Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Warren's Story Falls Apart
The wheels have finally fallen off Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren's diversity wagon. The reliably leftist Boston Globe has issued a retraction of Warren's claim that she is 1/32 Cherokee Indian. "Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in the May 1 Metro section and the accompanying headline incorrectly described the 1894 document that was purported to list Elizabeth Warren's great-great-great grandmother as a Cherokee," the paper writes. "The document, alluded to in a family newsletter found by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, was an application for a marriage license, not the license itself. Neither the society nor the Globe has seen the primary document, whose existence has not been proven." The original story? A headline piece in the Sunday Metro section. The correction? The third item on the correction page, typically buried deep in the paper. The larger issue? The transparent efforts of a biased media to maintain the fiction as long as possible.
The Washington Post Bullies Romney
When it comes to opposition research, there is often only one difference between a candidate's vicious negative ad and an "investigative" news report: the undeserved patina of media "objectivity" and respectability.
Spitzer Wants to Focus on Economy. Really?
Appearing on ABC's "This Week," former Gov. Eliot Spitzer (why do they give him a forum?) offered the Democratic Party's defense of the Obama economy. The Republicans, Spitzer sputtered "want to go back to medieval medicine, the bloodletting, leeches. They want to go back to the very crazy economics that brought us over the cliff and created a cataclysm."
Obama Is the Extremist, Not Conservative Talkers
Some conservatives believe that other conservatives, on talk radio and Fox News Channel, are damaging the cause of conservatism by dishonestly overstating their case against President Obama to increase their ratings and profits.
Romney Understands America
On Saturday, Mitt Romney delivered a speech to the 6,000 Liberty College graduates. It was an important speech, not only because it seems to have closed the gap between Romney and evangelical Christians but also because it spelled out major themes in Mitt Romney's understanding of America.
Romney's Stellar Performance
LYNCHBURG, Va. -- It wasn't exactly the belly of the beast Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney visited recently on a picture-perfect commencement day at "the world's largest Christian University," but his appearance was a test as to whether the conservative school, founded by the late Jerry Falwell, would embrace a devout Mormon. And Romney passed.
What the Washington Post Missed
Last week, the Washington Post produced a front-page story intended to shock readers with the news of Mitt Romney's leading fellow preppies in cutting the bleach-blond hair of a student at their school. The incident in question took place in 1965, some 47 years ago. The news that Mitt Romney did dumb things in high school was played as if it was most revealing. But, unconnected to anything else, it leaves the reader puzzled? Why this story? Why now?
Same-Sex Politics
So how did "same-sex marriage" get to be a political issue in the first place -- the kind of issue that draws presidents and presidential contenders into the smoke enveloping this extraordinary battlefield?
Culture Challenge of the Week: Reaching the Non-Religious
A recent Gallup poll highlights what many political insiders know intuitively: that the cultural divide between religious and non-religious Americans plays out at the ballot box as well.
A Censored Race War?
When two white newspaper reporters for the Virginian-Pilot were driving through Norfolk, and were set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks -- beaten so badly that they had to take a week off from work -- that might seem to have been news that should have been reported, at least by their own newspaper. But it wasn't.
A Few Names in the News
While I hate to destroy anyone's delusions, I think it is high time that the RNC grew up and faced reality. For openers, if this past primary season has taught us anything, it's that the GOP needs to address its laundry list of mistakes. One, they should do away with caucuses; if a state doesn't wish to stage an actual primary for whatever reason, they should just sit it out. Are you listening, Iowa? Two, let's put an end to open primaries. Why would Republicans want Democrats helping to decide who our nominee is going to be? Do you really think they have our best interests at heart?
Benefit of Doubt on 'Evolution'
It was hard to suppress the cynicism after President Obama announced the outcome of his much-hyped "evolution" on same-sex marriage last week. He had "just concluded," he told ABC's Robin Roberts, that "same-sex couples should be able to get married."
The Real Bully Running for President
Last week the Washington Post ran a story attempting to portray presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as a homophobic bully. Despite every effort to contain it, the story imploded, as factual inaccuracies came to light.
Three Different Ways to Look at the 2012 Campaign
Last week, I wrote about the standings in the presidential race and said it looked like a long, hard slog through about a dozen clearly identified target states, much like the contests in 2000 and 2004. Call it the 2000/2004 long, hard slog scenario. But I said there were other possible scenarios. I can think of three. The 1964/1972 scenario: Challenger disqualifies himself. Barry Goldwater and George McGovern were idealistic, intelligent senators who took positions on issues that made them unacceptable to most voters in years favorable to incumbents.
American Sovereignty - LOST at Sea?
Sen. Dick Lugar's defeat in a Republican primary last week has not been attributed, as nearly as we can tell, to his 1979 trip to Moscow with Joe Biden. Then, the two members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee left the bosses of the Kremlin with the distinct impression that they cared about arms control and not so much about human rights. Claire Berlinsky's article in the Spring 2010 issue of City Journal ought to be disqualifying. Nor, it seems, did the senator's spearheading of the ill-advised START treaty with the Russians in a lame-duck session in December 2010 lead to his loss by a stunning 61% to 39% vote to a TEA Party-backed challenger.
The American Dream in an Automobile
WASHINGTON -- Prius, which is Latin for "to go before" or "lead the way," is the perfect name for the car whose owners are confident they are leading the way for the benighted. "Prius preening," an almost erotic pleasure, is, however, a perishable delight because the status derived from enlightened exclusivity evaporates if the hoi polloi crash the party. The connection between cars and self-image is as American as the anti-Prius, the F-150 pickup truck. This connection is the subject of the entertaining and instructive book "Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars" by Paul Ingrassia, a journalist knowledgeable about the automobile industry. He thinks the hinge of our history was the 1920s, when General Motors' LaSalle was introduced as a conspicuous-consumption alternative to Henry Ford's pedestrian, so to speak, Model T. Since then, Ingrassia says, American culture has been a tug of war "between the practical and the pretentious, the frugal versus the flamboyant, haute cuisine versus hot wings."
The Prelutsky Platform
A while back, one of my readers, whom we'll call Cosmo, sent me an angry challenge. He wrote: "I watch Fox, I listen to Rush and I read you. I do this because I'm trying to understand conservatives. I see them and you bashing liberal policies, but I don't see any of you coming up with alternative policies." To be totally honest, I never really thought it was my mission to come up with alternative policies. I figured it was enough that I pointed out how awful the policies of this current administration are, and how great a menace Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, our own little axis of evil, pose to America and our allies.
Two Prime Ministers, Two Americas
Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of an embattled Great Britain on May 10, 1940. At last, his political exile was over. Also that day, Adolf Hitler launched his blitzkrieg against Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg, and his armored panzer divisions ripped through the Ardennes forest. Churchill had been warning against this outcome for a decade. It was Churchill, after all, who foresaw the possibilities of tank warfare in the darkest days of World War I. Surely, Churchill pleaded, there must be a better way to employ brave soldiers than having them "chew barbed wire in Flanders."
From The Comedy Store
President Obama flew to Afghanistan to address U.S. troops. This wasn't a stunt. The president had to go to Afghanistan because unless he's in a country where the women are covered from head to toe, the Secret Service loses interest in him and wanders off.