Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
They Knew -- And They Lied Anyway
They had eyes in the sky, ears on the ground -- and emails in the pipeline with minutes after the attack on Benghazi began. They watched and listened in real time, as terrorists stormed the compound, firing rocket propelled grenades, mortars and AK-47 rifles. An email sent during the *seven-hour long* battle that claimed the lives of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, and agent Sean Smith is entitled, "Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack." Add it all up and the conclusion is inescapable: the Obama administration is embroiled in the biggest scandal since Watergate -- and a thoroughly corrupt mainstream media has tolerated a blizzard of lies about every bit of it, hoping it won't derail the president's re-election.
President Obama: Sexist in Chief
"In what new ways," an "undecided voter" asked the presidential candidates during the second debate, "do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?" Mitt Romney said that, as governor, he questioned why there were no female applicants for his administration. Women's groups, he said, then brought him "binders full" of qualified women. To this, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said, "Mitt Romney, on a point-blank question the other night in the debate, refused to answer whether he believes in equal pay for equal work. He refers to women as binders and resumes. You know, a callous sort of brush-off."
Affluent Suburbs Swing to Debate-Tested Romney
Back in May, I wrote a column laying out possible scenarios for the 2012 campaign different from the conventional wisdom that it would be a long, hard slog through a fixed list of target states like the race in 2004. I thought alternatives were possible because partisan preferences in the half dozen years before 2004 were very stable, while partisan preferences over the last half dozen years have been anything but. Now, after Mitt Romney's big victory in the Oct. 3 debate and his solid performances in the Oct. 16 and 22 debates, there is evidence that two of my alternative scenarios may be unfolding.
Singing the Blues With Barack Obama
Washington -- This election is not turning out the way President Barack Obama had expected. Perhaps that is why he has looked so uncomfortable in his three debates with the suddenly debonair Governor Mitt Romney. Possibly President Obama had expected something more from the former governor of Massachusetts, the former CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympics, the former head of Bain Capital -- and, incidentally, is not Bain Capital assuming the same demonic role in this contest between Obama and Romney as Halliburton industries once played in the campaigns of Bush-Cheney? It is, I suppose, an asset that in all their years of adult life neither Obama nor Joe Biden have ever suffered any exposure to the dark doings of private-sector employment, none whatsoever. It is a dispensation that has kept them pure, almost virginal.
What the Debates Taught Us
The president of the United States in the last debate chose to go on the attack against his challenger, Mitt Romney -- and once again largely failed to convince the American people that he was the more presidential alternative. But how did the once-messianic incumbent find himself in this fix of playing the catch-up role of a bar-room-brawling challenger rather than a calm and confident president? Despite running ahead in the polls for most of the year, Barack Obama has rarely achieved a 50 percent favorability rating, largely because of four years of dismal economic news. Obama himself had warned us four years ago that if he didn't restore prosperity, he would be a one-term president -- and the debates taught us that he was probably right. Promises about halving the annual deficit, getting unemployment below 6 percent and increasing middle-class incomes were never met. The recent unrest in the Middle East and the killing of an American ambassador and three other Americans in Libya did not help convince anyone that Obama's foreign policy was so successful that they could afford to overlook an anemic economy.
The Battleground States That Will Decide the Election
A tight race, but Obama's huge margins of victory in key swing states have vanished.
The Real George McGovern
"Government has become so vast and impersonal," the presidential challenger asserted, "that its interests diverge more and more from the interests of ordinary citizens. For a generation and more, the government has sought to meet our needs by multiplying its bureaucracy. Washington has taken too much in taxes from Main Street, and Main Street has received too little in return. It is not necessary to centralize power in order to solve our problems." Was that Ronald Reagan in 1980, evangelizing for smaller, less-intrusive government as he campaigned against Jimmy Carter? Was it Barry Goldwater, echoing a theme from *The Conscience of a Conservative* during his longshot 1964 attempt to unseat Lyndon Johnson? Was it Mitt Romney, contrasting his view of a properly restrained federal establishment with Barack Obama's exorbitant Keynesianism?
Obama's Hate Couture Divas
Talk about wearing your politics on your sleeve. An elitist clique of fashion designers has banded together to raise money for celebrity-in-chief Barack Obama and browbeat their customers into supporting him. Even worse, the Beautiful People who dress the Powerful People are putting increased pressure on conservatives to stay out of the business altogether. Out: Haute couture. In: Hate couture. In February, high-dollar bag-makers, cosmetics gurus and clothiers offered their services to help fill Obama's campaign coffers. Nearly two dozen gurus billed their enterprise as "Runway to Win: A Project by Fashion Designers in Support of the Obama Victory Fund." Campaign finance experts questioned whether employees of the corporate participants were truly "volunteering" their time in accordance with federal law. But of course, no Obama administration lawyers have bothered to enforce the rules.
Football as It Was Meant to Be
When a generation of young men at Princeton, Harvard and Yale invented American football in the decades after the Civil War, they must have envisioned that someday there would be a game like the one Princeton played Saturday against Harvard. This was football as it was meant to be. It was not the crystal blue October sky that made this game so nearly perfect, or the red leaves falling from the maples, or the yellow leaves clinging to the elms. Nor was it the gothic towers rising through the autumn colors beyond the stadium wall. It was what happened on the field that made this a day for the ages. Both Harvard and Princeton entered the game unbeaten in the Ivy League. But not long after the opening kickoff, evidence mounted that this may not be a contest of equals. Harvard dominated -- on offense, defense and special teams.
Greed
On TV, my Fox colleague Bill O'Reilly says, "The recession was brought on largely by greedy Wall Street corporations." Give me a break. Bill's smart. If he believes such things, we who care about freedom have done a poor job communicating economics. Blaming problems on "greed" is a mindless cliche. Yes, Wall Street was greedy -- but that's nothing new. Greed is a constant. Did you ever turn down a raise? We need a free market because it *restrains* greed. Laws against theft and fraud help, but competition does more. With this election approaching, and statist, eager-to-regulate candidates in ascent, we need more Americans to understand this.
Say No to Feisty Liberal Moderators
In the final debate, liberal CBS anchorman Bob Schieffer did it right. He moderated without asserting his own political opinions. Indeed, if this was all you had as a compass, you'd never know where he leaned. It was a welcome change from the Raddatz and Crowley libfests. On the morning after the debate, CBS invited Fox's Bill O'Reilly to discuss the debate performances. Interestingly enough, he faulted them all, while CBS's Charlie Rose defended them all. Rose tried to suggest these debates reveal something more than policy differences, they reveal demeanor and temperament. "Well, then let's have Dr. Phil interview them then," shot back O'Reilly. Naturally, Rose stuck up for all his media colleagues: "Oh stop that. It's not Dr. Phil. You couldn't have done better in terms of the kind of people who are making an analysis and an assessment of this than the guys who are doing the moderation."
Why Mitt Romney Will Win
President Obama was on the ropes in the polls after the first presidential debate. After the second presidential debate, he hit the mat in the polls. And after the third presidential debate, he looks to be down for the count. The question, of course, is why. Looking at the debates alone doesn't tell the full story. Romney surely won the first debate -- in fact, he cleaned President Obama's clock -- but in the second debate, he fought President Obama to a draw. And in the third and final debate, which centered on foreign policy, Romney pulled his punches.
America First, and Other Modern Heresies
The paltriness of the Obama presidency comes vividly to mind as the debates wrap up. Crotchety and defensive about a stewardship that half of likely voters find, well, inadequate to present purposes, Barack Obama in the foreign policy debate trafficked most memorably in pre-planned insults to his opponent. "[W]e have these things called aircraft carriers ... these ships that go under water," was the retort to Mitt Romney's expostulation concerning shrinkage of our navy.
America, Finally Home?
WASHINGTON -- The death of George McGovern on the eve of the presidential candidates' foreign policy debate underscored a momentous political reversal spanning four decades. McGovern's nomination for president in 1972, a consequence of the Democratic Party's recoil against the Vietnam War and the riotous convention four years earlier, made the country uneasy about his party regarding national security. Four decades later, however, voters may be more ambivalent about America's world role than at any time since the 1930s. Hence the sense of tediousness Monday evening. The candidates -- who really do not differ all that much about foreign policy, although they constantly pretend otherwise -- sort of argued for 90 minutes about matters concerning which most voters do not really care very much, although they occasionally pretend otherwise.
A Foreign Policy of Arrogant Meddling
A year before Mitt Romney picked him as a running mate, Paul Ryan gave a speech in which he discussed the promise and peril of the Arab Spring. "It's too soon to tell whether these revolutions will result in governments that respect the rights of their citizens or in one form of autocracy ... supplanting another," he said. "While we work to assure the former, American policy should be realistic about our ability to avert the latter." More generally, Ryan said, "American policy should be tempered by a healthy humility about the extent of our power to control events in other regions." It was hard to discern any such reticence in this week's presidential debate, during which Romney agreed with President Obama that the U.S. government has a duty to liberate and pacify the world, by force of arms if necessary.
A Vote for Election Day
I suspect most voters watching Monday night's debate found it pretty boring. President Obama wanted to force Mitt Romney into saying something stupid. Romney didn't take the bait. So pretty much nothing changed the dynamics of the race. But what if something did? What if Obama announced in a fit of pique that "America doesn't deserve a president as awesome as me"? Or what if Romney pulled open a panel in his chest revealing that he is, in fact, an android? And he was made in China! Or the game-changer could have been something more plausible. The point is, what if something was said or done that caused large numbers of voters to change their minds? Well, for perhaps millions of voters it would be too late, thanks to early voting.
What You Can't Say
Jon Hubbard, a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, has a book, titled "Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative." Among its statements for which Hubbard has been criticized and disavowed by the Republican Party is, "The institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth." Hubbard's observation reminded me of my 1972 job interview at the University of Massachusetts. During a reception, one of the Marxist professors asked me what I thought about the relationship between capitalism and slavery. My response was that slavery has existed everywhere in the world, under every political and economic system, and was by no means unique to capitalism or the United States. Perturbed by my response, he asked me what my feelings were about the enslavement of my ancestors. I answered that slavery is a despicable violation of human rights but that the enslavement of my ancestors is history, and one of the immutable facts of history is that nothing can be done to change it.
Exploiting the Americans With Disabilities Act
How Congress helped created a frivolous lawsuit racket.
George McGovern: A Conservative's Appreciation
Former South Dakota Democratic Senator George McGovern, who died Sunday, had all manner of evil said about him because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. He was called unpatriotic, disloyal, an appeaser and an enabler of communism. Those were the printable slanders. Many conservatives at the time believed in the "domino theory," that if South Vietnam fell to the communists, all Asia would follow. That proved untrue. McGovern was eventually vindicated in many minds about America's involvement in Vietnam.
The Third and Final Debate: Romney Won
The foreign policy debate was not given much chance of being a game changer. No one really thought that a talk about the future of US-Myanmar relations was going to move the needle very much. Incumbent Presidents are expected to know more about foreign policy than their challengers, but the challengers' challenge is to show that if they get the daily security briefing in the Oval Office they can handle the job. If that is a fair measure, then Mitt Romney won this debate.