Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Delphi Workers See Pensions Plundered Under Obama
How the administration gave non-union workers the shaft -- and covered up its involvement.
Coulter Defends Romney
Mitt Romney tells people he won't fire federal workers or cut education spending. He says he'll spend more on the military. He sounds like a big-government guy. Or is he just pandering for votes? Ann Coulter came on my TV show to defend Romney. "What you call pandering is called getting elected," Coulter said. Romney says he'll repeal Obamacare. Great! But he wants to keep popular parts: coverage for pre-existing conditions and keeping grown kids on their parents' policies until age 26. Those mandates are popular. But that's not insurance. That's welfare.
The News Squashers
NBC's David Gregory isn't always a news reporter. As we're seeing with increasing frequency on that network, he's squashing stories. Call him an unreporter. On Sunday's "Meet the Press," he showed the extent to which he'll vaporize any suggestion that Team Obama failed to offer adequate protection from terrorists at our consulate in Benghazi. Businesswoman Carly Fiorina slammed Obama's Libya response: "That attack went on for seven hours...[with the] Secretary of Defense saying he denied requests for help over that seven hours." Gregory cut her off: "We'll get to Libya a little bit later." Surprise: It never came up again.
Benghazi -- No Mere 'October Surprise'
If you want to understand why conservatives have lost faith in the so-called mainstream media, you need to ponder the question: Where is the Benghazi feeding frenzy? Unlike some of my colleagues on the right, I don't think there's a conspiracy at work. Rather, I think journalists tend to act on their instincts (some even brag about this; you could look it up). And, collectively, the mainstream media's instincts run liberal, making groupthink inevitable. In 2000, a Democratic operative orchestrated an "October surprise" attack on George W. Bush, revealing that 24 years earlier, he'd been arrested for drunk driving. The media went into a feeding frenzy. "Is all the 24-hour coverage of Bush's 24-year-old DUI arrest the product of a liberal media almost drunk on the idea of sinking him, or is it a legitimate, indeed unavoidable news story?" asked Howard Kurtz in a segment for his CNN show "Reliable Sources." The consensus among the guests: It wasn't a legitimate news story. But the media kept going with it.
Black and White Standards
The Washington Post (10/25/2012), in giving President Barack Obama an endorsement for another four years, wrote, "Much of the 2012 presidential campaign has dwelt on the past, but the key questions are who could better lead the country during the next four years -- and, most urgently, who is likelier to put the government on a more sound financial footing." The suggestion appears to be that a president is not to be held accountable to his promises and past record and that his past record is no indication of his future behavior. Possibly, the Washington Post people believe that a black president shouldn't be held accountable to his record and campaign promises. Let's look at it.
Pick Your Constitutional Poison: Obama and Romney Share a Disdain for Civil Liberties
During the final presidential debate, the moderator asked Mitt Romney about President Obama's policy of killing suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens, with missiles fired from unmanned aircraft. "I believe we should use any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world," Romney replied. "I support that entirely." In other words, Romney has no qualms about trusting one man with the power to order the summary execution of anyone, anywhere in the world, whom he deems "a threat to us." This bipartisan disregard for civil liberties is the rule rather than the exception for the two major presidential candidates, who are about equally bad when it comes to respecting constitutional rights, although in somewhat different ways.
Where Is the Directive, Mr. President?
Obama claims he gave the order to secure our personnel and do "whatever we need to" in Benghazai
Why a Good Person Can Vote Against Same-Sex Marriage
Next week voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington will vote on whether to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. Given that there are good people on both sides of this issue, how are we to explain their opposing views? The primary explanation is this: Proponents and opponents ask two different questions. Proponents of same-sex marriage ask: Is keeping the definition of marriage as man-woman fair to gays? Opponents of same-sex marriage ask: Is same-sex marriage good for society?
Humanly Possible
While Hurricane Sandy exercises her gift for inflicting misery, upstaging the biggest presidential election since at least the last one, it might not come amiss to look on the bright side of the relationship between humans and nature. The election campaign has dealt only in passing with energy -- the product, if you want to look at it that way, of a joint collaboration between the two worlds we inhabit: one world consisting of rocks and water, the other of flesh and spirit. I say we fill in some gaps here. We're winning the battle for abundant energy. That's the sum and substance of it. Anybody who sat 40 years ago in a gasoline pump line -- as I did -- waiting to pay prices then viewed as exorbitant (but now cheap-seeming) should appreciate what goes on around here. Everyone else should also, come to think of it.
The Lord of the Flies Administration
Two recent ads illustrate the great cultural divide in this nation and which parties and presidential candidates represent these competing worldviews. In the handling of the economy and national security, President Obama has shown he's not capable of being the adult in the room. After four years of perpetual campaigning and cheerleading for his pet projects, he still isn't prepared to deal soberly with the consequences of his ideological indulgences. His community organizing fantasy has been to remake America in his more socialistic image, and in the process, he's taken the nation dangerously close to financial ruin. Yet like the unsupervised children in "Lord of the Flies," he refuses to make mature decisions to reverse this fiscally suicidal trend.
Who's a Racist?
On MSNBC's Ed Schultz program Friday night, the former chief of staff for Colin Powell, retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, said, of the Republican Party, "My party is full of racists ... and the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander in chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin ... that's despicable." Wilkerson's allegation followed his former boss's endorsement of President Obama for a second term. The history of racism has certainly stained both parties and there are racist Democrats and racist Republicans, but when the race card is played this close to the election, I suspect the pro-Obama forces are sensing trouble.
Benghazi: Symbol of Obama's Leadership
The first statements from the Obama administration about what happened in Benghazi seemed plausible. There were, after all, protests throughout the Muslim world on the anniversary of 9/11 -- some incited by Islamists using an obscure video to arouse anti-American fervor in the mobs, and some, no doubt, just pelting U.S. embassies on general principles. When the administration explained that one of those protests had spun out of control and led to the murder of our ambassador and three other Americans in Libya, there seemed no reason to doubt it. For a day. But within hours, the administration account deflated like a punctured balloon. CBS reported that there was no protest outside the consulate in Benghazi. Members of Congress who were briefed said the attack was a military-style assault. We learned that an al-Qaeda affiliate claimed responsibility for the attack. It was reported that Ambassador Stevens had noticed increased al-Qaeda activity, had feared for his safety, and had requested additional security, only to be turned down. Yet day after day, the administration continued to distort reality by referring to the Internet video.
'Cooling Out' the Voters
Confidence men know that their victim -- "the mark" as he has been called -- is eventually going to realize that he has been cheated. But it makes a big difference whether he realizes it immediately, and goes to the police, or realizes it after the confidence man is long gone. So part of the confidence racket is creating a period of uncertainty, during which the victim is not yet sure of what is happening. This delaying process has been called "cooling out the mark." The same principle applies in politics. When the accusations that led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton first surfaced, he flatly denied them all. Then, as the months passed, the truth came out -- but slowly, bit by bit. One of Clinton's own White House aides later called it "telling the truth slowly."
Pravda, Izvestia and the NY Times
Recently, one of my readers, George Gunning, reminded me that in the bad old days of the Soviet Union, there were two major newspapers. One was Pravda, which translates to Truth; the other was Izvestia, which means The News. The joke on the streets of Moscow was that there was no Pravda in Izvestia and no isvestia in Pravda. Today, the same could be said about the New York Times, and just about every other major media outlet in America. Meanwhile, back in Russia, Vladimir Putin recently celebrated his 60th birthday. The former head of the KGB is known to friends, relatives and any other Russian who doesn't want to end up dead, as "The Most Kind Hearted Man." I'm serious. No doubt, he envied the late dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-il, who, among various other pet names, answered to "Brilliant Leader," "Superior Person," "Father of the People," "Sun of the Communist Future" and, my own personal favorite, "Glorious General Who Descended from Heaven."
Another Election
*From Dnipropetrovsk, Ukarine* I've been here for two days preparing for, and actually observing the Ukrainian parliamentary elections. I was part of the International Observer Mission in that effort. During the day before I hopped on an airplane from Kiev to come down here we were briefed by various government and political leaders. One person in our group asked whether international observers could remain in a precinct to watch the counting process.
Benghazi and the Lethal Price of Arming Jihadists
New information on the function of the "consulate" paints a grim picture.
Voting Is a Right, Not a Duty
If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: It's your civic duty to vote. Between now and Election Day -- unless you're planning an extended session in a sensory-deprivation tank -- you'll no doubt hear it again. And again. Don't believe it. It's not your duty to vote. Not that I'm against voting. I was 9 when I first saw the inside of a voting booth. It was Election Day, 1968. My father took me with him early in the morning when he went to vote and let me pull the lever for his candidate -- Hubert H. Humphrey. (My mother cast her ballot later that day for Richard M. Nixon.) Once I turned old enough to vote I became an Election Day regular. My candidates don't usually win, and even those who do routinely disappoint me in office. Still, "don't vote -- it only encourages them" has never been my philosophy.
Changing Demographics Won't Mean the End of Republican Party
When reading one of the endless stories about a just-released poll Thursday night, a pair of numbers struck my eye: 60 and 37. Those were the percentages of white voters supporting Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in the ABC/Washington Post tracking poll. Overall, the poll showed Romney leading Obama 50 to 47 percent. The reason those two numbers struck my eye is that they are identical to the percentages of white voters supporting Republicans and Democrats in elections for the House of Representatives in the 2010 exit poll. Overall, Republicans won the House popular vote by a margin of 52 to 45 percent, tied with 1994 for the best Republican showing since 1946.
Gloria Allred Is Denied Her 'October Surprise'
Left-wing attorney's smear attempt against Mitt Romney is stopped in its tracks.
Mugging Our Descendants
The election eve mood is tinged with sadness stemming from well-founded fear that America's new government is subverting America's old character. Barack Obama's agenda is a menu of temptations intended to change the nation's social norms by making Americans comfortable with the degradation of democracy. This degradation consists of piling up public debt that binds unconsenting future generations to finance current consumption.