Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Chief Justice Roberts, You Fox You
WASHINGTON -- I have a headache. I imagine you do too, if you have been trying to interpret the legalese employed by those legal sages who have pronounced on Thursday's Supreme Court decision on Obamacare. I would rather read the lyrics of a thousand rap composers than the anfractuous language of one legal sage. Thanks, however, to Professor E. Donald Elliott of the Yale Law School, I had a translator at my side, and I shall now hand down my judgment of the Court's decision on Obamacare, which all sensible Americans have abstained from reading in its entirety, including B. H. Obama and the vast majority of denizens of Capitol Hill, including N. Pelosi. Some of these worthies even admitted as much. It fell to nine heroic souls garbed in black to actually read the law and to Chief Justice Roberts to write the decision for the exhausted majority.
French Fried Potatoheads
As you may have noticed, France elected a new president named Francois Hollande. I'm delighted. It's rare that a country and its president so richly deserve one another. France, after all, is a nation that sat by while its Muslim population set its cities afire because sharia law wasn't yet on the books. Then, more recently, they had riots because their former president proposed that in order to save the economy, retirement age would have to be raised from 60 to 62. The fact that they might have to work an additional two years 40 years down the road was more than enough to send outraged 20-year-old Frenchies into the streets. Keep in mind that they are already guaranteed two months of paid vacation every year. That means that over the course of four decades, that's 80 months or nearly seven years they're not punching a clock. So, in reality, it's more like lifting the retirement age from 53 to 55. But not to worry! Monsieur Hollande, a socialist who looks like a crooked accountant, has promised that France will not have to deal with such brutal austerity measures; which, translated from the French, apparently means working.
Chicago-Sized Test of Wills
CHICAGO -- The title of the nation's largest labor union -- the National Education Association -- seems calculated to blur the fact that it is a teachers union. In this blunt city, however, the teachers union candidly calls itself the Chicago Teachers Union. Its office is in the Merchandise Mart, a gigantic architectural Stonehenge, which resembles a fortress located on the Chicago River, which resembles a moat. Which is appropriate. Unions are besieged, especially public-sector unions, particularly teachers unions, and nowhere more than here. Teachers unions have been bombarded with bad publicity, much of it earned, including the movie "Waiting for 'Superman,'" and have courted trouble by cashing in on sentimentality, cloaking every acquisitive demand in gauzy rhetoric about how everything is "for the children." Still, have sympathy for Karen Lewis, 58, a Dartmouth graduate who is a daughter of two African-American teachers. She taught chemistry for 22 years until becoming president of the 26,502-member CTU. Her job is to make life better for her members, not to make life easier for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with his roughneck's reputation and stevedore's profanity, whose ideas are as admirable as his manners are deplorable.
Democrats to Blacks: Stay Angry, Vote Democratic
Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., once said: "George (W.) Bush is our 'Bull' Connor -- and if that doesn't get to you, nothing will be able to get to you. It's time for us to be able to say that we're sick and tired, we're fired up and we're not going to take it anymore." Connor was a racist sheriff who sicced dogs and water hoses on civil rights workers in the '60s. Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., says Republicans "want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws." The tactic is as obvious as it is insulting. Tell black voters that "they" are out to "get them" -- and pull that lever for us Democrats so we can resist their racist attempt to undermine your success. Never mind that this kind of anger wrapped in paranoia -- assuming that others are out to get you -- is precisely the formula to undermine your own success.
What if They Held an Election and Nobody Came?
That's more or less what happened last Sunday in Mexico, at least as far as most American journalists (including me) are concerned. That's a vivid contrast with the last three presidential elections in Mexico, which had enormous consequences for that country and for the United States. I happened to be in Mexico on vacation in spring 1994 when Luis Donaldo Colosio, the candidate of the ruling PRI party, was assassinated. I listened to the radio broadcast as Ernesto Zedillo, speaking shakily, accepted the party's nomination to succeed him. As with every PRI candidate since 1929, he won the election in July. In 2000, I was in Mexico to cover the election in which Vicente Fox, candidate of the center-right PAN party, was elected -- the first opposition victory in 71 years.
Supreme Court Hypocrisies
Until last week, Chief Justice John Roberts was vilified as the leader of a conservative judicial cabal poised to destroy the Obama presidency by overturning the federal takeover of health care. But with his unexpected affirmation, Roberts suddenly was lauded as the new Earl Warren -- an "evolving" conservative who at last saw the logic of liberal big government. Among our elites -- journalists, pundits and academics -- liberal Supreme Court justices are always deemed "open-minded," even as they are expected to vote in absolute lockstep liberal fashion. In contrast, a conservative justice is written off as reactionary or blatantly partisan when he likewise predictably follows his own orthodoxy -- pressures that may well have affected Roberts if reports of an 11th-hour switch in his vote are true. No surprise, then, that a surreal discussion followed the recent ruling of the high court. Our legal establishment expected that the four liberal judges would not deviate one iota in their affirmation of the health-care law, even as it hoped that a conservative or two would show judicial character by joining the liberals.
Celebrating, Royal-Free
The fourth of July is the only American holiday with a villain. The Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, is best known for its stirring preamble. But most of the charter is an indictment of King George III for his "history of repeated injuries and usurpations" -- a catalogue of royal crimes ranging from obstruction of justice to the imposition of martial law to the levying of unfair taxes. "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people," Congress charged. The king had proved to be "a Tyrant ... unfit to be the ruler of a free people." Accordingly the American colonies were entitled not just "to be Free and Independent States," but also to be "absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown." It was no small thing to give up their attachment to a monarch. Many Americans had only recently been enthusiastic royalists. Writing to a friend from Paris in 1767, Benjamin Franklin praised Louis XV, whom he had just met at Versailles. Yet "no Frenchman shall go beyond me," he insisted, "in thinking my own King and Queen the very best in the World and the most amiable." That was a common sentiment for the colonists, who after all had been raised as English citizens and the subjects of a king.
Where Will Washington Stop?
When Chief Justice John Roberts upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare, he didn't just betray conservatives. His twisted legal logic also betrayed the American people by opening the door to the largest expansion of federal power since Social Security was enacted. Roberts and his new liberal soul-mates decided it's OK for the federal government to tax us if we don't do what Washington's bullies and nannies want us to do -- or think is good for us. Lord knows, the feds have already taxed us to death -- and after death, too -- on everything from capital gains to booze. If they can "penalize" us for not buying health care insurance, what's next? Tax us if we don't buy a smaller house? If we don't buy an electric car? How about if we don't buy exercise equipment? Or eat broccoli? Or wear Earth Shoes or condoms? There'll be no end to it.
America ... The Beautiful
If you've ever watched PBS on July 4th, you know that for many years your local affiliate has broadcast the "Capitol Fourth" program which is the concert on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol followed by the fireworks which are beyond the Washington Monument on the far end of the Smithsonian Mall. Our first Fourth of July in Washington, DC was in 1978. The woman who would become the Mullings Director of Standards & Practices and I took our son, then a little over two-years-old, to the steps of the Jefferson Memorial where we met some friends to watch the fireworks. In the manner of all way off-the-chart-smart 27-month olds, Reed watched the fireworks and pronounced them "boom lights." Twenty years later the MD of S&P watched them again. But, this time we were on the Speaker's Balcony of the Capitol, a guest of Speaker Newt Gingrich. We could look down and watch the wonderful concert and feel the waves of joy from the thousands of people on the lawn between the stage the steps of the Capitol.
The Underclass
Anthony Daniels, who writes under the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, is a retired prison doctor and psychiatrist who tells of his experiences with his patients in "Life at the Bottom." It's an insightful book of essays about the self-destructive behavior and attitudes of the underclass. In one essay, "We Don't Want No Education," reprinted by City Journal (http://www.city-journal.org/html/5_1_oh_to_be.html), Dalrymple says that he cannot recall meeting a 16-year-old from the public housing project near his hospital who could perform simple multiplication operations, such as nine times seven. One 17-year-old told him, "We didn't get that far." This was after 12 years of attending school. One of Dalrymple's patients took a drug overdose because of constant bullying from classmates. "She was stupid because she was clever." What her peers meant by that was anyone who worked hard and performed well at school was wasting his time when truancy and wandering downtown were deemed preferable. The underlying threat was: If you don't mend your ways and join us, we'll beat you up.
The John Roberts Doctrine: Stopping at Red Lights Is Optional
Are you required to stop your car at a red light? In his opinion declaring Obamacare's individual mandate constitutional, Chief Justice John Roberts constructed an absurd doctrine of legal interpretation that, if consistently applied, would hold you are not. The Roberts Doctrine of Lawlessness can be summarized as follows: You need not stop at a red light as long as you can afford to pay the penalty for running it. Red lights merely give motorists a "choice" of whether to stop or keep moving and pay the fine the government imposes for not stopping.
The Education Blob
Since progressives want government to run health care, let's look at what government management did to K-12 education. While most every other service in life has gotten better and cheaper, American education remains stagnant. Spending has tripled! Why no improvement? Because K-12 education is a virtual government monopoly -- and monopolies don't improve. In every other sector of the economy, market competition forces providers to improve constantly. It's why most things get better -- often cheaper, too (except when government interferes, as in health care). Politicians claim that education and health care are different -- too important to leave to market competition. Patients and parents aren't real consumers because they don't have the expertise to know which hospital or school is best. That's why they must be centrally planned by government "experts."
Teaching Economics
Having taught economics at a number of colleges for a number of years, I especially welcomed a feature article in the June 22nd issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, on how economics courses with the same name can be very different at different colleges. It can also be very different when the course is taught by professors in the same department who have different approaches. The usefulness of the three approaches described in the article depends on what the introductory course is trying to accomplish. One professor taught the subject through a steady diet of mathematical models. If the introductory economics course is aimed at those students who are going to major in economics, then that may make some sense. But most students in most introductory economics courses are not going to become economics majors, much less professional economists. Among those students for whom a one-year introductory course is likely to be their only exposure to economics, mathematical models that they will probably never use in later life, as they try to understand economic activities and policies in the real world, may be of very limited value to them, if any value at all.
The Worst Ruling Since Dred Scott
Last week Chief Justice John Roberts blatantly ignored the Constitution and the law and purposefully rewrote Obamacare in order to rule it legal. He called Obamacare a "tax" instead of an individual mandate; he then proceeded to blithely expand the government's power to tax to encompass a tax on breathing, which is what Obamacare is. Now I had warned conservatives years ago that Roberts was a rotten pick for the Supreme Court. "Roberts is not an originalist," I wrote in 2005. "There is nothing in his very short jurisprudential record to indicate that his judicial philosophy involves strict fidelity to the original meaning of the Constitution." Nonetheless, Roberts' decision was stunning.
The Mob Presses on John Roberts
Is anyone surprised that the ink wasn't dry on Chief Justice John Roberts' incoherent switcheroo before team Obama was *again* denying Obamacare is a tax? Why did he do it? There is no doubt that the left waged a war on the court's public image. Just as Obama lectured at the justices during his State of the Union address for the Citizens United decision, so Obama and his media minions prepared for this verdict with blatant mob pressure: Side with us or your image is ruined. For liberal journalists, repeal of Obamacare was tantamount to a deadly third strike. Strike one was Bush versus Gore, which caused a serious liberal scream-fest that continues in some quarters to this day. Strike two was the Citizens United campaign spending case, because in the leftist worldview all major tipping points of public policy should be controlled by the state.
Live Free - and Uninsured
In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare"), NPR's "Talk of the Nation" held a seminar of sorts at the Aspen Institute's legendarily pretentious Ideas Festival. Someone in the audience asked NPR health policy correspondent Julie Rovner this question: "Today's decision is a positive decision for the estimated 50 million uninsured Americans. Who are the losers today?" Rovner seemed to struggle to find losers. She came up with insurance companies that want the so-called individual mandate -- now a punitive tax, according to the Supreme Court -- to be much more punitive. After thinking through her answer, she later added that another group of losers might be the citizens of states whose governors opt to not participate in the law's expansion of Medicaid.
Obama's Swiss Cheese Campaign
What's pale yellow, riddled with holes and not very sharp? President Barack Obama's renewed class-warfare attack on GOP opponent Mitt Romney. To kick off the Independence Day holiday, America's fundraiser-in-chief took to Twitter to stoke wealth-bashing resentment against Republicans. "FACT," Obama's official Twitter account declared, "In 2010, Romney reported having a $3 million Swiss bank account." Obama for America campaign manager Jim Messina piled on, urging "every reporter covering Romney" to read left-wing Vanity Fair's new report on his offshore finances. In a water-carrying news conference call, Obama campaign flack Ben LaBolt assailed Romney's "mysterious corporation in Bermuda, his funds in the Cayman Islands and the Swiss bank account he opened." The Democratic wizards of election-year optics believe that such populist rhetoric demonizing foreign money will help shore up their left flank and win independents tired of crony, out-of-touch government. One problem: They launched their class war fusillade in the same week that Tinseltown tycoon George Clooney announced Obama fundraising efforts -- in Geneva, Switzerland. Oops.
Roberts' Rules of Meddling
Last week, supporters and opponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act anxiously awaited the Supreme Court's ruling on the law's individual health insurance mandate. Imagine their surprise when the Court announced, in a majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, that there is no individual health insurance mandate. Rather than a "penalty" imposed on anyone who "fails to comply" with the "requirement to maintain minimum essential coverage," which is how the law itself describes the policy, Roberts perceived a "tax" that hinges on whether one follows the government's totally nonmandatory guidelines regarding health insurance. This implausible relabeling of reality was Roberts' desperate attempt to uphold the provision formerly known as a mandate without endorsing a boundless view of Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce. Instead he endorsed a boundless view of Congress' tax power that could prove even more dangerous to liberty.
Roberts, Blankenhorn, and the Power of Liberal Intimidation
Given how many more Americans define themselves as conservative rather than as liberal, let alone than as left, how does one explain the success of left-wing policies? One answer is the appeal of entitlements and a desire to be taken care of. It takes a strong-willed citizen to vote against receiving free benefits. But an even greater explanation is the saturation of Western society by left-wing hate directed at the right. The left's demonization, personal vilification, and mockery of its opponents have been the most powerful tools in the left-wing arsenal for a century. Since Stalin labeled Leon Trotsky -- the man who was the father of Russian Bolshevism! -- a "fascist," the Left has labeled its ideological opponents evil. And when you control nearly all of the news media and schools, that labeling works.