Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Grammy Stupidity Meter off the Charts
The shocking death of pop star Whitney Houston built a massive audience for the Grammy Awards telecast Sunday night on CBS. It attracted 39.9 million viewers, making it the most watched non-sports program of the season. The show began with a heartfelt prayer for Houston to "Our Heavenly Father" from the master of ceremonies, CBS actor LL Cool J. But sadly (and predictably), near the show's end, religion was mocked in an elaborate Catholic-bashing mess, starring the rapper Nicki Minaj. Someone on Twitter said it best: "Stevie Wonder was the luckiest man in the crowd" during the performance.
What Are They Thinking? No Confidence in Congress
According to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, only 13 percent of Americans approve of the way Congress is doing its job. Apart from wondering what that 13 percent was thinking, you also have to wonder if Congress could possibly make matters worse. Last week, they did. One reason Americans are so dissatisfied is the sense that Congress doesn't play by the same rules it imposes on the rest of us. Take, for instance, the matter of Congressional insider trading -- the trading of stocks and other securities by people who have access to non-public information.
Rachel Maddow and My Lesson in Civility
When one writes about moral convictions, it's probably a good idea to consistently live up to them. That way people can still disagree with your convictions, but they have a difficult time accusing you of hypocrisy. Last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, I failed to live up to one of my highest principles. Here's the background. The story about the Obama administration's attempt to force Catholic and other faith-based institutions to offer employees free contraception in their health care coverage was still fresh. I was asked to be on a panel before what looked like a crowd of about 1,000 conservatives, hungry for "red meat."
It's Time for Newt to Go!
Washington -- There is a grisly pallor that has beset former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Then, too, there is a lumpiness -- to his face, to his features, to his ... well, to his lump. When he walks into a room, I feel rather sorry for him, but then I feel rather sorry for Bill Clinton, too, and for Hillary. No longer do I call her "Bill's lovely wife Bruno." She looks grandmotherly rather than tough. I guess maybe her coeval from the 1960s generation of student government goody-goodies, Newt, looks grandfatherly rather than brainy. What does Al Gore look like these days, and Jean-Francois Kerry? They all quite abruptly assumed old age.
Obama's Biggest Budget Lies
On Tuesday, Barack Obama released his FY2013 budget proposal of $3.8 billion, one he characterized as a "make or break moment for the middle class." If that number sounds somewhat familiar, it might be because it's a one hundred billion dollar increase in spending over the budget he submitted to the Democratically-controlled Senate last year -- which was rejected by a vote of 97-0. Since the president couldn't get a single member of his own party to vote for his budget proposal last year, one might be tempted to conclude this budget is little more than a campaign document, highlighting the president's determination to wage class warfare as his principle re-election strategy. Moreover, it is a document replete with "rosy assumptions," if one is being charitable -- and outright lies if one is not.
Why Romney
Judging by the email I receive from my readers, there are a lot of Republicans who feel that Mitt Romney doesn't pass the conservative litmus test. Some of them even threaten to sit out the presidential election if Governor Romney secures the nomination. Although I do my utmost to be polite in my response, the truth is, I regard such people as idiots and loons. First of all, in any competition, you can only choose the best of the contenders, not the ideal. So, would I be more enthusiastic about Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and Mitch Daniels? Yes, I would be. I would also favor George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, three other guys who are not in the race.
Please, a Little Honesty About Illegal Immigration
President Barack Obama recently assured El Salvador that the United States would not deport more 200,000 Salvadorans residing illegally in the United States. As the election nears, and the president looks to court Hispanic voters, he also created a new position of "public advocate" for illegal immigrants. His duties would appear to be to advocate that millions circumvent, rather than follow, current federal law. The administration has also said it will focus enforcement only on those who have committed crimes -- with the implicit understanding that it is no longer a crime to illegally enter and reside in the United States. In contrast, Obama has caricatured those supporting completion of a fence on the border as wanting to place alligators in the Rio Grande.
Communism by Insurance Mandate
One theory for why Barack Obama pushed the contraception mandate right now is that it helps Rick Santorum. Others theorize it's because Obama is an anti-religious bigot with a left-wing agenda. Reasonable minds can disagree on this. But it may end up helping Mitt Romney by reminding people that the "individual mandate" is the least of the problems with ObamaCare. (The "individual mandate" is simply the legal argument for why ObamaCare is unconstitutional in a country that has accepted Social Security and Medicare as constitutional.)
Obama's Budget Bomb: He Proposes Spending Increases, While Disarming America
Early in his administration, President Obama, pledged to cut the federal deficit in half. But his recent budget proposal, to say Obama has not kept his promise is an understatement. Determined to keep Americans drowning in debt, Obama proposes to acceler
Whitney Houston Critics Called Her 'Too White' -- Black Republicans Can Relate
Whitney Houston died at the age of 48. Most articles about her death said something like, "Houston struggled with drug and alcohol problems for years ..." But Houston also struggled with something else that black Republicans and black non-Democrats can understand: ridicule and ostracism for "selling out," or "acting white," or not being "black enough." Ebony, the black monthly magazine, wrote about the then-27-year-old: "Black disc jockeys have chided her for 'not having soul' and being 'too white.' ... She was booed at the Soul Train Music Awards. ... It's enough to drive a good Christian girl to drink, drugs or at least to cursing. But not Whitney. Though it hurts her deeply, she handles it all with aplomb."
Obama's Class-Warfare, Tax-the-Rich Budget
If you shake out the Obama budget in terms of bold headlines, it's really a class-warfare, tax-the-rich budget. Layer upon layer of tax hikes are piled on successful investors, small-business owners and corporations. The capital-gains tax goes from 15 percent to 24 percent (including Obamacare). The dividends tax goes from 15 percent to nearly 40 percent, and that's not including the double tax on corporate profits embodied in dividends and capital gains. The Bush tax cuts for top earners are repealed.
The Progressive Legacy: Part III
The same presumptions of superior wisdom and virtue behind the interventionism of Progressive Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson in the domestic economy also led them to be interventionists in other countries. Theodore Roosevelt was so determined that the United States should intervene against Spain's suppression of an uprising in Cuba that he quit his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to organize his own private military force -- called "Rough Riders" -- to fight in what became the Spanish-American war.
Outlawing Rent Control
NEW YORK -- James and Jeanne Harmon reside in and supposedly own a five-story brownstone on Manhattan's Upper West Side, a building that has been in their family since 1949. But they have, so to speak, houseguests who have overstayed their welcome by, in cumulative years, more than a century. They are the tenants -- the same tenants -- who have been living in the three of the Harmons' six apartments that are rent controlled. The Harmons want the Supreme Court to rule that their home has been effectively, and unconstitutionally, taken from them by notably foolish laws that advance no legitimate state interest. The court should.
A Failure of Imagination Put Metro on Wrong Track
Believers in central planning should take a look at Washington's Metro rail transit system. While they will find many things to like, they will also see examples of how central planners -- and especially rail transit planners -- can get things disastrously and expensively wrong. Things to like include aesthetics. Metro stations and cars are attractively designed and reasonably spacious. Metro attracts more riders than any other American rail transit system except, of course, New York's. It has stimulated local planners and developers to create vibrant downtown-like clusters of stores, restaurants and apartment buildings along the Orange Line in Arlington, Va., and around the Bethesda, Md., station on the Red Line.
Quakers, Conscience, and Contraception
Much was made of the president's supposed compromise on requiring religious institutions to pay for their employees' contraceptives and sterilization drugs. "The new policy," a White House fact sheet declared, "fully accommodates important concerns raised by religious groups." While news headlines were more restrained ("Obama bends on birth-control mandate" was the Boston Globe's), they did suggest that if the administration had not completely conciliated its critics, it had at least met them halfway.
The Kennedy Has No Clothes
Valentine's Day is probably not the day most people would pick to remember the marriage of John and Jacqueline Kennedy. But on Feb. 14, CBS spent more than eight minutes recalling how it was the 50th anniversary of CBSs "historic" TV tour of the White House with Jackie. They brought on liberal historian Doug Brinkley to proclaim "50 years ago on Valentine's Day, she became America's sweetheart, and 50 years later, she still is." The problem is that any honest historian couldn't claim that Jackie was JFKs sweetheart. He had lots of 'em. And now CBS has utterly ignored what NBC just exploited -- er, reported -- in prime time: Former White House intern Mimi Alford has written a memoir revealing how President Kennedy pressured her into Jackie's bed in 1962 to take her virginity. This affair began when she was 19 and four days into her internship. It would last until the eve of Kennedy's assassination.
Obama's Budget: It's My Money, America
On Monday, President Obama released his budget to the world. As per his usual Orwellian arrangement, Obama called this budget his attempt to implement "fiscal responsibility." Obama's attempt at "fiscal responsibility" works about as well as Madonna's attempts at virginity. Underlying his massive $3.8 trillion proposal, which also calls for tax increases amounting to nearly $2 trillion, is the overwhelming sense that President Obama thinks this is his money to spend. How else to explain his blithe assurances that his budget will ensure that everyone "gets a fair share ... does their fair share ... plays by the same rules"? Did we suddenly elect him third-grade teacher of the United States? Or does a dictator determine what a "fair share" means?
A Tea Party Senate Takeover
The tea party isn't dead. It's just looking down ballot. While fiscal conservatives remain split over the GOP presidential candidates, grassroots activists are coalescing around a stellar slate of limited-government candidates looking to reinforce and reenergize the right in Washington. And in the spirit of the modern-day tea party movement, no entrenched incumbent -- Democrat or Republican -- is safe.
Can Obama Order Grocers to Give Away Bread?
In October 2009, I published a column titled, "Can Obama and Congress Order You to Buy Broccoli?" Now I need to ask a follow-up: Can Obama order grocers to give away bread? I wrote the broccoli column after Sen. Orrin Hatch raised serious questions in the Senate Finance Committee about the constitutionality of President Obama's proposal to force people to buy health insurance. "If we have the power simply to order Americans to buy certain products, why did we need a cash-for-clunkers program or the upcoming program providing rebates for purchasing energy appliances?" Hatch said. "We could simply require Americans to buy certain cars, dishwashers or refrigerators."
Rising Black Social Pathology
The Philadelphia Inquirer's big story Feb. 4 was about how a budget crunch at the Philadelphia School District had caused the district to lay off 91 school police officers. Over the years, there's been no discussion of what has happened to our youth that makes a school police force necessary in the first place. The Inquirer's series "Assault on Learning" (March 2011) reported that in the 2010 school year, "690 teachers were assaulted; in the last five years, 4,000 were." The newspaper reported that in Philadelphia's 268 schools, "on an average day 25 students, teachers, or other staff members were beaten, robbed, sexually assaulted, or victims of other violent crimes. That doesn't even include thousands more who are extorted, threatened, or bullied in a school year."