Right Opinion

Focusing on the Fed

"I'd prop him up and put a pair of dark glasses on him and keep him as long as I could." That's John McCain in 1999, referring to former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. The joke was that Greenspan was so good at his job that if anything were to happen to him, we'd need a Weekend at Bernie's solution to extend his reign. The financial crisis and Great Recession, a portion of which at least can be laid at Greenspan's door, has taken the bloom off the Greenspan rose, and then some. Current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has also taken his share of hits. With unemployment high and monetary policy bouncing from one experiment to the next amid inflation fears, the Fed attracts few defenders anymore. Even presidential candidates are making Fed policy part of their platforms.

In Foreign Affairs, Obama Needs Respect, Not Love

The argument is being made in some quarters that, however unsuccessful Barack Obama's domestic policies have been, his record in foreign policy has been successful. But when you examine the claims of success, they seem a bit peculiar. Take the widely read New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Last week, he argued that Obama's "lead from behind" approach to Libya worked much better than what turned out to be the Bush administration's protracted involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Student Loans -- Forgive and Forget

One of the great things about America, President Barack Obama told students at the University of Colorado, is that no matter how humble your roots, you still have a shot at a great education. He also told students that his goal is to "make college more affordable." Alas, the president's prescription for making higher education affordable seems likely to yield the same results as his plan for curbing health care costs; that is, it is likely to drive prices higher than inflation. The nation's next fiscal nightmare may well be a higher-education bubble.

The Pretzel Candidate

WASHINGTON -- The Republican presidential dynamic -- various candidates rise and recede; Mitt Romney remains at about 25 percent support -- is peculiar because conservatives correctly believe it is important to defeat Barack Obama but unimportant that Romney be president. This is not cognitive dissonance. Obama, a floundering naif who thinks ATMs aggravate unemployment, is bewildered by a national tragedy of shattered dreams, decaying workforce skills and forgone wealth creation. Romney cannot enunciate a defensible, or even decipherable, ethanol policy.

From The Comedy Store

Pentax Lab in Amarillo disarmed America's last remaining Cold War-era big nuclear bomb. Large megaton bombs are no longer needed to destroy a country. With today's modern technology we just borrow money from them and refuse to pay them back.

The Liberal Game Show

Blame the Sexual Revolution, Not Men

Kate Bolick stares out at the world from the cover of The Atlantic magazine. She's wearing a black lace evening dress. "What, Me Marry?" asks the headline. She isn't smiling. In fact, she isn't smiling in any of the photos that accompany her several thousand-word essay on singleness, marriage and the changing nature of dating and mating in America today. Bolick, 38, is groping toward accepting the idea that she may never marry. She badly wants to convince herself -- and us -- that older ideas about "unhappy" spinsters are silly cultural baggage best dropped off at the curb. And yet, there are those glamour shots -- Bolick behind the wheel wearing a fetching red dress; Bolick in a gold evening gown holding a glass of champagne; Bolick in a black cocktail dress -- but her expressions range from pensive to sad -- never happy.

The Anti-God Book by 'God'

Those prestigious publishers at Simon and Schuster selected All Saints Day to unleash the book world's latest attempt at mocking Christianity. It's called "The Last Testament, by God." The author is David Javerbaum, a top writer for 11 years for "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, perhaps America's leading religion-hating TV network. Is it any surprise that the critics love it?

Perry's Game-Changing Plan for Jobs and Growth

Governor Rick Perry unveiled his plan for fundamental tax reform with an optional flat tax. This bold proposal for economic growth is a fiscal game-changer, and demonstrably superior to the proposals of rivals Herman Cain and Mitt Romney. In the 1990s, the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform (the Kemp Commission) chaired by the late Jack Kemp created the framework for a flat tax. This research was later refined and advanced by Steve Forbes, and the flat tax became central to his presidential campaign.

GOP Should Quit Stirring the Anti-Immigrant Pot

The GOP's Hispanic voter problem has the potential to cost it the presidential election next November -- but the likelihood is that it won't. This has less to do with the party's standing with Hispanic voters, which continues to be low, than it does with President Obama's failures to revive the economy. Nonetheless, the party is concerned enough that some Republican leaders are suggesting the key to winning the Hispanic vote is to put Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on the ticket, no matter who the presidential nominee turns out to be. That's the wrong solution.

Libyan 'Crossfire'

WASHINGTON -- You've got your Mexican standoff, your Russian roulette, your Chinese water torture. And now, your Libyan crossfire. That's when a pistol is applied to the head and a bullet crosses from one temple to the other. That's apparently what happened to Moammar Gaddafi after he was captured by Libyan rebels -- died in a "crossfire," explains Libya's new government. This has greatly agitated ACLU types, morally unemployed ever since a Democratic administration declared Guantanamo humane. The indignation has spread to human rights groups and Western governments, deeply concerned about the manner of Gaddafi's demise.

Shredding Kathleen Sebelius

If a private health insurer had engaged in the kind of criminal obstruction that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has been tied to in her home state of Kansas, it would be a federal case. Instead, it's a non-story in the Washington press. Nothing to see here. Move along. On Monday, a district judge in the Sunflower State suspended court proceedings in a high-profile criminal case against the abortion racketeers of Planned Parenthood. World Magazine, a Christian news publication, reported on new bombshell court filings showing that Kansas health officials "shredded documents related to felony charges the abortion giant faces." World Magazine reported: "The health department failed to disclose that fact for six years, until it was forced to do so in the current felony case over whether it manufactured client records."

Sexual Politics at the Movies

"The Ides of March," the slick new movie with George Clooney as an unethical presidential candidate, is a morality tale for our time. It lacks tragic dimensions, it's melodramatic without complexity of character, and it has a neatly constructed plot that has no emotional depth, sliding over the surfaces of the political world as we have come to know it, up close and personal. But it entertains as an engaging tale about the dirty tricks of politics. Entertainment, after all, is what politics has become.

Why Occupy Wall Street Needs a Republican President

There's only one way the Occupy Wall Street movement can become like the tea parties, and that's for Barack Obama to lose in 2012. Why? Because Obama is the most divisive figure in American politics today. I suspect that sentence reads funny to some people because in the mainstream press, "divisive" is usually a term reserved for "conservatives we disagree with." But as a factual matter it can apply to anybody who is, well, divisive.

No Armageddon -- but No Economic Victory Yet

The world economy has once again dodged Armageddon. The European Union finally forged a Greek bond deal, and a rescue fund big enough to ring-fence banks and sovereign debt, in order to avoid a catastrophic, Lehman-like contagion event. At the same time, the U.S. economy moved away from the threat of recession with a third-quarter real gross domestic product report of 2.5 percent. In response, stocks are soaring. We'll live to see another day.

Republicans and Risks

U.S. Virgin Islands -- We arrived at a tiny outpost on St. Thomas on Oct. 26. As we stepped ashore, the gentleman beside me said, "28 years ago at this very minute, I was lining up my 'thirsty' A-7 to land on the deck of the USS Independence (CV-62) not far from here. It was day two of Operation Urgent Fury. We were flying nonstop close air support missions for troops in contact on the island of Grenada." The retired naval aviator went on to describe his admiration for the then commander in chief, who boldly ordered more than 5,000 American troops ashore to prevent the 800 medical students and staff members from being taken hostage by the Cuban-supported communists who had seized control on the island. He added: "It was a high-risk decision, the right thing to do and the 'beginning of the end' of the Soviet empire. President Reagan knew who our enemies were, knew what needed to be done -- and did it." My interlocutor then asked a question I could not answer: "Are there any Ronald Reagan Republicans running for president?"

Obama's Illusory Student Loan Scheme

With his latest pseudo-compassionate expansion of the student loan program, President Obama reminds us why we ask whether he is simply unable to learn from history or he is indifferent to government waste incurred in pursuit of "good intentions." Back when Obama was trolling for illusory savings to manipulate Congressional Budget Office scorekeepers into decreeing that Obamacare would be revenue-neutral, he proposed the ingenious scheme whereby the federal government would subsume 100 percent of the student loan industry and eliminate evil private-sector profits going to "middlemen."

The Revolt Against the Experts Helps Herman Cain

At the moment, national polls show Herman Cain leading or tied for the lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. This, despite the fact that he has never won an election, has never held public office (except on a regional Federal Reserve advisory panel), and has shown prodigious ignorance on some important foreign policy and domestic issues. We in the punditocracy have been attributing Cain's lead to many conservatives' resistance to frequent frontrunner Mitt Romney. Many have described Cain as the flavor of the month and have predicted his numbers will collapse, as Michele Bachmann's and Rick Perry's have.

Confessions of an Ex-Democrat

When you're a conservative, it's just about impossible, unless you're the sort of person who wins million dollar lotteries, to not have some friends and relatives who are liberal. The secret, I've found, to maintaining even slightly cordial relationships with them is to never share your honest opinions about anything important, sliding through social occasions discussing the weather, sports and, well, more weather.

Global Warming -- RIP?

Not long ago, candidate Obama promised to cool the planet and lower the rising seas. Indeed, he campaigned on passing "cap-and-trade" legislation, a radical, costly effort to reduce America's traditional carbon energy use. The theory was that new taxes and greater regulations would make Americans pay more for fossil-fuel energy -- a good thing if it reduced our burning of coal, oil and gas. Obama was not shy in admitting that under his green plans, electricity prices would "necessarily skyrocket." His energy secretary, Steven Chu, at one point had even said, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe" -- that is, about $8-$10 per gallon. Fairly or not, the warming movement seemed to cast a tiny elite imposing costs on a poorer and supposedly less informed middle class.