Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Let Bush Be
The theme of the president's 2012 re-election campaign is that George W. Bush left such a terrible mess that Barack Obama could hardly be expected to clean it up in four years. In other words, 43 months of unemployment rates above 8 percent, $5 trillion in new borrowing, $16 trillion in aggregate debt, gas prices of nearly $4 per gallon, a dive in average family income and involvement in two wars were all due to George Bush and simply too difficult for anyone else to overcome. So Obama cannot be judged on his record between 2009 and 2012. At first glance, this is a most unusual claim. Gerald Ford followed the mess of Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal and the Arab oil embargo. After serving for less than three years, he failed to win re-election. His successor, Jimmy Carter, seemed to make a bad situation even worse. He exited four years later, tagged with a high "misery index" fueled by rampant unemployment and roaring inflation.
Obama's Slap at Netanyahu
Israeli PM gets the shaft -- while Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood figurehead gets the red carpet.
The Higher-Ed Bubble Is Bound to Burst
"If you want to go to college," my mother said, "you'll have to get a scholarship." Luckily, I did. I was admitted to George Washington University, which generously awarded me a grant covering the full cost of my tuition. To the best of my recollection, that sum was $2,400 in 1975, the year I entered GW. To pay for my other expenses there were several forms of need-based financial aid, and I received what is now called a Pell Grant and a subsidized work/study job on campus. Adjusted for inflation, the $2,400 GW charged for tuition when I was a freshman would equal $10,220 today. But for freshmen entering this year, tuition at GW is $45,780. In other words, four years of GW in the 1970s cost less (in 2012 dollars) than a single year there -- or at many other universities -- today.
For Homeland Security, It's Bureaucracy as Usual
Oversight still has not been centralized
Egypt: We're So Sorry
If you think the Administration of Barack Obama has its arms around foreign policy read this from the Associated Press yesterday: "Ultraconservative Islamist protesters climbed the walls of the United States Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday and took down the American flag, replacing it with a black flag with an Islamic inscription to protest a movie attacking Islam's prophet, Muhammad." Did President Obama demand that the Egyptian government provide assurances that our embassy would be protected? No. In fact, Obama's crack foreign service issued an ... apology.
Depending on Dependency
The theme that most seemed to rouse the enthusiasm of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was that we are all responsible for one another -- and that Republicans don't want to help the poor, the sick and the helpless. All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts. Yet the notion that people who prefer economic decisions to be made by individuals in the market are not as compassionate as people who prefer those decisions to be made collectively by politicians is seldom even thought of as a belief that should be checked against facts.
The Democrats' Fake Freedoms
Sandra Fluke's claim to fame, aside from provoking Rush Limbaugh's misogynistic ire, is that she chose to attend Georgetown Law School, knowing full well that the Catholic university's student health plan did not cover birth control, and then demanded that the policy be changed, under force of law, as a matter of "reproductive justice." Although Fluke could have picked a different school, she told The Washington Post last February, "I decided I was absolutely not willing to compromise the quality of my education in exchange for my health care." Fluke's sense of entitlement and her casual resort to the use of force made her an ideal speaker for last week's Democratic National Convention, where she was joined by many others who believe justice requires that they receive whatever they want (including automaker bailouts and cheap student loans), even if other people have to pay for it. This mentality is so pervasive among Democrats that they seem unable to distinguish between defending rights and soliciting subsidies.
Hollywood Star Embraces Incest
This week, writer-director Nick Cassavetes released his new movie, "Yellow," about a woman having an affair with her brother. "I have no experience with incest," says Cassavetes. "We started thinking about that. We had heard a few stories where brothers and sisters were completely, absolutely in love with one another. You know what? This whole movie is about judgment, and lack of it, and doing what you want." But Cassavetes wasn't done: "Who gives a s--- if people judge you? I'm not saying this is an absolute, but in a way, if you're not having kids, who gives a damn? Love who you want. Isn't that what we say? Gay marriage -- love who you want? If it's your brother or sister, it's super weird, but if you look at it, you're not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you're in love with one another."
Who May Tax and Spend?
Within the past decade, I've written columns titled "Deception 101," "Stubborn Ignorance" and "Exploiting Public Ignorance," all explaining which branch of the federal government has taxing and spending authority. So here it is again: The first clause of Article 1, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution, generally known as the "origination clause," reads: "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills." Constitutionally and by precedent, the House of Representatives has the exclusive prerogative to originate bills to appropriate money, as well as to raise revenues. The president is constitutionally permitted to propose tax and spending measures or veto them. Congress has the authority to ignore the president's proposals and override his vetoes.
Should Conservatives Cut a $646-Billion Defense Budget?
In 1989, the year President Ronald Reagan left office and the Berlin Wall came down, total spending by the Department of Defense equaled $468.7 billion in constant 2005 dollars, according to the Office of Management and Budget. In 2005, when President George W. Bush started his second term, and the U.S. was at war in both Afghanistan and Iraq, DOD spent $473.4 billion in constant 2005 dollars. This year, under President Barack Obama, DOD will spend $582.5 billion in constant 2005 dollars. In inflation-adjusted dollars, Obama is spending 23 percent more on defense than Bush did when the United States was fighting simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and 24 percent more than Reagan spent when he won the Cold War.
The Blatant Bias With the Wives
The conventions have come and gone, but as always, the TV network "news" coverage of Tampa and Charlotte demonstrated once again that these people have no intention of trying to be equally positive or equally aggressive with the two major parties. Their obvious, but unstated, agenda is to drag Obama over the finish line to re-election. Always on pins and needles for his man Obama, NBC anchor Brian Williams told top Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett at the convention season's end that they will need the "tall order" of "nothing but positive coverage" over the next 60 days.
Forward to What, Democrats?
"Forward" is a perfectly appropriate slogan for progressives. Progress suggests forward or upward motion. That's why revolutionaries and radicals as well as liberal incrementalists have always embraced some derivation of the forward trope. So ingrained are these directional concepts in our political language, we often forget they are mere geographic metaphors applied -- and often misapplied -- to policy disputes. For instance, some on the left might see enrolling more people on food stamps as a step in the right direction, moving us "forward" to a more generous and all-encompassing welfare state. But other self-described progressives might see a swelling of the food stamp rolls to be a step backward, either in strict accounting terms (we are, after all, broke) or even in cultural terms. Some Democrats have even been known to brag when they've gotten people off the food stamp rolls.
'A' Is for Agitation: Radical Chicago Teachers on Parade
Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis walks, talks and barks like a rootsy Occupy Wall Street activist. But this Big Labor loudmouth who's leading the abandonment of nearly 400,000 schoolchildren in the Windy City is just another power-grabbing union fat cat. Instead of academic excellence, she rails about "social justice." Instead of accountability, she fumes about "profits" and curses merit pay. Lewis has marched with the Occu-clowns denouncing capitalism and promoting "socialism (as) the alternative." She raves: "Occupy Wall Street and the whole concept of the 99 percent is an extraordinarily important movement." And she earned praise as a "fist-in-the-air, crowd-rousing, dynamic union leader" by former Communist Party revolutionary turned Obama-funded "school reformer" Michael Klonsky.
Clinton Myths
Bill Clinton got rave reviews for his speech at the Democratic National Convention. My wife said: "Clinton was great. He made Republicans look like liars and losers." Clinton, now a sainted elder statesman, also gets credit for the booming economy of the '90s. Today, he appears in an Obama commercial -- in full "I feel your pain" mode -- saying that Obama "has a plan to rebuild America from the ground up." When someone claims anyone can rebuild a society from the ground up, I say he is arrogant and delusional. Clinton then tries to scare viewers by telling them that Republicans want to "go back to deregulation. That's what got us in trouble in the first place."
The Left's 'Education Justice' -- Chicago Teachers on Strike
The real school bullies take to the streets.
Weather as a Number One Factor
9/11 and the Kennedy Assassination -- the two events on U.S. soil in my life where weather changed history
Why Bill Clinton Is All Wet
The Clinton line, an elaboration of Obama excuse No. 37 for the dismal economy (after the Arab Spring, ATMs, the euro crisis and tomato blight in Mrs. Obama's White House garden), goes like this: The economy was so damaged by George W. Bush-era policies that "no president" could have been expected to do better than the record-high poverty, staggering unemployment, shrinking workforce participation, anemic growth and gargantuan debt over which Barack Obama has presided. We're asked to believe that the Obama administration knew all along that things would take longer than four years to improve. "I never said this journey would be easy," the president claimed in Charlotte. On the contrary, the president stated explicitly on Feb. 1, 2009, that if he failed to get the economy turned around in three years, he would be looking at a "one-term proposition."
Can a Christian Vote for a Non-Christian Candidate?
*"I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people -- for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness."* --1Timothy 2:1-2 It is clear from the Apostle Paul's writing that we are to pray for all leaders in government, including those who may not be Christians. But can we vote for them?
An Economic 'Plan'?
Former president Bill Clinton told the Democratic National Convention that Barack Obama has a plan to rescue the economy, and only the fact that the Republicans stood in his way has stopped him from getting the economy out of the doldrums. From all this, and much else that is said in the media and on the campaign trail, you might think that the economy requires government intervention to revive and create jobs. It is Beltway dogma that the government has to "do something." History tells a different story. For the first 150 years of this country's existence, the federal government felt no great need to "do something" when the economy turned down. Over that long span of time, the economic downturns were neither as deep nor as long lasting as they have been since the federal government decided that it had to "do something" in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which set a new precedent.
The Two Americas
Well, that sure was a short campaign. Two conventions, a few speeches and that's it? Obama-Biden beats Romney-Ryan like a drum and we get back to whatever it was we were doing before the election so rudely interrupted us? As of Monday, the Real Clear Politics average of presidential polls had President Obama five points ahead. Based on what he was hearing, Nate Silver, the New York Times' poll specialist, had granted Obama 316.9 electoral votes and Mitt Romney 221.1. Intrade, "the world's leading prediction market," had Obama's chances figured at 59.7 percent, versus a sobering, if not a gimme-a-double-scotch-depressing 40.3.