Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
A Moral Question for the GOP
Many conservatives reject President Obama's recent policy to defer action against illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children. But as a conservative who supports the president's decision, I think it's important to seriously engage the arguments both for and against the policy. First, let me explain what the Obama program does and does not do. It explicitly does not grant legal status to any group, even those who came illegally as infants or children. Those who are eligible for deferred action are given no path to permanent residency or to citizenship. They are not eligible for government assistance programs that bar other illegal immigrants.
The Liberal Sisterhood of the Plundering Hacks
Hey, remember when Nancy Pelosi and a gaggle of Democratic women vowed to eradicate Washington's culture of corruption? Tee-hee. Instead of breaking up the Good Ol' Boys Club, Capitol Hill's leading liberal ladies have established their very own taxpayer-funded Sisterhood of the Plundering Hacks. This week, the names of two of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's gal pals surfaced in a mortifying, Animal House-style scandal. If the allegations of whistleblowers pan out, DHS may soon be known as DSH: The Department of Sexual Harassment.
Skipping Over the Shooting at FRC
Floyd Corkins, a volunteer for the last six months at the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community, marched into the Family Research Center with a gun and serious ammunition, denounced FRC's policy positions and shot a security guard in the arm before being subdued. Another hate crime, but this time against, perhaps, the pre-eminent pro-family organization in America. CBS gave the story 20 seconds. NBC spent 17 seconds.
A Storied Presidency
In 1995, Barack Obama released "Dreams From My Father," a compelling memoir full of stories about his life that -- though often not exactly true -- persuaded many people that this young man had a great political future ahead of him. Nearly a decade later, Obama introduced himself to the country with a stirring speech at the 2004 Democratic convention in which he conceded, "I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story ... and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible." "Even as we speak," Obama declared as he strode the high road at takeoff velocity, "there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes."
Obama's Medicare Fear Mongering Will Drown in the Facts
Analysts may be correct that the presidential election won't primarily turn on entitlements reform, but by choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney can, contrary to conventional wisdom, make it a winning issue and lay the foundation for a reform mandate when he wins. Besides, the economy and entitlements are wholly integrated issues: We cannot ultimately fix the economy long term without entitlement reform, and we can't balance the budget or retire the debt without a growing economy. Democrats appear jubilant about the Ryan pick, believing his close association with entitlement reform provides an opening for them to scare seniors into thinking they'll lose Medicare and Social Security benefits.
Joe Biden Shakes Those Chains
We thought Joe Biden couldn't top -- or bottom -- the appalling gaffe of calling a 2010 White House bill signing ceremony "a big f___ing deal." But he just did it. In Danville, Virginia this week, Biden told a largely black audience the Republicans were going to "put y'all in chains." Now, of course, his staff is backpedaling furiously. He meant the banks. He was talking about banking de-regulation, they bleat frantically. Sure he was. If any conservative, any Republican had made such a statement, he'd have been fired. Agriculture Sec. Earl Butz was fired in 1976 within hours of telling a dirty joke offensive to black Americans (and most others). Majority Leader Trent Lott lost his post when he joked about Strom Thurmond being elected president. Old Strom had been a segregationist candidate in 1948.
Bitter Harvest
WASHINGTON -- In December 2009, our commander in chief went to West Point and proclaimed that he would withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by 2014. Since then, he has proudly emphasized that "We are on a course to end this war responsibly." Now U.S. and NATO troops and loyal Afghan soldiers and police officers are reaping the bitter harvest of the seeds that Barack Obama planted with those words. Over the last 10 days, in five separate incidents, seven American military personnel were killed in what used to be called "green on blue attacks" -- where Afghan soldiers or police have assaulted their U.S. and NATO counterparts. Thus far this year, 37 coalition troops and civilians have been killed in 29 incidents of what the Pentagon now calls "insider attacks." According to figures released by the NATO command in Kabul, there were 11 such events in all last year, resulting in 20 deaths.
Those Polls, That Biden
USA Today invested good money surveying people who are not going to vote in this year's elections. Why? So they could find out how Barack Obama would do in November if everyone did vote. According to this survey among the people who will not be voting Obama beats Mitt Romney 43% to 14%. Yes, I know. There is a certain Alice-in-Wonderland aspect to all this, but let's keep going. The 800 person sample was not exactly an exact cross section of America.
The Muslim Brotherhood's Palace Coup
Obstacles in the way of the Islamist takeover of Egypt are dwindling.
The Trouble With Elections
The drawback to elections, no matter where they take place, is that all sorts of people get to vote. Just look around and you'll see the disastrous results of democratic elections. In Gaza, the people elected terrorists who owe their allegiance to Hamas. In Egypt, they elected Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, who gave a victory speech in which he announced that the future capital of Egypt would be Jerusalem, of all places, and put out a call to his people, saying, "You are all Hamas. Come forward, you lovers of martyrdom." Not exactly Churchillian or Reaganesque, I'm sure you'd agree.
Sexually Suggestive Movies Profoundly Affect Teens
Culture Challenge of the Week: Movies "Selling" Sex to Children
After the Olympics: Where's the Humility?
Humility, it is sometimes said, doesn't mean thinking less of yourself. It means thinking of yourself less. For Carli Lloyd I'd guess that's a distinction without a difference. After Lloyd scored the goals that lifted the US Olympic women's soccer team to a 2-1 victory over Japan in the gold medal match at London's Wembley Stadium last week, thinking of herself less was decidedly not on her agenda. "When someone tells me I can't do something, I'm going to always prove them wrong," Lloyd bragged to an NBC interviewer. "That's what a champion is all about and that's what I am -- a champion!"
Why Liberals Behave the Way They Do
My smash best-seller "Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America" has just come out in paperback -- and not a moment too soon! Democrats always become especially mob-like during presidential election campaigns. The "root cause" of the Democrats' wild allegations against Republicans, their fear of change, their slogans and insane metaphors, are all explained by mass psychology, diagnosed more than a century ago by the French psychologist Gustave Le Bon, on whose work much of my own book is based. Le Bon's 1896 book, "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind," was carefully read by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in order to learn how to incite mobs. Our liberals could have been Le Bon's study subjects.
The Legacy of Helen Gurley Brown
When women complain about men who can't commit, they can thank -- or blame -- two people: Playboy magazine publisher Hugh Hefner and the former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, Helen Gurley Brown, who died this week at age 90. Brown was the flip side of Hefner, offering women permission, even encouragement, to embrace a female version of Hefner's freewheeling "Playboy philosophy" of unrestrained sexual pleasure. Brown and Hefner offered one-way tickets to fantasyland, a journey supposedly without cost to a destination seemingly without consequences.
Stilts or Ladders?
Ben is a young friend of ours who was an intern in our Washington office. This summer, Ben is working on yard crews and in restaurants prior to going into the military. This recent college grad is getting quite an education working with the working poor. Ben challenges us: What can you say to young men and women who are working at minimum wage, who are not concerned about social issues like abortion and marriage, who are unchurched and uninterested in the threats we see to religious liberty? These young Americans are just trying to keep their heads above water. There are millions of younger people in America who are working at such entry level jobs. They don't have health care coverage.
Harry Reid's Cow and Joe Biden's Parrot
A week passes, and thus far, the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has yet to tell us whether he is or is not having sexual relations with a cow. As was reported in this column last week, based on sources in the field, Reid has been involved with the cow for at least three months, possibly more. My sources cannot be identified for obvious reasons. Even The New York Times would not reveal their identities. The story is that hot.
Recruit George McGovern to Speak -- at the REPUBLICAN Convention!
Shrewd move in choosing House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., as running mate for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Now here's the next play: Invite George McGovern, the 1972 (SET ITAL) Democratic (END ITAL) presidential candidate, to speak this month in Tampa at the *Republican* National Convention. Yes, that old lefty McGovern. You know the expression, "A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged"? Well, McGovern has been mugged.
There Is No California
Driving across California is like going from Mississippi to Massachusetts without ever crossing a state line. Consider the disconnects: California's combined income and sales taxes are among the nation's highest, but the state's deficit is still about $16 billion. It's estimated that more than 2,000 upper-income Californians are leaving per week to flee high taxes and costly regulations, yet California wants to raise taxes even higher; its business climate already ranks near the bottom of most surveys. Its teachers are among the highest paid on average in the nation, but its public school students consistently test near the bottom of the nation in both math and science.