Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
He Knows What We Need (He Thinks)
After Barack Obama regains the presidency -- a prospect that seems likelier, the more the Republican candidates slice and dice one another -- we can look forward to four more years of statements such as: "You can either stand up for the oil companies, or you can stand up for the American people." I invite attention to a statement that is remarkable for so neatly packaging together condescension, arrogance and economic brainlessness -- the president's preferred operating mode (see: Obamacare and Solyndra) -- and no great compliment to his fellow Democrats, either.
Lunacy at Large
I don't believe I am the only American who gets sick to his stomach every time one of our presidents or generals prostrates himself to Islam. Recently, when it was discovered that Muslim prisoners in Afghanistan had been scribbling messages to one another in their Korans, the books were confiscated and burned. In retaliation, Muslims rioted and murdered four American soldiers. And how did we react? We bowed and scraped and apologized to Hamid Karzai, the putrid Afghan president who not only provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden, but allowed the Chinese access to the Navy Seals helicopter that went down during the mission to expunge bin Laden.
Yes, Colleges Are Full of Liberal Elites
Commentators, not all of them Democrats, have been having a field day since GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum charged Barack Obama with snobbery for pushing the idea that everyone needs a college education. "President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college," Santorum told an Americans for Prosperity forum in Troy, Mich. "What a snob!" Critics, mocking and incredulous, reacted as if the former Pennsylvania senator had uncorked the most boneheaded gaffe since Dan Quayle misspelled potato.
The Leading Edge of Tyranny: A Shameful Debate
Last Thursday, the Senate rejected by a 51-48 vote a bill that would have permitted religious employers to refuse to cover medical services that violated their moral and religious convictions. Have they even read the Bill of Rights? Now strange things happen when issues are politicized, I know that. That's not shocking. What is shocking -- and downright shameful -- is the deceitful way supporters of the Administration's mandate have framed the issue.
How Republicans Win by Losing
WASHINGTON -- On that evening 48 years ago -- it was still summer, early in the presidential campaign -- Buckley, whose National Review magazine had given vital assistance to Barry Goldwater's improbable capture of the Republican nomination, addressed the national convention of the conservative Young Americans for Freedom. Buckley told his fervent acolytes that "when we permit ourselves to peek up over the euphoria" of Goldwater's nomination, we see that it occurred "before we had time properly to prepare the ground."
James Q Wilson: A Happy American Life
Few social scientists, and even fewer political scientists, have done as much to improve American life as James Q. Wilson, who died last week at age 80. His name is familiar to three decades of college students who studied the American government textbook he co-authored, though one wonders whether they would recall it without the distinctive middle initial. And I think a case can be made that that Q was a clue to the character of the man. To outward appearances, Jim Wilson was an ordinary middle-class American with middle-class values and middle-class tastes as unremarkable as those of thousands of other Jim Wilsons across the land.
Baby Steps Down the Road to Depravity
Anyone still wondering about where the train wreck of progressively-inspired moral relativism is leading Western society can stop wondering. An article written by Drs. Francesca Minerva and Alberto Giubilini published in the Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) offers us, according to JME editor Professor Julian Savulescu, a "well reasoned argument based on widely accepted premises." The title of the article? "After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?" "Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health," states the introductory paragraph. "By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call 'after-birth abortion' (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled."
Battling Bigger Government
The archbishop of Philadelphia. The president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The head of the Union for Traditional Judaism. What do these three eminent religious leaders have in common? They're among more than 300 distinguished individuals who have signed a statement by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty protesting the Obama administration's infamous "contraception mandate." Their beliefs fall from one end of the theological spectrum to the other. But all agree that government has no business forcing every health insurance plan to provide "free" abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization.
Farewell, Honored Prophet
WASHINGTON -- The most accomplished social scientist of the last half-century would occasionally visit his friend and Harvard colleague Pat Moynihan at the White House when Moynihan was President Nixon's domestic policy adviser. Once Moynihan took him to Nixon and said: "Mr. President, James Q. Wilson is the smartest man in the United States. The president of the United States should pay attention to what he has to say." Moynihan was right on both counts.
From The Comedy Store
President Obama discussed his family life saying being president's a delicate balancing act between family and work. Last week he had to interrupt his schedule to sit in on a parent-teacher conference. Apparently Joe Biden is being held back a grade.
A Tale of Two Debates
Tonight, I watched the GOP Presidential debate from Mesa, Arizona. Last night, I attended a Congressional debate here in the San Fernando Valley. There was a world of difference between them. The biggest difference is that I got a big kick out of last night's event, even though the candidate I'll be voting for hasn't got the slightest chance of winning. His name is Mark Reed, and he's a bright, attractive, well-spoken fellow. In many parts of the country, even in many parts of California, he'd be a shoo-in. He suffers from only one drawback; Reed happens to be a Republican.
Romney's Upper Hand
Mitt Romney snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in Michigan by unveiling a pro-growth, 20 percent tax-cut plan and by resetting his limited-government spending cuts and entitlement reforms. In other words, he delivered an economic-growth package. It served him well. It may not have been the only factor in his victory last week, but it put him squarely in the voter zeitgeist. And it may be apocryphal on Super Tuesday in Ohio, where he has come back to dead even after being down double digits.
Let Israel be Israel
President Obama responded calmly and masterfully to a heckler at one of his New York fundraisers this week. "Hold on there, young lady, nobody's announced a war just yet," he said. The protester demanded the U.S. not take military action against the escalating threat of Iran's nuclear arms program. No such action is in the offing. Mideast adviser Dennis Ross, who is forever counseling administrations of both parties on how to make nice with Israel's not-so-nice neighbors, assures us that Iran will not be able to "surprise" the West during any negotiations. He says Iran is not like Japan.
Why Liberals Like Taxing the Wealthy
I have long been puzzled by the enthusiasm with which many young liberal bloggers cheer on proposals to raise tax rates on high earners. I can understand why they might favor them, but not why they seem to invest so much psychic energy in the issue. Some of this may just be team ball: You cheer when your side puts up numbers on the scoreboard. So Democratic cheerleaders are rah-rahing what they insist on calling repeal of the Bush tax cuts (which have been in effect now longer than the Clinton tax increases they rolled back).
Government Assistance Comes With Strings
When it comes to the Nanny State, count me a critic. But I make a distinction between the government improperly sticking its nose where it doesn't belong and government acting as a good steward of my tax dollars. The difference explains why I support a proposal by a conservative state legislator that lets government tell food stamp recipients what they can and cannot buy with government funds. But there are limits to this intrusion.
Vending Machine Abortions: Missing the Point
You've heard me talk almost non-stop over the last two weeks about this huge threat to religious liberty from this administration, requiring employers to provide contraception and abortion-inducing medication for their employers. But what makes this fight all the more difficult is the culture-wide misunderstanding about what sex is about and what it's for. For example, Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania made headlines recently when it was learned that students could buy a morning-after pill, known as Plan B, from a vending machine in the student health center.
Breitbart a Provocateur to the End
Andrew Breitbart's heart was too big to fail, but it did anyway. If you don't know who Breitbart was, you haven't been paying attention. A conservative activist, entrepreneur, author, muckraker, media pioneer and performance artist of sorts, in his heart he was a radical. His friends saw him as a fearless truth-teller and provocateur. (The word "fearless" will have to be retired from overuse when all of his obituaries have been written.) His enemies, and they are legion even in death, saw him as the most vile creature who ever slithered upon the earth.
Who's the True Conservative?
The theme for this year's primary season was set back in May 2011. Recall that the Republican-dominated House of Representatives had just done something that cynics said would not and could not be done. They voted for a budget -- the Ryan budget -- that actually began to tackle the problem of limitless entitlement spending. The cliche about entitlements (the "third rail") had been largely true. Neither Republicans nor Democrats had shown the courage to tell middle-class voters that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security would have to change. But on April 15, all but four Republicans (and zero Democrats) voted for a budget that would block grant Medicaid to the states and gradually transform Medicare from the whale-shark entitlement that threatens to swallow all other federal spending into a premium support program.
The Left, Not Social Conservatives, Threatens Religious Liberty
Now hear this: No Republicans on the national political scene, including Rick Santorum, threaten our religious liberty. Many Democrats, including President Obama and Senate Democrats, do. And they've struck again with the Senate's defeat of the Blunt amendment. President Obama, who seems to spend as much time community organizing as he does attending to his executive duties, doubtlessly conspired with his crack opposition research trolls and the liberal media to shoehorn the contraception issue into the 2012 presidential campaign.
Obama's Campaign Bully Brigade Rides Again
They're baaaaaaack. Barack Obama's election-year goon squad kicked into high gear this week by kicking the president's fiercest opponents in the teeth and targeting their pocketbooks. Returning to bully business as usual, the Obama campaign launched a brazen salvo against two prominent conservative critics and their legions of private citizen donors. Let's be clear (to use Obama's favorite phrase): This is not just the politics of personal destruction. It's a vendetta of campaign finance destruction. Under the guise of "disclosure," Team Obama is exploiting the power of high government office to intimidate lawful, peaceful contributors who support limited-government causes.