Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Desperate Dems Hide Behind Big Bird
Mitt Romney sure ruffled a lot of feathers over his proposal to eliminate taxpayer funding for government-sponsored TV. As soon as the GOP presidential candidate singled out PBS for cuts during the presidential debate in Denver, the hysterical squawking commenced. Left-leaning celebrities immediately erupted on Twitter. "WOW!!! No PBS!! WTF how about cutting congress's stuff leave big bird alone," Whoopi Goldberg fumed. "Mitt is smirky, sweaty, indignant and smug with an unsettling hint of hysteria. And he wants to kill BIG BIRD," actress Olivia Wilde despaired. "Who picks on Big Bird!!! #bulliesthatswho," actress Taraji Henson chimed in. Social media activists called for a Million Muppet March on the National Mall to "show your support for Big Bird, Muppets, PBS and all that is good." The grammar-challenged operatives of George Soros-funded Media Matters for America lectured "right-wing media" to be "more concerned with Americans having jobs insteading (sic) of obsessing whether or not Big Bird has one."
Oscars Make Splash in the Sewer
Anyone in Hollywood who's dreamed of hosting the Oscars telecast never imagined that the qualifications would eventually include creating cartoon dogs that love "pukesicles" and cartoon babies that eat horse sperm for breakfast. That crashing sound you heard was the collapse of the final vestiges of taste, civility, respect, decency -- whatever you want to call it - after the allegedly classy Oscar producers named "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane as the host of the 85th annual Academy Awards next February. MacFarlane used to be the highest-paid sleaze ball in television. He is now the King of Hollywood. Hollywood, bow to your king. Pick up your pukesicle and lick, lick, lick. You deserve each other.
Trading Places
Who was that stiff, out-of-touch guy onstage in Denver at this week's presidential debate? He looked a lot like Barack Obama -- but how could that be? It was as if the candidates swapped bodies before they went out onstage. The president became the Mitt Romney caricature the Obama campaign has created through millions of dollars of advertising: an elitist who has no idea what the middle class is going through. And Mitt Romney became the great communicator who understands the suffering and anxiety of ordinary Americans and knows how to relieve it. There is no question that Mitt Romney won the debate on points -- his answers were crisp and coherent, while Obama's were slow, rambling and too much in the policy weeds to resonate with most listeners. But the bigger problem for Obama was his manner. He couldn't look Romney in the eye, spent more time looking down than he did trying to connect with the audience and looked annoyed at having to answer questions.
Defeatism
HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- When our Fox News team left for Afghanistan last week, there was a palpable sense of imminent calamity in the air. Gloom and doom news from here is now a staple in our so-called mainstream media. Reports of "green-on-blue," or insider, attacks by our Afghan allies against American and NATO troops are depicted as a sure sign of mission failure and portend of worse to come. Commentaries, columns and "analysis" from "experts" urging our political and military leaders to "get out now" routinely grace our print and broadcast outlets. The terms "betrayed," "cut our losses" and "minimize failure" appear regularly in the press, and "lost cause" is now the media watchword for Afghanistan.
The Undoing of the Storybook Man
It was the Puss in Boots eyes. If you've seen the "Shrek" movies or the spin-off cartoon starring the storybook cat voiced by Antonio Banderas, you know what I'm talking about. Whenever Puss in Boots really needs something from someone, he flashes these enormous kitten eyes that melt anyone in their path. Whenever my daughter really wants something, she tries to lay them on me, and I have to say, "Stop trying to give me the Puss in Boots eyes ... you can't have chocolate cake for dinner." I knew Barack Obama was miserable when he tried to give debate moderator Jim Lehrer the Puss-in-Boots eyes. "You may want to move on to another topic," Obama implored Lehrer, a bit like a motorcycle thief begging a cop to take him into custody rather than let him stay with the surly biker gang that caught him.
Romney by Two Touchdowns
WASHINGTON -- It was the biggest rout since Agincourt. If you insist, since the Carter-Reagan debate. With a remarkable display of confidence, knowledge and nerve, Mitt Romney won the first 2012 debate going away. Romney didn't just demonstrate authoritative command of a myriad of domestic issues. He was nervy about it, taking the president on frontally, not just relentlessly attacking, but answering every charge leveled against him -- with a three-point rebuttal.
Romney’s Trifecta
WASHINGTON -- The presidential campaign, hitherto a plod through a torrent of words tedious beyond words, began to dance in Denver. There a masterfully prepared Mitt Romney completed a trifecta of tasks and unveiled an issue that, because it illustrates contemporary liberalism's repellant essence, can constitute his campaign's closing argument. Barack Obama, knight of the peevish countenance, illustrated William F. Buckley's axiom that liberals who celebrate tolerance of other views always seem amazed that there are other views. Obama, who is not known as a martyr to the work ethic and who might use a teleprompter when ordering lunch, seemed uncomfortable with a format that allowed fluidity of discourse.
The Best Presidential Debate Performance
It's impossible to overstate the effect that Mitt Romney's performance in the first presidential debate has had on conservatives and Republicans. The past four years have been a torment as we've watched a committed left-wing activist grease the skids for America's decline into a socialist state. Our TV screens have featured images of violent protests in Greece, Italy and Spain as their socialist paper boats capsize. Yet the Obama Administration's resolute march into that dead end has proceeded apace. There was a brief bloom of hope that the Supreme Court would save the country from the worst time bomb of the Obama presidency, but a late betrayal by a conservative justice extinguished it. The past few weeks have been especially painful as Mr. Obama seemed to gain traction in the polls and escape responsibility for the completely foreseeable results of his policies -- economic enfeeblement, rising poverty and dependency, loss of world influence and looming insolvency. More than that, a mendacious address by Bill Clinton, blaming the economic meltdown of 2008 on free markets and Republicans, seemed to be the only argument on offer -- and one that voters were inclined to accept.
A Huge Victory for a Principled Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney politely cleaned Barack Obama's clock last night. A lethargic and at times tired looking President Obama was out-hustled, out-facted, out-energized and out-informed by former Gov. Mitt Romney. Completely unlike Romney's convention speech, tonight he focused on strong economic issues, developed his philosophy of limited government and convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is in fact a pro-growth tax reformer who wants to lower the rate and broaden the base in a revenue-neutral fashion that will actually create jobs and spur the economy.
Romney Left Obama on the Ropes
Barack Obama hasn't been in a high-stakes, nationally televised presidential debate in nearly four years. Mitt Romney was in plenty of them over the past 18 months. Last night, it showed. Heading into yesterday's encounter at the University of Denver, polls showed that voters by a wide margin were expecting Obama to win the three debates that he and Romney have agreed to. But not only did the president fail to knock out his challenger last night, there were long stretches when it wasn't even clear he had remembered to lace up his gloves. On issue after issue, in exchange after exchange, Romney was focused, clear, interesting, and engaged, while Obama repeatedly came across as distracted, irritated, and vague. The former Massachusetts governor was plainly enjoying himself. The president seemed to want nothing more than to run out the clock and bring a painful evening to an end.
Romney Won … Big
Romney had studied Obama and figured out he could come up under Obama's defenses and whack him again and again. Romney didn't land a knock-out blow; but unless this was Obama's version of rope-a-dope, he took a pretty bad beating last night. From the very beginning it appeared to me that Romney was better prepared and/or more rested than Obama. We were reminded why the President needs a TelePrompTer. Obama seemed to be unfocused in many of his answers -- he appeared, in fact, to be overwhelmed by Romney's command of the facts and the specifics of what he wants to do.
The Real Barack Obama
A recent poll shows that 85 percent of middle-class Americans believe they're worse off now than they were 10 years ago. Yet shockingly, just 34 percent of those people blame Barack Obama. More Americans blame Congress (62 percent), banks (54 percent), corporations (47 percent), former President George W. Bush (44 percent) and foreign competition (39 percent). Why the disconnect? These folks aren't entirely wrong. Congress did nothing about an out-of-control Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for a decade, and allowed the Federal Reserve to inflate the currency all the while. Banks played along with the regulatory regime in order to make short-term profits. President George W. Bush didn't do enough to free the real estate market from the shackles of liberal central planning.
Autumn in New York
WASHINGTON -- Autumn in New York -- that sound like the title of a song! In fact, it sounds like the first line of a song, and so it is. Autumn is a lovely time of year in many places, but for me my favorite place at this time of year is New York City. As the song goes, it seems "so inviting." And one of the great events marking autumn in New York is the Columbus Day Parade. It reminds us of what a great melting pot it has been, and, one hopes, it always will be. Christopher Columbus opened the New World to European migration in 1492. He prefigured the spirit of America with his daring, his sense of duty and his piety. Samuel Eliot Morison, in the second volume of his two-volume history, "The European Discovery of America," portrayed Columbus as a truly heroic figure, an exemplary captain of the ocean waves, to introduce us all to the admirable adventure that America has proved to be. 68 years ago, the Italian-Americans in New York City's Columbus Citizens Foundation gave Columbus a fitting memorial in the Columbus Day Parade, and this year on October 8, once again all Americans can come out to honor him and share in the glory that is the American melting pot.
Black America -- What If Obama Were White?
What if President Obama were white? Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said last year, "If (former President) Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House." The problem to which Cleaver refers is black unemployment. At the beginning of the Obama administration, 12.7 percent of black adults seeking work were unemployed. Black unemployment is now 14.1 percent. Black teenage unemployment at the beginning of the Obama administration was 35.2 percent. Black teenage unemployment is now 37.9 percent.
Obama's Promotion of Racial Hatred Exposed
Bombshell raw video and what it reveals about the president.
Quips, Slips and Gaffes in Presidential Debates
Mitt Romney was 13 years old and Barack Obama had not been born when an energetic-looking John Kennedy, 43, and a tired-looking Richard Nixon, 47, walked into the WBBM-TV studio in Chicago for the first general election debate between presidential candidates. It is generally held that television viewers felt Kennedy won the first debate, while those listening on radio, unaware of Nixon's improvised makeup, felt Nixon won. That's probably overstated. Contemporary accounts suggest most viewers felt both candidates did well, while the single poll of radio listeners had a small sample possibly tilted toward pro-Nixon rural areas lacking TV reception.
'Total Reprobate'
"You can't run from your mistakes. You have to confront them." -- Arnold Schwarzenegger Believe it or not, there was a time when people didn't go on TV to confess their sins. That was back when most understood what sin is, before everything became excusable, especially for celebrities and the politically powerful. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is on a media tour promoting his book, "Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story." It certainly is. On "60 Minutes," in USA Today and elsewhere, Schwarzenegger acknowledges affairs with women not his wife and the son he fathered with their housekeeper. He calls it all a "mistake."
Meditations
On those occasions when he wasn't trying to convince people that he had swallowed a dictionary and could break his habit of using arcane multi-syllabic words, William F. Buckley proved he could be both Solomon-like and pithy in his comments about those who infest the Left. One of my favorites was his observation that "Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views." Although in no way would I ever defend or endorse the institution of slavery, when you see how blacks, even in the 21st century, live in Africa and the Caribbean, no one can honestly pity the plight of modern-day American blacks. Compared to most of their brethren around the world, even those perennial underachievers who choose to remain uneducated and outside the mainstream of American life, manage to own TV sets, cars, refrigerators and cellphones.
Left Wants Multiculturalism to Trump Free Speech
The American Left used to champion free expression. We were lectured -- correctly -- that the price of being repulsed by occasional crude talk and art was worth paying. Only that way could Americans ensure our daily right to criticize those with greater power and influence whom we found wrong and objectionable. When 1950s comedian Lenny Bruce titillated his audiences with the F-word and crude sex talk, liberals came to his defense. They reminded us that vulgar speech is not a crime: The First Amendment was not just designed to protect uplifting expression, but also rarer blasphemous and indecent speech.
Czech the Poles
With most of Official Washington on nitroglycerin tablets awaiting tonight's D*E*B*A*T*E between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in Denver, there are other things going on. To start with, those pesky polls are beginning to tighten up again. Remember just about 10 minutes ago how the worldwide cadre of official political pundits, reporters, hangers-on, and operatives said this race was over and Obama could just take a knee for the next five week? Oops.