Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Obama's 2.5 Percent Stall
Wall Street headlines are full of fears of a springtime stall for the already subpar economic recovery. And if that weren't bad enough for Obama's re-election chances, a spate of new polls show Mitt Romney's economic-approval ratings are far outdistancing the president's. Even while the headline surveys basically show an Obama-Romney tossup, it will be very difficult for Obama to pull out a victory this fall. Traditionally, incumbents who poll below 50 percent are in trouble. And with Obama consistently in the mid-40s, he has a tough uphill climb ahead.
From The Comedy Store
President Obama summoned millionaires to the White House to call for higher taxes on wealthy Americans. They confessed to reporters that they don't pay their fair share. Democrats think it's okay to be rich as long as you just feel awful about it.
No More Mr. Nice Guy
Not too long ago, when Mitt Romney said that Barack Obama was a nice guy, it gave me the heebie-jeebies. It was like an ice cube running down my spine, reminding me of the sissy campaign John McCain waged in 2008, when he refused to even refer to Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers and Tony Rezko.
Remembering Chuck Colson: 1931-2012
Evangelical Christianity lost one of its most eloquent and influential voices today with the death of Charles W. "Chuck" Colson. The Prison Fellowship and Colson Center for Christian Worldview founder died at 3:12 p.m. on Saturday from complications resulting from a brain hemorrhage. Colson was 80.
Appeals Court Gives Arizona Partial Victory on Voter-ID Law
Arizona might be going to the U.S. Supreme Court yet again. A federal appeals court upheld part of the Grand Canyon State's voter-ID law, but struck down another part of Arizona's law as inconsistent with a 1993 federal law. This might become the third citizen/voting Arizona law to go to the Supreme Court in just three years. Arizona allows for citizens to adopt ballot propositions with the force of law, which trump state statutes but fall short of amending the Arizona Constitution. Arizona's voters adopted Proposition 200 in 2004. It requires showing proof of citizenship when you register to vote, and then showing government-issued photo-ID on Election Day when you cast your ballot.
Issues vs. 'Distractions'
It's going to be bait and switch for as far as the eye can see. That's how it looks now that the smoke has cleared after the recent "Mommy War" skirmish over Democratic operative Hilary Rosen's comment that mother of five Ann Romney had "never worked a day in her life." There's no need to re-litigate all of that again. If Rosen apologized any more she'd have to sever a digit Yakuza-style. And the White House couldn't distance itself more if they dispatched the Secret Service to burn down Rosen's house and salt the earth for good measure. Fortunately, the Secret Service is too busy with other things.
Lifetime's Perky Prostitute
Ten years ago, perky actress Jennifer Love Hewitt tried to jump-start a music career with a song titled "Bare Naked." Now she's trying that attention-grabbing tactic again with a sleazy new Lifetime series called "The Client List." She plays a massage therapist who turns tricks. That network has adopted a new slogan: "This is not your mother's Lifetime." That's appropriate for a new drama with a single-mother whore at its sympathetic center. We learn she was forced into being a sex worker when her husband mysteriously left her -- you know, the way of the world for single moms.
If CAIR's Attacking You, You Must be Good
"Where are all the moderate Muslims?" It's a question often posed by Americans who watch with disgust as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other apologists for radical Islam hog all of the attention. CAIR, which was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror financing Holy Land Foundation case, and which regularly denounces any effort to combat radical Islam as anti-Muslim prejudice, is routinely described in the press as a Muslim "civil rights" group. Moderate American Muslims exist though. And it's not that hard to find them. Just see who CAIR and the Muslim Public Affairs Council are denouncing.
Farewell, the New Frontier
WASHINGTON -- As the space shuttle Discovery flew three times around Washington, a final salute before landing at Dulles airport for retirement in a museum, thousands on the ground gazed upward with marvel and pride. Yet what they were witnessing, for all its elegance, was a funeral march. The shuttle was being carried -- its pallbearer, a 747 -- because it cannot fly, nor will it ever again. It was being sent for interment. Above ground, to be sure. But just as surely embalmed as Lenin in Red Square.
Advance II
The Secret Service Hookers-in-Columbia scandal will go on for weeks. It will spread to the military -- not so much the White House Communications Agency (WHCA) -- but to the guys who handle the dogs and like that. It will also spread to the political staff. I don't know that any civilian Federal employees or volunteers hired hookers to come to their hotel rooms, but I'm pretty sure someone on Capitol Hill will suggest the Director of White House Advance come up and discuss the matter.
Dick Clark Remembered
Dick Clark, who died Wednesday at 82, was called "America's oldest teenager." That's not only because he looked so good late into life, but also because he carried with him the teen memories of those of us who grew up watching "American Bandstand" on glorious black-and-white, small-screen television sets. Every weekday afternoon, I would arrive home from school, say hello to Mom, grab a snack and plop down in front of the TV to watch a dance show broadcast live from South Philadelphia.
Cheering Black Radical Killers
Alice Kaplan's latest book, "Dreaming in French," illuminates a pivotal year in the lives of Jackie Kennedy, Susan Sontag and Angela Davis, each of whom spent time in Paris between World War II and the start of the Vietnam War. In his review of the book, the San Francisco Chronicle's Thomas Chatterton Williams contends that Angela Davis was the beneficiary of French intellectuals, whose works Davis had mastered, when they returned the favor by supporting her "against the racism of trumped-up charges she later would face." Williams is referring to charges Davis faced in a 1972 murder case for which she was acquitted. Trumped up charges? Historical revisionism at best, outright lying at worst. Yet "racist-motivated" or "trumped-up charges" has been a recurring motif used to defend a coterie of radical black criminals who, despite mountains of evidence against them, have also benefitted from the support of leftists. It is those same leftists who are determined to turn the Trayvon Martin case into another racially-motivated circus -- one where genuine justice takes a back seat to a leftist mob agenda.
What Were You Thinking?
WASHINGTON -- My dear friend and fellow Marine Joe Foss -- a Medal of Honor recipient -- would ask me occasionally, "What were you thinking?" The question usually was prompted by my missed shot on a hunt or when he heard me make a confusing comment on radio or television. Given the recent revelations of bad behavior, incompetence, corruption, waste and fraud -- and a deluge of mystifying and misleading explanations -- the potentates of the press are asking the wrong questions. The American people need to ask our nation's leaders and the masters of the so-called mainstream media, "What were you thinking?" A few recent examples:
No More 'Mr. Obama Is a Nice Guy'
There is a reflexive desire among a certain species of moderate Republicans to be perceived as "civil" by liberal opponents who believe that the mere existence of free-market, limited-government conservatism is an indecent affront to humankind. All aboard the U.S.S. Lost Cause. This disastrous, bend-over bipartisanship is a hard habit to break. In 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain rode the "Barack Obama is a nice guy, but vote for me" wave to crashing defeat. In 2012, McCain's endorsee, Mitt Romney, has made "Barack Obama is a nice guy but in over his head" a standard stump-speech talking point.
Romney Should Show He's a Leader, and Here's How
If Mitt Romney is to have any chance of beating President Barack Obama in November, he must win a larger share of the Hispanic vote than current polls suggest he will. And he won't unless he solves his immigration problem. It's a problem of his own making. He decided that beating up on illegal immigrants would boost his popularity among those suspicious that he was really a moderate Republican. In doing so, he injected an issue into the campaign that had largely fizzled -- and for good reason. Illegal immigration is down to historical lows -- primarily because the U.S. economy continues to be sluggish, so fewer people want to come here.
Not So Secret Service
In the 1962 Howard Lindsay-Russel Crouse-Irving Berlin Broadway musical, "Mr. President," one of the songs in the production is titled "The Secret Service," which begins, "the Secret Service makes me nervous..." If allegations are true that at least 11 Secret Service agents and several members of the U.S. military consorted with prostitutes prior to President Obama's arrival in Cartagena, Colombia, it should make a lot of people nervous. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has pledged that lawmakers will be "looking over the shoulder" of the inspector general as the Department of Homeland Security office investigates the allegations. The accused have been placed on administrative leave and their security clearances have been revoked.
Judging, the Cosmic Way
WASHINGTON -- Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a Reagan appointee to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is a courtly Virginian who combines a manner as soft as a Shenandoah breeze with a keen intellect. His disapproval of much current thinking about how the Constitution should be construed is explained in his spirited new book -- slender and sharp as a stiletto -- "Cosmic Constitutional Theory: Why Americans Are Losing Their Inalienable Right to Self-Governance" (Oxford).
Obama's Secretive Keystone XL Decision
The oppressive monster known as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not just killing jobs these days -- it is intentionally avoiding transparency that may shed light on the political motivations behind the agency's actions. Started in 1970 by President Richard Nixon, the EPA was a small agency that combined several anti-pollution and clean water agencies into one agency with 4,084 employees and a $1 billion budget. Today, it has 17,000 employees and has evolved from its narrow focus into an unconstitutional, blunt instrument with vast powers that the Obama Administration wields to promote a radical political agenda that is destroying prosperity and ruining lives.
Welcome to Dizzyworld
It recently occurred to me that we are all living in a very bizarre amusement park. We all know that if you take a few too many rides on one of those whirling contraptions, by the time you climb out, you're going to wind up with wobbly legs and a hangover. Well, keep in mind that every second of every day the earth is spinning around its axis at a rate of 1,040 miles an hour. Is it any wonder that we're all as dizzy as drunken mice? But even inebriated rodents would find it amusing that both Arizona and Texas have been called on the carpet before the U.N.'s Human Rights Council. In Arizona's case, the problem is that they are trying to put a stop to illegal immigration. In the case of Texas, the federal government is offended that a sovereign state is demanding that would-be voters provide photo IDs proving they have a legitimate right to cast a ballot.
Negroes With Guns
Liberals have leapt on the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida to push for the repeal of "stand your ground" laws and to demand tighter gun control. (MSNBC'S Karen Finney blamed "the same people who stymied gun regulation at every point.") This would be like demanding more funding for the General Services Administration after seeing how its employees blew taxpayer money on a party weekend in Las Vegas.