Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
The Four Lies About the Economy That Obama Needs Voters to Believe
President Barack Obama's re-election turns on his ability to convince voters that 1) Obama inherited a "Great Recession," 2) every "independent" economist supported the "stimulus," 3) "bipartisan" economists agree that Obama's stimulus worked, and 4) as actor Morgan Freeman puts it, racist Republicans say, "Screw the country ... we're going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here" -- nothing to do with deeply held policy differences. That's a lot of merchandise to push. 1) Take this "Great Recession" business. Remember the "misery index"? The term, popularized by former President Jimmy Carter, used to mean inflation plus unemployment. Unfortunately for John Kerry, by the time he ran for president in 2004, the misery index stood at 7.4 midway into the election year, the same as when George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000. What to do? Change the definition. Kerry invented a new misery index, one that included only high-rising costs like college tuition, health care and gas prices.
In Praise of Polarization
WASHINGTON -- Frankly, I wish the Pew Research Center would occasionally keep its thoughts to itself. Sometimes those thoughts are merely insipid and beneath the attention of serious minds. Sometimes they are alarming and capable of stirring up an already excitable populace. There is talk of cannibalism being practiced by the criminal element. There is Lady Gaga. These are worrisome times. Yet the Pew Research Center has gone and done it again. The Center released a study Monday that employed exhaustive polling and ingenious charts to render my fellow Americans restive, or so it seems. The Pew Research Center's overall finding is that political polarity in America is tremendously more intense than it has been in decades -- possibly since the Civil War, and 618,000 soldiers died in the Civil War! Of course, intense partisanship is the kind of thing that profoundly troubles Bien Pensants everywhere. It leads to legislative gridlock and stalemate.
Walker Changes Attitudes on Public Employee Unions
The results are in, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has beaten Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in the recall election. That's in line with pre-election polling, though not the Election Day exit poll. Even before the results came in, we knew one thing, and that is that the Democrats and the public employee unions had already lost the battle of ideas over the issue that sparked the recall, Walker's legislation to restrict the bargaining powers of public employee unions. That's supported by a Marquette University poll showing 75 percent of Wisconsin voters favoring increases in public employees' contributions for health care and pensions. It also showed 55 percent for limiting collective bargaining for public employees and only 41 percent opposed. But the strongest evidence is that Barrett and the Democrats avoided the issue. They had tried to make the election about anything else, such as an investigation of staffers for Walker when he was Milwaukee County Executive.
Growing Independence From Both Parties
In his 2007 book, "The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800," historian Jay Winik writes that among Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, none "believed in political parties, which they feared would lead to 'rage,' 'dissolution,' and eventual 'ruin' of the republic..." The latest poll from the Pew Research Center, "Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years," seems to indicate that the American people have come around to their way of thinking. The poll, writes The New York Times, found that "the share of self-identified Republicans has declined over the last two decades to about 24 percent of the country, from about 31 percent. The share of Democrats has stayed about steady -- to 32 percent, from 33 percent -- while the share of independents has risen to 38 percent, from 29 percent."
The Real 'War on Women'
Among the people who are disappointed with President Obama, none has more reason to be disappointed than those who thought he was going to be "a uniter, rather than a divider" and that he would "bring us all together." It was a noble hope, but one with no factual foundation. Barack Obama had been a divider all his adult life, especially as a community organizer, and he had repeatedly sought out and allied himself with other dividers, the most blatant of whom was the man whose church he attend for 20 years, Jeremiah Wright. Now, with his presidency on the line and the polls looking dicey, President Obama's re-election campaign has become more openly divisive than ever. He has embraced the strident "Occupy Wall Street" movement, with its ridiculous claim of representing the 99 percent against the 1 percent. Obama's Department of Justice has been spreading the hysteria that states requiring photo identification for voting are trying to keep minorities from voting, and using the prevention of voter fraud as a pretext.
From Hope and Change to Fear and Smear
Barack Obama lately has been accusing presumptive rival Mitt Romney of not waging his campaign in the nice (but losing) manner of John McCain in 2008. But a more marked difference can be seen in Obama himself, whose style and record bear no resemblance to his glory days of four years ago. Recently, the president purportedly has been reassuring Democratic donors that his signature achievement, Obamacare, could be readjusted in the second term -- something Republicans have promised to do for the last three years. What an evolution: We have gone from being told we would love Obamacare, to granting exemptions to favored companies from it, to private assurances to modify it after re-election -- all before it was even fully enacted.
So Many Dunces, So Few Dunce Caps
Whoever said that youth is wasted on the young was mistaken. After all, it generally takes maturity before one is in a position to fully realize that there is more to life than sex, drugs, booze and really rotten music. What is truly wasted on youth is the vote. Well, that and their parents' money. All you have to do is look at the mob of youngsters attracted to such things as Ron Paul's campaign, the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the Hope & Change election of Barack Obama, to realize that it makes more sense to trust these young louts around heavy machinery than it is anywhere in the political arena. If you doubt me, just watch how these young wretches react whenever Obama promises them a freebie, be it free medical insurance or lower tuitions, to realize that the only significant difference between them and actual prostitutes is that the latter hold out for cash on the barrelhead.
A Check on the Regulatory State
WASHINGTON -- Having cleared its throat with the Preamble, the Constitution buckles down to business with those words, which Republican Rep. Geoff Davis of Kentucky takes seriously. He is retiring from Congress, leaving behind excellent legislation that could claw back from the executive branch responsibilities the Founders intended for the government's first branch. His Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act (REINS) would redress constitutional imbalance and buttress the rule of law by compelling Congress to take responsibility for the substance that executive rulemaking pours into the sometimes almost empty vessels that Congress calls "laws."
'Compromise' Is Not a Dirty Word
Compromise has always been a holy word for the Washington establishment. But against the backdrop of ever-increasing anxiety over our fiscal dysfunction, most particularly the next budget showdown, the word has taken on a tone of anger, desperation and even panic. But in all its usages these days, "compromise" remains a word for bludgeoning Republicans. "Congress isn't just stalemated, it's broken, experts say," proclaims the typical headline, this one in The Miami Herald. And the experts say it's all the Republicans' fault. "The challenge we have right now is that we have on one side, a party that will brook no compromise," President Obama explained at the Associated Press Luncheon in April. The Republicans' "radical vision," Obama insisted, "is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity."
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GOP Has Latino Options
No wonder Republicans can't even get 40 percent of Latino votes in a presidential election. When Mitt Romney made his first big push to appeal to Latinos earlier this week in Texas, he hammered the "Obama economy" for being "particularly hard on Hispanic businesses and Hispanic Americans." He pointed out the grim statistics -- an unemployment rate for Latinos of 11 percent and a poverty rate of 30 percent. And he stressed that the Obama regime's economic policies are hostile to the small businesses and entrepreneurs that traditionally provide many of the jobs in the Hispanic community. Everything Romney said was true. But he delivered the wrong message in the wrong place. Texas is a Republican stronghold. Romney couldn't lose the Lone Star State this fall if he promised on Day One of his presidency to outlaw cattle, oil and gas.
Walker Walks the Talk, Obama Talks About the Walk
Gov. Scott Walker Walked his Talk. He faced down a militant, union-led effort to drive him from office. Scott Walker never lacked courage. It took steely determination not to buckle in the face of militant unions who "occupied" the stately Wisconsin capitol in Madison when Walker's reforms were first voted on. For two years, leftists have been howling. One of their speakers at a get out the (union) vote rally actually compared Scott Walker's reforms to the 9/11 attacks on our country. And this is the crowd that is forever lecturing us on civility. Gov. Walker's stand up courage can be contrasted with President Obama's missing in action stance in the Wisconsin recall effort. Badger State labor unionists have been hard pressed to explain to themselves or to their supporters why the president they helped put in office has abandoned them in their hour of need.
The Upside of the Downside
One of my heroes, Irving Kristol, used to say that there's nothing wrong with the country a bad recession couldn't fix. Kristol (father of the more famous Bill, by the way) wasn't hoping for a recession, he was merely making the point that so many of the problems with our culture, both popular and political, were the sorts of challenges that come with affluence. Wealth makes it easier to abandon the old customs, rituals and habits of the heart that generated the wealth in the first place. For instance, I always love reading about irresolute rich families that lose their mojo within a generation or two. When the illiterate shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt died, he had amassed a personal fortune larger than the U.S. Treasury. Within a few generations, his family had squandered it all. Vastly better educated and more refined than their tobacco-juice-spitting patriarch, they also lacked his entrepreneurial drive and financial thrift because they never needed it. It's a pattern that repeats itself in countless families. Billionaires so often raise their children to be playboys or poets.
Uncertainty Paralysis
President Obama would do us all a big favor if he'd ask himself this: "Would I start or expand a business without knowing what regulations or taxes government will impose next year?" If he'd just stop and ask that, he'd have a sense of what's wrong with the economy. He'd understand why a country that must create 120,000 new jobs each month just to absorb newcomers created only 69,000 last month. Past recoveries were quicker. Something is different. What could it be? Let's remember that the economy -- which is to say, us -- is already burdened by byzantine bureaucratic impositions. Every week, the feds add another thousand pages of rules and proposals for rules. Local governments add their own. My mayor, in New York City, even proposes micromanaging the size of the drinks restaurants may sell.
Walker Wins!
It is tempting, but not entirely accurate, to say "Obama Loses!" after Democrats suffered another embarrassing defeat last night when the effort to recall Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker failed by the surprisingly wide margin of 55 percent to 44 percent for the Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. An independent got about one percent of the vote. As of this writing, with 76 percent of Wisconsin's precincts reporting, it's over. Walker wins. Much of the Political Punditry Class has been touting this as a preview of the 2012 Presidential election, but now that the Republican won, don't expect to hear too much of that kind of talk. In fact, the ink was barely dry on the headlines when the word went forth that it was actually a good night for Obama because the exit polling showed Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney 51-45.
Obama, FDR Set Modern Records for GDP Spending
President Barack Obama said: "Since I've been president, federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years." And then he said, "Think about that. I went to the White House website to see what sort of historical light the data published by Obama's Office of Management and Budget would shine on his fiscal record. The data says this: Since fiscal 1930, the earliest year for which the government has made official calculation, only two presidents have spent 24 percent or more of GDP for three or more straight fiscal years that started while they were president. They are Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Barack Obama.
The Clinton Revenge Special
Back in 2008, after a hard-fought primary battle against then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., then-Sen. Barack Obama had a choice: he could put her on the ticket as his vice presidential nominee, thereby healing the rift that had torn apart the Democratic Party or he could go another direction. He chose Joe Biden over Clinton -- a move for which comics everywhere will forever thank him -- and relegated Clinton to a figurehead secretary of state. The question at the time was: Why? Pundits then settled on two answers. The first was ego: Obama didn't want to be outshone by his second-in-command, especially with regard to national security issues. The second was more nefarious: Obama feared having Hillary Clinton as the second-in-line to the presidency. Conspiracy theorists suggested that the Clintons weren't beyond Shakespearian action to obtain the highest office in the land once again; less kooky commentators theorized that a Clinton vice presidency would motivate her to undercut him in order to get a shot at the big chair.
Teacher's Unions Earn 'F' for Wisconsin Recall Abuse
They really outdid themselves. In Wisconsin and across the nation, public school employee unions spared no kiddie human shields in their battle against GOP Gov. Scott Walker's budget and pension reforms. Students were the first and last casualties of the ruthless Big Labor war against fiscal discipline. To kick off the yearlong protest festivities, the Wisconsin Education Association Council led a massive "sickout" of educators and other government school personnel. The coordinated truancy action -- tantamount to an illegal strike -- cost taxpayers an estimated $6 million. Left-wing doctors assisted the campaign by supplying fake medical excuse notes to teachers who ditched their public school classrooms to protest Walker's modest package of belt-tightening measures.
David Limbaugh's Devastating Book
It's clear David Limbaugh isn't writing books with the goal of being honored in the salons of the liberal media. He doesn't mince words with the media. His devastating new book on Barack Obama is titled "The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic." It's a bracing antidote to the intoxicated oozing of the "mainstream" press. There is so much withering artillery fire against Obama's damaging presidency in this book, you hardly know where to begin. I probably enjoyed most the chapter on "The War on the Dignity of His Office." As I write, Obama's preparing yet another gathering of New York and Hollywood celebrities lining up to donate to America's ultimate celebrity. Ronald Reagan used to praise the worker in the checkout line. For this president, everyone is a resident of Beverly Hills. Limbaugh piles on the proof that Obama has an enormous ego he needs stroked daily.
The Devil in Rudy Eugene
Casting about for a reason why Rudy Eugene gnawed off most of a homeless man's face in an unprovoked attack on Miami's MacArthur Causeway last month, his girlfriend suggested he may have been the victim of a voodoo curse. Or maybe he was drugged, she told The Miami Herald, adding, "I don't know how else to explain this." While the voodoo hypothesis did not gain much traction, the idea that drugs turned Eugene into the "Miami Zombie" was repeated by one news outlet after another, even though there was little more evidence in its favor. This pattern of credulous reporting, characteristic of drug panics, reflects our perennial readiness to believe that satanic substances hijack people's souls and compel them to sin.