Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Getting Nowhere, Very Fast
California has a huge state debt and Washington has a huge national debt. But that does not discourage either Governor Jerry Brown or President Barack Obama from wanting to launch a very costly high-speed rail system. Most of us might be a little skittish about spending money if we were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. But the beauty of politics is that it is all other people's money, including among those other people generations yet unborn.
How to Split and Spoil a Party
What's all this "Republican establishment" vs. "grassroots populist" business; would somebody kindly inform me? I have rarely heard of anything nuttier. The essence of this widely retailed story is that rebellious men and women of the grassroots wish to prevent the nomination of Mitt Romney for president. If Romney got elected, we are apparently to believe, he would spend all his time at the country club, checking in periodically with his brokers, instead of removing the cultural and political debris left by the Obama administration. Whereas -- ah! -- if Newt Gingrich became the people's man in the White House, he and Joe the plumber would lead a national revival.
Social Pressure to Marry Is Dead
The advice columns of newspapers are good windows into the conscience of a culture. There you will find a field guide to what is considered socially acceptable and unacceptable. One of the advice columnists for the Washington Post, Carolyn Hax, is consistently sensible and solid in her suggestions. Straightening out busybodies, drug abusers, interfering in-laws and ungrateful children with equal aplomb, she's usually a pleasant read with the morning coffee. But not always. A recent response to a letter from "Grandmother-to-be" provides an example of the collapse of social wisdom on the subject of marriage and childbearing. "My 26-year-old son's girlfriend -- of four months -- is pregnant," wrote grandma. "I have very mixed emotions about this, mainly because he just met her, and I do not know her. They work and live across the country. I am disappointed in their behavior. How do I tell my friends the news? I am embarrassed."
Diddling While America Burns
The worst thing about the political debates isn't the format or the content, but that it magnifies debating skills to such an extent. I keep hearing that Gingrich would demolish Obama in a debate. I disagree. Republicans would watch such a debate and decide that Newt had mopped the floor with Barack; Democrats would see it the other way around. And the next day, the liberal media would announce that Obama won by a knockout in the first round. As we all know, a president no more needs to be a great debater than he needs to know how to juggle plates, play the accordion or yodel.
A Missed Opportunity
The official Republican response to the President's State of the Union Address was fine -- as far as it went. But Gov. Mitch Daniels missed a golden opportunity to put before the American people a better vision of family, faith, and freedom. Interestingly, the only mention of family in Gov. Daniels' response was his praise for President Obama's own family. Let me stipulate: The Obama family is a model family, apparently devoted to one another. The president even lives happily under the same roof with his mother-in-law. Now, that's devotion.
The 2012 Race Takes Shape
We got mixed signals from a turbulent political week. Barack Obama seems to be enjoying an uptick in polls -- up toward, but not quite at, 50 percent approval. It's a reminder that he can expect to benefit from Americans' desire to think well of their presidents and from the reluctance of many voters to be seen as rejecting the first black president. But his weakness was apparent in his State of the Union address: issues. He devoted a mere 44 words to the health care law passed in March 2010. This is the strongest evidence possible that his signal legislative achievement is a millstone around the neck of his campaign.
Barbie vs. Godzilla: What's Behind Gender Free Toys
London's most venerable toy store, Hamleys, recently underwent a make-over. The self-described "finest toy shop in the world" did away with separate girls and boys sections and, instead, organized the store by types of toys. Pink and blue signs were replaced by red and white ones. Hamleys' decision gave writer Peggy Orenstein the chance to ask the question "Should gender be systematically expunged from playthings?"
The Real 'Iron Lady'
Reading about Meryl Streep's preparation to act in "The Iron Lady" could lead one to believe that the real Margaret Thatcher was difficult to understand. But if you go back to the dark days Britain faced in the late 1970s when she became prime minister, it's really not that hard. To pay its bills, Britain had to borrow money from the International Monetary Fund. Protracted labor disputes led to long strikes and the "Winter of Discontent" in 1978.
Why Should the State License Drivers?
With my driver's license expiring in February, I made a trip to the Registry of Motor Vehicles last week to renew it. To my astonishment, I was in and out of the RMV branch at the Watertown Mall in just 15 minutes. From past experience, I had expected much worse. When I renewed my license five years ago -- at a facility the Registry whimsically dubbed a "License Express" -- I had to wait for an hour and a quarter before being served. An earlier renewal had required two trips to the Registry: The first one proved futile when the clerk shut off the computer at closing time, curtly telling the 11 people in line that they would have to come back another day.
Onward Civilian Soldiers
WASHINGTON -- War, said James Madison, is "the true nurse of executive aggrandizement." Randolph Bourne, the radical essayist killed by the influenza unleashed by World War I, warned, "War is the health of the state." Hence Barack Obama's State of the Union hymn: Onward civilian soldiers, marching as to war.
From The Comedy Store
Jimmy Carter accused Newt Gingrich of using veiled racism in calling Barack Obama the Food Stamp President. He's furious. It was bad enough for Carter that he lost the title of Worst President in History but now he's losing the title of the Food Stamp President, too.
Winners & Losers
All in all, 2011 provided us with some pretty good news. For one thing, our military took care of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, God got rid of Kim Jong-Il and, for good measure, Barney Frank finally got around to announcing his retirement. It was to be expected that Jimmy Carter, who insisted on paying his last respects to the otherwise unlamented Yasser Arafat, was probably the only person in the civilized world demented enough to send his sincere condolences to North Korea on the passing of its longtime dictator, the aforementioned Kim Jong-Il. So it is that although Carter's claim to the title of Worst President of the United States has been usurped by Barack Obama, Mr. Peanut retains clear title to being the Worst Ex-President of the United States.
Obama's Lowball Vision: Tax Success and Growth
You would think that with one of the weakest economic recoveries on record, President Barack Obama would be searching desperately for ways to promote economic growth. It is, after all, an election year. Most pundits and pollsters agree that it's the economy, stupid. But instead, Obama used his State of the Union speech to rail on about fairness, inequality and redistribution. The Obama strategy is simple: Tax the rich, because they don't pay enough. The problem is that they do pay enough. According to the Tax Foundation, Americans making $1 million or more pay a 25 percent average tax rate. People in the $50,000 to $100,000 income category -- call it the middle class -- pay 7 to 8 percent.
SOTU Surrender
WASHINGTON -- It's an unwritten law of modern America that a political campaign speech should last no more than 30 minutes. The lecture candidate Barack Obama delivered on the evening of Jan. 24 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol came in at just longer than one hour and six minutes. It was full of rhetoric we should expect to hear reiterated from now until Nov. 6. The president's supporters declared his economic message to be "populist." That's liberal-speak for class warfare. In the days since the State of the Union address, politicians and pundits of every stripe have parsed the lengthy remarks to find parts they can challenge or cheer. There is no doubt about what POTUS intends for the U.S. economy. Invoking what he calls the "Buffett rule," Obama promises to raise taxes on the "rich" until they pay their "fair share" -- an amount he has decided should be 30 percent of income. That's important, but even more critical is what he does and doesn't say about real national security and protecting the American people.
Obama's Vision for a Spartan America
President Obama's State of the Union address was disgusting. The president began with a moving tribute to the armed forces and their accomplishments. But as he has done many times now, he celebrated martial virtues not to rally support for the military, but to cover himself in glory -- he killed Osama bin Laden! -- and to convince the American people that they should fall in line and march in lockstep. He said of the military: "At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They're not consumed with personal ambition. They don't obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together. Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach."
Obama Rebuffs 'Bridge-Building' With Gov. Brewer
Apparently a better relationship between Democrats and Republicans is in the eye of the beholder. One day after his State of the Union speech, where he told Americans that genuine reform can't happen unless we "end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas," president Barack Obama had what might be charitably described as a less than cordial encounter with Arizona's Republican governor, Jan Brewer. "He was a little thin-skinned," Brewer said during a later interview on local radio station News/Talk 92.3 KTAR. "I was a bit taken aback by his stance and his attitude [on the tarmac]," she added. noting that Obama walked away from her "[as] I was trying to make a point that I thought that my book was right and correct." The book in question is "Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America's Border," about Brewer's approach to dealing with Arizona's illegal alien problem. According to the governor, the president was "a little disturbed" regarding her description of a previous meeting between the two in the Oval Office on June 3rd, 2010.
Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants
So, it turns out that the cool cat billed as "No Drama Obama" by his sycophants is actually quite the drama queen. While the White House publicly pretends to ignore conservative detractors of his administration, Chief Touchy-Touchy seems to be personally consumed by our critiques. Yes, mine included. On Wednesday, the president had himself a mini-"Toddlers and Tiaras"-style meltdown with Arizona GOP Gov. Jan Brewer after landing in Phoenix for a post-State of the Union dog-and-pony show. As Brewer told pool reporters on the scene, Obama took umbrage at Brewer's recent memoir. She minced no words on the cover: "Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America's Border."
For Gingrich, Amnesty no Impediment to Nomination
One thing was missed in Newt Gingrich's victory in the South Carolina primary: Conservatives embraced a pro-amnesty candidate without batting an eyelash. This should come as a wake-up call to those who've been pushing a hard-line anti-illegal immigrant position in the Republican Party. Granted, Gingrich didn't spend a lot of time discussing his position, which favors amnesty for those illegal immigrants who have been here for a long time, have deep family and community ties, and have paid taxes and avoided breaking other laws. But that's the point. He didn't have to spend a lot of time defending his position because so few conservatives cared.
The State of the Union Flop
WASHINGTON – Once upon a time, small ball was not Barack Obama's game. Tuesday, it was the essence of his State of the Union address. The visionary of 2008 -- purveyor of hope and change, healer of the earth, tamer of the rising seas -- offered an hour of little things: tax-code tweaks to encourage this or that kind of behavior (manufacturing being the flavor of the day), little watchdog agencies to round up Wall Street miscreants and Chinese DVD pirates, even a presidential demand "that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18." Under penalty of what? Jail? The self-proclaimed transformer of America is now playing truant officer? It sounded like the Clinton years with their presidentially proclaimed initiatives on midnight basketball and school uniforms. These are the marks of a shrunken presidency, thoroughly flummoxed by high unemployment, economic stagnation, crushing debt -- and a glaring absence of ideas.
The Double Standard on 'Hoes'
Remember when Don Imus saw his cushy CBS Radio and MSNBC career go up in smoke in 2007 when he tried very early one morning to make one of his fake misanthropic jokes about the Rutgers women's basketball team being "nappy-headed hoes"? Black activists demanded his firing. Advertisers fled. The corporate suits, appalled and fearful of the terrible publicity, canned him. But if you're a black rapper, terms like this advance your career. The female rapper Nicki Minaj has a very hot new video called "Stupid Hoe." She uses that same term to snap at other women -- "We ship platinum, them b----es are shipping wood / Them nappy-headed hoes, but my kitchen good." (Don't hurt your brain trying to make sense of it.) Minaj even threw the n-word in the lyrics: "How you gon' be the stunt double to the nigga monkey?"