Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Ah, Sweet Mysteries of Life
There are a number of questions I keep waiting to have answered, and I am getting doggone impatient. For instance, is Barack Obama's mother-in-law still living in the White House? If she's living there rent-free and dining on our dime, why do we never see her? They sure made a big deal about it when they moved her in, allegedly to help look after the grandkids, but then she fell off the face of the earth. Sort of like Bo, the invisible dog. Next, I want to know how much money Jeffrey Immelt is being paid to be Obama's job czar. During WWII, a great many wealthy men went to Washington to serve their country and were known as dollar-a-year men because that is what they were getting paid. So, what's Immelt's salary? The fact is, if he, the man who runs GE, the outfit that paid no corporate taxes last year, the man who sent major divisions of his company over to China, is getting as much as a dollar-a-year, he is definitely being overpaid.
'Dysfunctional' Government Is a Feature, Not a Bug
You don't need me to tell you that the chattering class is appalled by the partisan gridlock and political bickering that keeps Washington from dealing efficiently with the nation's problems. Last week Gallup measured Congress's job approval at 11 percent, a new low. Heading into Christmas week, you could hardly open a paper or turn on the radio without encountering a wave of dudgeon over the latest legislative squabble -- a standoff over extending a payroll tax cut that expires on Dec. 31. "Just when you thought the mess in Washington couldn't get any messier" was the way an exasperated Washington Post editorial began, while a columnist in The Examiner pronounced the wrangling on Capitol Hill "almost a parody of Washington dysfunction."
Sunday, December 25, 2011
The Day After Christmas
WASHINGTON -- This year, Christmas itself is a present. It is the gift of an absence, a respite from the Republican presidential clamors. The pitiless cacophony resumes tomorrow, so consider some gleanings from history before actual voters, those nuisances, intrude on the political conversation and actually make some history. The current Republican front-runner, Newt Gingrich, has not held elective office since he was ousted as speaker by a mutiny in his own House caucus 14 years ago. Leave aside the five presidents who had never held elective office before entering the White House. (William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover had held Cabinet offices; Zachary Taylor, Ulysses Grant and Dwight Eisenhower had been Army generals.) Only two of the other presidents were elected after an electoral hiatus as long as Gingrich's:
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Obama's Mount Gushmore
Well, that didn't last. President Obama went out to Osawatomie, Kansas, to deliver what the White House told us in hushed tones was a major address. He proclaimed it "the defining issue of our time." It's more than that, it's the "make or break moment for the middle class and for all those struggling to make it into the middle class." He invoked Theodore Roosevelt's 1910 speech at Osawatomie. He appealed to that example as his inspiration. And then he went on CBS's Sixty Minutes and compared himself to Lincoln, FDR, and Lyndon Johnson. What happened to TR? What happened to the great Trustbuster? No mention.
The Obama-mas Choir Sings 'Home for the Holidays'
They just don't know when to quit. Consumed with the singular task of re-electing Barack Obama, progressives across the country will use the holiday season to propagandize their conservative relatives and friends. White House elves are directing the re-education Christmas camp efforts. On Tuesday, the Obama 2012 campaign released an instructional video titled "Home for the Holidays: Share Why You're Working to Re-elect President Obama." Instead of relaxing with loved ones, the president's monomaniacal campaign staff and volunteers provide "pointers" and "strategies" for converting their "stubborn" families.
Iraq Under Seige
A coordinated wave of bomb attacks has rocked the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. At least 69 people have been killed and more than 185 injured in a series of 14 explosions, consisting of four car-bombs and 10 improvised explosive devices (IEDs). This is the worst violence to besiege Iraq in months, and it puts an exclamation point on the daunting reality that America may have prematurely left a nation whose government remains ruptured by sectarian divisions. Divisions that may ultimately undermine the enormous sacrifices made by American troops, and plunge the country into sectarian turmoil.
The Affirmative-Action Myth
If racial preferences in higher education were good for racial minorities in higher education, we surely would have seen the definitive evidence of it by now. Instead, a widening shelf of empirical research suggests that the opposite is true -- that affirmative action in academia is not advancing minority achievement but impeding it. More than 30 years ago, in the case of University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court gave colleges and universities a green light to admit applicants on the basis of race if their reason for doing so was to secure the blessings of a "diverse" student body. Many educators and policymakers concluded that lowering academic standards for black and Hispanic candidates – though awkward and controversial -- was a worthwhile tradeoff, since it would increase the number of minorities with advanced degrees and prestigious careers. Build racial diversity into each freshman class, it was widely believed, and more diversity among graduate students, academics, and professionals would ensue.
Critiquing the Sioux City Debate
In a way, it's rather admirable that Ron Paul sticks to his guns when everyone knows that his ostrich-like response to a nuclear Iran positively guarantees that he will not be the presidential nominee in 2012. Although I've always thought that Rep. Paul has a startling physical resemblance to the myopic cartoon creation, Mr. Magoo, the real life person he invariably brings to mind is none other than Neville Chamberlin. All the man needs is the furled umbrella. On the other hand, I'd be churlish if I didn't commend Paul for providing me with my only laugh during the Sioux City GOP debate. That was when he let us know that none other than James Clapper, Obama's head of National Intelligence, agreed with his assessment of Iran. That would be like my denying that the Holocaust had taken place because no less an authority than Muammar Ahmadinejad said it hadn't.
Friday, December 23, 2011
The GOP's Payroll Tax Debacle
WASHINGTON -- Now that Congress appears finally to have reached a compromise on what must be one of the worst pieces of legislation in years -- the temporary payroll tax holiday extension -- let's survey the damage.
Cultural Winners and Losers, 2011
The depravity of our popular culture and our eagerness to shred traditional values manifests itself every day. Lady Gaga, the top-earning woman in the music business and deemed by ABCs Barbara Walters to be one of the "most fascinating people," has a new vocation in mind. She's announced she wants to become an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church so she can marry two gay male friends. Lady Gaga is as unattractive, in every sense of the word, as her name is stupid. She welcomed Easter with a single called "Judas" ("I'm still in love with Judas, baby.") and arrives at Christmas as Reverend Gaga. This is the same "instant online ordination" that TBS late-night host Conan O'Brien used in November in a disgusting scene to "marry" two gay males live on his television show. Gaga and Conan are two of the real cultural losers of 2011. Here are some other winners and losers:
Home for Christmas
For more than a dozen years now, I've spent the days leading up to Christmas in search of a special gift. Not the kind you can buy at the mall or charge on your credit card but the gift of a traditional Midnight Mass. It goes back to my childhood, when I couldn't wait until I was old enough to attend Midnight Mass with my grandmother at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Denver. I was 13 the first time I got to stay up and attend Midnight Mass with my grandmother. She lived only a few blocks away from the cathedral, which we walked to alone in a gritty urban neighborhood. But because it was 1960, neither of us worried for our safety. The pews were already filled by the time we arrived near midnight, as Catholics and even some non-Catholics crammed the gothic structure to overflowing.
Merry Manly Christmas and Hanukkah
This is the time of year to turn our thoughts to noble sentiments and inspiring stories. William Bennett, who has established something of a cottage industry in uplift, has a new book out that celebrates and explicates all that is bracing, wholesome, affecting and necessary about men and manliness. That such a book is required, it must be acknowledged, is not good news about our cultural health. Bennett introduces "The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood" with tidings of joy. "In 1954, about 96 percent of American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked. Today, that number is around 80 percent. One-fifth of all men in their prime working ages are not getting up and going to work.
Santa's Not Pagan
As a non-Christian with a deep affection for Christmastime, I've always felt a little left out around this time of year, but not in the way you might think. I've always felt a bit out of place with the venerable conservative tradition of denouncing the "war on Christmas." I should offer some background. When I was a kid, my parents cut out a jokey headline from a local newspaper that read "Santa Knows We're Jewish" and put it on a cardboard Christmas tree ornament. My father insisted I be raised Jewish. (I went to a Jewish day school and was duly bar mitzvahed.) My Episcopalian mother insisted we celebrate Christmas.
Paul Ryan's Old-Fashioned American Vision
When you think of Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, terms like earnest, serious and important come to mind. So does the term old-fashioned. Ryan comes from an old-fashioned place, the blue-collar town of Janesville, Wis. He cherishes the old-fashioned values of a faithful family man. He even looks old-fashioned, with his white shirts and striped ties. And he uses old-fashioned argument skills, persuasively weaving big-picture themes with the numbers that back them up. And Ryan has old-fashioned goals, too, like saving America from fiscal bankruptcy, economic stagnation and a European-style entitlement state.
Christmas 2011
BLUEMONT, Va. -- Four years ago, this annual Christmas column was written from Baquba, Iraq, while our Fox News "War Stories" team was embedded with the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division and special operations units operating against the Iranian-supported Mahdi Army in the outskirts of Baghdad. A year earlier, the Christmas 2006 column was written in Ramadi, Iraq, while we were embedded with 1st Battalion, 6th Marines in what was then the bloodiest place on the planet. And in 2005, this column originated with 3d Battalion, 7th Marines and the 2nd Brigade of the 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania National Guard, in Anbar province, where we documented the first free elections ever held in an Arab country.
Sometimes Caution Can Backfire
There seems to be a common line of demarcation separating two basic factions on the political right in the various skirmishes we have fought against Barack Obama, from their markedly different approaches to the budget battles to their differences in sizing up the GOP presidential candidates. On one side we have the more moderate group, which is more cautious, less risk averse, less excitable, self-consciously pragmatic and more tolerant toward an establishment ruling class, even if not per se establishment itself. On the other side are those who perceive more urgency in our current national condition, are more adamant about adhering to conservative principles to reverse this catastrophe and reject the charge that they are recklessly purist.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Two Bad September Days
Two terrible September days sum up the first decade of the new American millennium. The first, of course, was Sept. 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden's suicide terrorists that morning hit the Pentagon, knocked down the World Trade Center, killed 3,000 Americans, and left 16 acres of ash in Manhattan and $1 trillion in economic losses in their wake. Two invasions into Afghanistan and Iraq followed -- along with a more nebulous third "war on terror" against Islamic radicalism.
New Hampshire Quick to Divorce Candidates, Not Marry Them
LACONIA, N.H. -- Three weeks out from the New Hampshire primary, and voters in the Granite State don't seem to have settled firmly on one of the Republican presidential candidates. Or so one might conclude after interviewing voters in the Lakes region north of Concord in Laconia, which like the state as a whole voted for John McCain over Mitt Romney by a 37 percent to 32 percent in 2008, or nearby Meredith, where McCain did slightly better and Romney slightly worse. "Not interested" was the most common response, reflecting perhaps not indifference but an unwillingness to talk in the freezing air.
No on Mitt Romney
In the Meredith Wilson musical "The Music Man," a small Iowan town faces the sinister wiles of a big city con man, Harold Hill. In introducing themselves, they sing, "We could stand touchin' noses / For a week at a time / And never see eye-to-eye. But what the heck, you're welcome, / Join us at the picnic. You can eat your fill / Of all the food you bring yourself." By the end of Act Two, Hill has suckered these poor rubes into buying into his scheme. He's done it by pretending to be one of them, by warning them of the evils of big city ways and by speaking on behalf of their innocent children.
Separating the Chaff From the Wheat
One of my main objections to registered Independents is that they love to announce that there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans. That is such a dumb remark that one would only expect to hear it uttered by liberals. Anyone unable to see any difference between the two parties really hasn't been paying any attention. Even if you're not a fan of Mitch McConnell or John Boehner, who but a moron would claim they're not a major improvement over Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi?