Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
The Black Occupy Protester -- Missing in Action
As "Person of the Year," Time magazine named "The Protester." The subhead read, "From the Arab Spring to Athens, From Occupy Wall Street to Moscow." Well, yes, but what about the lack of American black protesters? Good Lord, where is the racial diversity/inclusion/proportional representation? Back in the day, the tea party's alleged lack of black participants was beyond worrisome to the media. The lack of black faces in the crowd allowed the major media to describe the tea party as racially exclusionary, if not ... racist!
Return of the Episodic Apologists
WASHINGTON -- They are back! I speak of the episodic apologists, who have been a phenomenon of the Clinton Saga since its earliest days, back when the Clintons were flipping real estate and exchanging bad checks in Arkansas. The episodic apologists, like the legendary court historians of Franklin Roosevelt's time, are an essential ingredient of the era in which they labor. The court historians gave us Roosevelt's "One Hundred Days," "He Saved Us From Communism" and other legends of the 1930s -- forget not, "He Ended the Great Depression." The episodic apologists are admittedly somewhat different. Drawn from the ranks of journalists, historians and politicians, they have contributed more actively to the soap opera of the Clinton Saga than mere historians, for they are active participants in the drama. After every disappointment that the Clintons perpetrate, these saps go into an emotional tailspin: with all their trembling alases, forsooths and oh-woe-is-me's.
Newt Helped Formulate Christmas
Every few years, heinous Democratic policies -- abortion, gay marriage, affirmative action, Hillarycare, Obamacare, to name a few -- compel previously uninvolved Americans to leap into politics. This is great, except for two things: (1) We have to get heinous Democratic policies first; and (2) newcomers have short memories, sometimes no memories at all. The second point is the only possible explanation for why some conservatives seem to view Newt Gingrich as the anti-Establishment outsider who will shake up Washington.
Grieving at Christmas
"It's the most wonderful time of the year," Andy Williams reminds us over tinny speakers in crowded shopping malls. It may be wonderful for the majority, but for those whose fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers or children have died in Iraq and Afghanistan there is a void this Christmas, and Christmases to come, that can never be filled. It is the same in every war. Memories of Christmases past can only add to the pain, especially for those experiencing their first Christmas without a loved one opening presents and eating their fill at the dinner table.
One-Man Wrecking Crew
WASHINGTON -- When discussing his amazingness, Newt Gingrich sometimes exaggerates somewhat, as when, discussing Bosnia and Washington, D.C., street violence, he said, "People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz." (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan. 16, 1994). What primarily stands between us and misrule, however, is the Constitution, buttressed by an independent judiciary. But Gingrich's hunger for distinction has surely been slaked by his full-throated attack on such a judiciary. He is the first presidential candidate to propose a thorough assault on the rule of law. That is the meaning of his vow to break courts to the saddle of politicians, particularly to members of Congress, who rarely even read the laws they pass.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
'Watchdogs' Let Freddie and Fanny Execs Slide
Once again, the farce of so-called SEC "prosecutions" reveals itself. Last Friday, the financial watchdog agency charged six former top executives from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with securities fraud for deliberately misleading the pubic about how much money they had invested in high-risk, subprime mortgages. The farce? From the SEC's website: "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac each entered into a Non-Prosecution Agreement with the Commission in which each company agreed to accept responsibility for its conduct and not dispute, contest, or contradict the contents of an agreed-upon Statement of Facts without admitting nor denying liability."
Michelle Obama's Unsavory School Lunch Flop
The road to gastric hell is paved with first lady Michelle Obama's Nanny State intentions. Don't take my word for it. School kids in Los Angeles have blown the whistle on the east wing chef-in-chief's healthy lunch diktats. Get your Pepto Bismol ready. The taste of government waste is indigestion-inducing. According to a weekend report by the Los Angeles Times, the city's "trailblazing introduction of healthful school lunches has been a flop." In response to the public hectoring and financial inducement of Mrs. Obama's federally subsidized anti-obesity campaign, the district dropped chicken nuggets, corn dogs and flavored milk from the menu for "beef jambalaya, vegetable curry, pad Thai, lentil and brown rice cutlets, and quinoa and black-eyed pea salads."
Obamacare Abominations
President Obama says his health care "reform" will be good for business. Business has learned the truth. Three successful businessmen explained to me how Obamacare is a reason that unemployment stays high. Its length and complexity make businessmen wary of expanding. Mike Whalen, CEO of Heart of America Group, which runs hotels and restaurants, said that when he asked his company's health insurance experts to summarize the impact of Obamacare, "the three of them kind of looked at each other and said, 'We've gone to seminar after seminar, and, Mike, we can't tell you.' I think that just kind of sums up the uncertainty."
China Trade: Myths vs. Reality
Republicans and Democrats, liberals as well as conservatives, have bought into anti-Chinese trade demagoguery. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that tariffs against China are a "key part of our 'Make It in America' agenda." During his 2010 campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called his tea party-backed Republican challenger, Sharron Angle, "a foreign worker's best friend." In a recent news conference, President Barack Obama gave his support to the anti-China campaign, declaring that China "has been very aggressive in gaming the trading system to its advantage," adding that "we can and should take action against countries that are keeping their currencies undervalued ... (and) that, above all, means China."
The Year of Krugman Thuggishness
In 2008, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. At that time, it wasn't hard to imagine the Swedes were rewarding Krugman for eight years of blasting George W. Bush. In other words, the Nobel Prize truly matched its namesake: Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. Krugman regularly throws rhetorical dynamite at anything that stands in the way of his radical worldview. Krugman outdid himself for outrage in 2011. Every year, the Media Research Center collects a panel of willing conservative journalists and talk show hosts and puts them on a sickening roller coaster ride through the worst media bilge of the last twelve months to arrive at the Best Notable Quotables of the Year.
Americans Angry at Senate Sycophants
For the past three years the United States Senate, under the leadership of Obama toady Harry Reid, has been an embarrassment for the United States. Now the so-called "Upper Body" has merely kicked the can down the road for two months on an extension of the payroll tax cut, and the House has rightly rejected the Senate's maneuver. Americans need to kick the Harry Reid Senate down the road not for a period of months, but for a lifetime. We have a clear message for Harry Reid and his utter failure to lead the Senate: The nation is angry and our anger is directed at a legislative body that under Reid's leadership can't do its job. Reid seems to think that his job is to force the Senate to follow Barack Obama's agenda. That would mean the Senate is obliged to put a rubber stamp on the president's destructive fiscal policies.
Ron Paul's Naive Promises
So now it's Ron Paul's turn. The diminutive Texas libertarian is poised in the latest polls to win the Iowa caucuses. Obviously, this would be rough news for Newt Gingrich -- who's in third place and falling -- and very good news for Mitt Romney, who has used Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and now Paul as blockers to fend off challenges from the various "not-Mitt" candidates of the moment. (Perry must feel particularly disoriented because he's been both blocker and blockee.)
One-Man Intervention: Ron Paul Challenges His Party's Mindless Militarism
Reporters routinely describe Ron Paul's foreign policy views as "isolationist" because he opposes the promiscuous use of military force. This is like calling him a recluse because he tries to avoid fistfights. The implicit assumption that violence is the only way to interact with the world reflects the oddly circumscribed nature of foreign policy debates in mainstream American politics. It shows why Paul's perspective is desperately needed in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
Manure Makers, Yes; Catholics, No
Under this administration and this Congress -- which includes the Republican-controlled House of Representatives led by Speaker John Boehner -- the right of Catholics to freely exercise their religion is treated with less deference than the presumed right of stockyard owners to fill the skies with effluvia. I mean this literally. When Congress wants to stop the Executive Branch from doing something, it has a simple constitutional means: Deny funding for that activity. The $914.8 billion spending law Congress passed last week to keep the government funded through the end of fiscal 2012 -- which does not come until Sept. 30 of next year -- is full of provisions that use this mechanism to achieve aims both great and small.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
The Atheists and the Savior
The death of the world's leading self-styled atheist (may his soul rest in peace) occasions reflection about his, shall we say, firm convictions regarding the truth of religion -- any religion. Christopher Hitchens, the English-born polemicist, was against 'em all, or at least said he was. The title of a best-selling book he published several years ago was, "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."
Death of an Atheist
Perhaps not since Madalyn Murray O'Hair and Carl Sagan has there been such an "evangelical" atheist as Christopher Hitchens, the writer and social commentator who died last week after a long and public battle with esophageal cancer. Hitchens railed against those who believe in God. While an original writer, and smart, there was nothing original about his unbelief. Such views have been expressed since the dawn of humanity. They have also been answered by some of the wisest people who have ever lived. There is a difference between "smart" and "wise." As that Scripture in which Hitchens disbelieved says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." (Proverbs 9:10)
Obama and Holder Should Put the Race Card Back in the Deck
President Obama led us to believe that he would be a post-racial president who would bring the races together, but it's gotten to where you can't criticize this most leftist administration in American history without someone accusing you of racism. The most recent example involves criticism of Attorney General Eric Holder over Fast and Furious, an operation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which was overseen by the Justice Department. It involved the indirect sale of weapons to Mexican drug cartels, which resulted in some 300 killings in Mexico, including the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Throughout, despite having received detailed memos from DOJ officials about it, Holder has denied he was aware of it.
The Past and the Present
If Newt Gingrich were being nominated for sainthood, many of us would vote very differently from the way we would vote if he were being nominated for a political office. What the media call Gingrich's "baggage" concerns largely his personal life and the fact that he made a lot of money running a consulting firm after he left Congress. This kind of stuff makes lots of talking points that we will no doubt hear, again and again, over the next weeks and months.
Why Thomas Friedman Abetted Anti-Semitism
After a lifetime of studying the left, I have concluded that leftism is a form of moral poison. It causes otherwise decent and kind people who take it into their systems to say and/or do cruel and sometimes evil things. While not specifically about the left, a major new scholarly book, "Pathological Altruism" (Oxford University Press), explores this phenomenon of people wanting to do good things yet ending up doing bad. It applies to The New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who has a deep altruistic urge to bring peace to the Middle East. But because he sees the world through the liberal/left prism, he says morally reprehensible things -- statements that individuals associated with hate-filled, non-altruistic groups and ideologies would make.
That Ol' Time Religion
President Obama spoke at the annual meeting of the Union for Reform Judaism last week, and he gave the attendees that ol' time religion -- liberalism. Not surprisingly, since Reform Judaism is, in Richard Brookhiser's timeless phrase, "the Democratic Party with holidays" -- it was well-received. While the audience in the hall purred appreciatively at the president's invocation of the usual liberal bromides, Obama's claims on the subject of his administration's support of Israel -- at least to those not blinkered by partisanship -- are nothing short of jaw dropping. "I am proud to say," he told the group, "that no U.S. administration has done more in support of Israel's security than ours. None. Don't let anybody else tell you otherwise. It is a fact."