is not stopped, it will permanently change the political culture of this country. There will be no going back. America will become a less productive, less wealthy nation. What wealth remains will have to be plowed into Obamacare -- to the delight only of the tens of thousands of government bureaucrats administering it. There won't be one moment marking the end of America. Everything will just gradually get worse, like trains and the tax code, until a bustling, prosperous nation is as distant a memory as pleasurable train travel and one-page tax returns. The reason we have Obamacare is not because the public was clamoring for the federal government to take over health care. It's because the Democrats had 60 senators. In the frozen ideology of the left, it doesn't matter if anyone wants government health care.
Beware a 'Grand Bargain'
Deal with tax hikes and spending cuts would mean only tax hikes
A Tale of Two Presidents
This is the story of two very different American presidents and how they each answered their emergency Libyan phone calls. First, the story of Ronald Reagan. When he got a call about trouble with Libya it was in August of 1981 and I happened to be having dinner with him and Nancy in Los Angeles. We had just finished eating and were having coffee when Ed Meese phoned. Meese was my father's top policy adviser, and there was a serious military crisis brewing in the Mediterranean. At the time, the United States Navy was conducting war exercises in international waters in the Gulf of Sidra off the Libyan coast.
What Do I Tell My Black Child if Obama Loses?
What do I tell my black child if Barack Obama, America's first black president, loses his bid for re-election? This is a question many parents are asking themselves -- especially those who would blame the loss on racism. Jubilant black parents on the front pages of newspapers, the day after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, said things like, "for the first time" they could "sincerely" say to their children that a black person could realistically aspire to become president of the United States. The New York Times wrote: "That a new day had dawned was immediately apparent at breakfast on Wednesday at Eagle Academy, a young public school in the spot where the often hard-edged Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville and Ocean Hill intersect: The sixth-grade boys sat in silence over their eggs, biscuits and apple juice.
The Uncool President
In 2008, Barack "No Drama" Obama was the coolest presidential candidate America had ever seen -- young, hip, Ivy League, mellifluous and black, with a melodic and exotic name. Rock stars vied to perform at his massive rallies, where Obama often began his hope-and-change sermons by reminding the teary-eyed audience what to do in case of mass fainting. Money, like manna from heaven, seemed to drop spontaneously into his $1 billion campaign coffers. Ecstatic Hollywood stars were rendered near speechless at the thought of Obama's promised Big Rock Candy Mountain to come -- peace, harmony, prosperity and "5 million new jobs" in renewable energy alone.
Willy Loman on the Stump
WASHINGTON -- Energetic in body but indolent in mind, Barack Obama in his frenetic campaigning for a second term is promising to replicate his first term, although simply apologizing would be appropriate. His long campaign's bilious tone -- scurrilities about Mitt Romney as a monster of, at best, callous indifference; adolescent japes about "Romnesia" -- is discordant coming from someone who has favorably compared his achievements to those of "any president" since Lincoln, with the "possible" exceptions of Lincoln, LBJ and FDR. Obama's oceanic self-esteem -- no deficit there -- may explain why he seems to smolder with resentment that he must actually ask for a second term.
What Did Obama Do, When on 9/11/12?
President Barack Obama's schedule for Sept. 11, 2012 -- the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- was designed to present a man with deep empathy for terror victims. At 8:46 a.m., in front of reporters, he and Michelle Obama observed a moment of silence outside the White House to mark the minute and hour when American Airlines Flight 11 flew into the World Trade Center. Then, in front of reporters, the Obamas moved to the Pentagon. They arrived before 9:37 a.m. so Obama could lay a wreath to mark the minute and hour when American Airlines Flight 77 flew into that building. On the way back to the White House, in front of reporters, they stopped at Arlington Cemetery to visit the graves of servicemen killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Au Revoir, Mr. President
WASHINGTON -- Reviewing the last few months of this tumultuous presidential campaign, I see the debates as having a wondrous salience. The first was the most momentous since Nixon vs. Kennedy, though that 1960 confrontation was mostly a matter of cosmetics. Listening to it on radio, many in the audience came away thinking that the participant with the five-o'clock shadow had won. That would have been Richard Nixon. In debate this time around, Mitt Romney hammered Barack Obama mercilessly. Under the ongoing assault Obama's knees buckled and he repeatedly looked glassy-eyed. If the contest were a prizefight, the referee would have stepped in. Actually, I felt sorry for Obama. My tax-bracket notwithstanding, I did not want to see Mitt hit him again, but he did: the economy! the national debt! joblessness! However, the debate was not a prizefight. It was the first of three presidential debates and, though restrained in the next two contests, Romney accomplished just what he wanted. The debates left him looking reasonable, informed, competent and presidential.
Three Strikes and You're Out!
I realize that some people have been raving about Obama's final two debate appearances. But, for the most part, those are people named David Axelrod, Jay Leno, Joy Behar, David Letterman and Chris Matthews. But the truth is that no rational person would ever say he mopped the floor with Mitt Romney; the most you can say for Obama is that he did better after awakening from his self-induced coma, even if in doing so, he spouted more fibs than Joe Isuzu. I have no doubt that Team Obama now wish they had gotten out of the first debate by claiming that their guy had come down with the flu. Up until then, their negative ads had convinced a lot of voters that Romney was a heartless plutocrat, the sort of ogre who would chuckle while helping Paul Ryan push old people off a cliff. Once they saw and heard Romney for themselves, saw a devout Mormon who regularly donates well over 10% of his income to charity -- and not just during election years -- a guy who knows how business works because he has spent most of his life running businesses, as opposed to someone who has spent most of his own life badmouthing capitalism while promoting Marxism, it was, as they say in tennis, game, set, match.
Romney Pressures Obama by Expanding Electoral Map
As the East Coast recoils from Hurricane Sandy, the political news is of new states suddenly inundated with presidential campaign ads. First Wisconsin, then Pennsylvania, more recently Minnesota. Ann Romney is campaigning in Michigan; Bill Clinton in Minnesota. All these are states Barack Obama carried by 10 points or more in 2008. Why is the electoral map scrambled this year? One reason, which I wrote about last week, is that Mitt Romney seems to be running better in affluent suburbs than other recent Republican nominees. That's one reason he made big gains after the first debate in Florida and Virginia -- target states where most votes are cast in relatively affluent suburban counties.
The 2012 Choice
This election will tell us what kind of America we believe in. Is it the one our Founders bequeathed to their posterity of limited government, or is it the one re-made in the image of liberal paternalistic government? The choice, as President Obama has said, could not be clearer. Is our country a giant ATM, dispensing money and benefits to increasing numbers of people while requiring little, if anything, of the recipients? Or, is America a land of opportunity where people can rise as far as their skills and desire to work will take them, with a safety net for those who need it?
Arf!
For those of us of a certain age, the name "Sandy" has been connected with a comic strip character named "Little Orphan Annie." Annie, a plucky little girl who never aged much because she had been born on February 29, had a dog. The dog's name was "Sandy." All Sandy ever said was, "Arf!" With six days to go in the Longest-Election-Season-In-The-History-Of-The-World nothing gets in the way of politics. No wind, nor rain, nor flood, nor fire, nor gloom of night can stop the candidates and their staffs from looking for ways to continue campaigning even while appearing to -- no, that's not fair -- actually using the tools they have available to give help and solace to those hit hard by Hurricane Sandy.
Et tu, Bubba?
You must ask yourself this: Why *would* Bill Clinton want Barack Obama to be re-elected? In 2008, candidate Obama consigned the Clinton Presidency to oblivion when he said it was not like the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Reagan, said Obama then, was a transformational president. Even more insulting to the Clinton legacy, Obama compared his two terms in the White House to the truncated two terms of Richard Nixon. Can there be any graver offense against a McGovern Democrat than that? President Obama won a convincing 53% victory in 2008. He is now running for his political life, but it cannot be said that he ducked the tough issues. He fought for and pushed through Congress his takeover of the nation's health care. That's why it's called Obamacare and not Hillarycare.
Obama's Layoff Bomb
In June, a diffident and self-deluded President Obama claimed that "the private sector is doing fine." Last week, the private sector responded: Speak for yourself, buster. Who needs an "October Surprise" when the business headlines are broadcasting the imminent layoff bomb in neon lights? The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last Tuesday that employers issued 1,316 "mass layoff actions" (affecting 50 workers or more) in September; more than 122,000 workers were affected overall. USA Today financial reporter Matt Krantz wrote that "(m)uch of the recent layoff activity is connected to what's been the slowest period of earnings growth since the third quarter of 2009." Some necessary restructuring is underway in response to the stagnant European economy. But more and more U.S. businesses are putting the blame -- bravely and squarely -- right where it belongs: on the obstructionist policies and regulatory schemes of the blame-shifter-in-chief.
A Tale of Two Countries
It has become an accepted truism in American politics that both Democrats and Republicans want the same things: a prosperous America, a strong America, an America true to principles of freedom and liberty. Perhaps 50 years ago that was true. Today, it no longer is. The fact is that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are no longer arguing over means; we are arguing over ends. Democrats know that economic prosperity for the broad swath of the United States cannot be bought with higher taxes; even Bill Clinton recognized as much in the 1990s, which is why he lowered capital gains taxes dramatically after raising personal income taxes just as dramatically. Instead, Democrats argue, as President Obama did in 2008, that taxes must be raised "for purposes of fairness."