Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Obama Doctrine: Ignore American Interests
Two successful assassinations -- those of al-Awlaki and bin Laden -- have persuaded some that President Obama, whatever his domestic failures, has presided over a successful foreign policy. This is way too generous. In fact (with the exception of targeted assassinations and the surge in Afghanistan), the president seems to conduct foreign policy based on seat-of-the-pants responses to events, rather than relying on any over-arching strategy. And his reactions to such events are more often based upon reversing what he regards as past American sins than on pursuing America's interests in the world.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
"When the wicked spring up as the grass, and all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed forever." -- Psalms, 92:7 So may it be with all tyrants and enemies of the United States. Or do I repeat myself? Let's hope so. For the American cause should always be freedom's. However wayward the means or distasteful some of our allies in coalitions or convenience, let there never be any doubt that America will always be a friend to freedom. Around the world, America and freedom have been associated, even synonymous in our finest hours.
Are Evangelicals or University Professors More Irrational?
Last week, The New York Times published an opinion piece by Karl W. Giberson and Randall J. Stephens, a physics professor and history professor at Eastern Nazarene College, respectively. The authors take evangelicals to task for being anti-intellectual, anti-reason and anti-science. Their evidence: -- Evangelicals doubt man-made global warming, -- Evangelicals believe that gays can "pray away" their homosexuality. -- Evangelicals believe Earth is only thousands of years old and that men lived alongside dinosaurs. -- Evangelicals oppose same-sex marriage.
Gridlock Government
What is the purpose of high-occupancy vehicle lanes? Is it to make people who aren't in car pool lanes feel resentful? Or, as University of California, Berkeley civil and environmental engineering professor Michael Cassidy believes, is the goal to reduce the number of people-hours traveled? Cassidy believes HOV lanes work but used to work better. Cassidy and doctoral student Kitae Jang conducted a study of Bay Area freeway traffic before and after July 1, when the Legislature let lapse a 2005 program that allotted yellow stickers granting access to HOV lanes for low or solo occupancy to 85,000 hybrid vehicles. The researchers found that everybody loses. "Drivers of low-emission vehicles are worse off, (and) drivers in the regular lanes are worse off," Cassidy said in a statement.
The Media and 'Bullying'
Back in the 1920s, the intelligentsia on both sides of the Atlantic were loudly protesting the execution of political radicals Sacco and Vanzetti, after what they claimed was an unfair trial. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote to his young leftist friend Harold Laski, pointing out that there were "a thousand-fold worse cases" involving black defendants, "but the world does not worry over them." Holmes said: "I cannot but ask myself why this so much greater interest in red than black." To put it bluntly, it was a question of whose ox was gored. That is, what groups were in vogue at the moment among the intelligentsia. Blacks clearly were not.
So What Now?
The war that presidential candidate Barack Obama called "stupid" ends in a few weeks by order of President Barack Obama, who thinks we've done about all we can in Iraq. In which case, he may be right. Though, he neglects to shine much light on the road that now lies before his country -- in regards to the United States' role in the world. Possibly, no other president, at this moment in history, would do differently. For with all the risks tied to withdrawing every one of the troops, leaving Iraq becomes something like a pacification of the country. With respect to its overall position in the world, the United States hasn't really known what it was trying to do since the collapse of the Soviet empire. Are we the policeman of the world, the bringers of democracy, or what? In regards to Iraq, it might be best for us to step back and ask a vital question: What's in it - however "it" may be defined -- for us?
You Can't Wait? Neither Can We
President Obama couldn't have chosen a more fitting slogan than "We can't wait" to promote his latest legislative elixir for our ailing economy. What could be cleverer than to employ double meaning in aid of doublespeak? CBS News reports that Obama will use the phrase to sell his jobs bill and to justify his plan to take unilateral executive action on the economy. Obama has enlisted the phrase to argue that America can't wait on the private sector to generate economic growth. He can't wait on the people to get up to speed with his superior wisdom or for Congress to rubber-stamp his latest destructive scheme. He will not be denied; he will not be delayed; he will not wait.
Cult of Global Warming Is Losing Influence
Religious faith is a source of strength in many people's lives. But religious faith when taken too far can prove ludicrous -- or disastrous. On Oct. 22, 1844, thousand of Millerites, having sold all their possessions, climbed to the top of hills in Upstate New York to await the return of Jesus and the end of the world. They suffered "the great disappointment" when it didn't happen.
Mixed Feelings at a Homecoming
After five years in lonely captivity, denied visits by the Red Cross let alone his countrymen and kin, there was Gilad Shalit back on native soil. In his fresh uniform, web belt around his shrunken waist, regulation headgear tucked under a shoulder strap, and looking shrunken in his outsized uniform, Sgt. Shalit was saluting the high-ranking (and well-fed) politicians who are attracted to such occasions -- like moths to even a flickering flame.
Vocational Guidance
For the past three years, as we've watched Obama try to deal with a lot of things that we can all agree are way above his pay grade, we've been constantly mindful of the fact that this schmuck has never really held a job in the private sector. The good news is that we are now less than 400 days away from November 6, 2012, when we can fire his sorry butt. The bad news is that no matter who replaces him in the Oval Office, we will still be stuck with a House and Senate filled with men and women who, for the most part, have spent their entire adult lives sitting on their butts making uninformed decisions that dictate how the rest of us get to live our lives.
Libya: Mission Vindicated
The families of the 270 people killed in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 no longer will have to watch as Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, the man who ordered the attack, visits New York to deliver his long rants to the United Nations. President Barack Obama's decision to authorize cruise missile strikes on Tripoli and the NATO mission paid off. "Without putting a single U.S. service member on the ground," the president proclaimed Thursday, "we achieved our objectives, and our NATO mission will soon come to an end."
Running to Close a Chapter
INDIANAPOLIS -- Richard Mourdock, a Republican and Indiana's treasurer, wants to wrest his party's U.S. Senate nomination from a six-term incumbent who has been a national figure since becoming mayor of this city in 1968 at age 35, who has averaged 69 percent of the vote in five re-elections, and who ran unopposed by a Democrat in 2006. When Richard Lugar, an Eagle Scout and Rhodes scholar, was a Naval ensign, he briefed Dwight Eisenhower. That was 10 presidents ago, which may be a problem for Lugar in an era of pandemic disparagement of the political class. So Mourdock will try to defeat Lugar with wounding praise: Lugar is a great chapter of Indiana history, but elections are arguments about the future.
Defining 'Anosognosia'
Although, as a rule, I prefer avoiding using words in my articles that will send most normal people scurrying for their dictionary, I only recently came across "anosognosia" and I felt I should share it because it so perfectly describes the mental condition of liberals. It is the total unawareness of one's own disease, disability or defect. So when we find ourselves asking why leftists think and act as they do, apparently living in a fantasy world totally disconnected from reality, at least we now know there's a word that defines it.
From The Comedy Store
Boston Red Sox starting pitchers admitted they drank beer and ate fried chicken on days they didn't pitch. They have plenty of support. The whole point of the Wall Street protests is the right of four guys to sit around and eat fried chicken while everyone else has to work.
The GOP Pro-Growth, Flat-Tax Competition
The latest Gallup poll pegs President Obama's approval at a new low of 41 percent. That adds to the thought that the winner of the GOP presidential-primary sweepstakes is going to be the next president. And inside that Republican contest, the policy pendulum is swinging toward pro-growth, flat-tax reform. A new agenda. With Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan and the announcement of a Steve Forbes-type flat tax from Gov. Rick Perry, the GOP flat-tax-reform competition is dominating the headline news.
How Do We Care for the Elderly?
Last week, the Obama administration dropped one of the signature provisions of its healthcare plan. The CLASS Act (Community Living Assistance Services) was intended to provide affordable insurance for long-term care to individuals who, because of infirmity or age, could no longer care for themselves. But the reality that not enough healthy Americans would sign up to make it self-supporting finally doomed the program. Many opponents of Obamacare will no doubt cheer this turn of events because it confirms the view that we cannot afford to, in essence, nationalize health care. I agree --but I also recognize that the problem that the CLASS Act was trying to address is a legitimate concern for which we now have no workable solutions.
Turkey's About-Face Toward Islamist East
ISTANBUL -- A young American man with black hair and dark brown eyes checked into a small hotel in Cappadocia, where visitors to Turkey flock to see the famous lava formations carved into the landscape. "Are you Muslim," the clerk asked, acknowledging his Semitic features. "No, I'm Jewish," the young man replied, smiling and assuming the question was asked in good faith and good humor. "Oh," the clerk replied, disappointment in his voice. "This is not a good time for Jews in Turkey."
Aiding and Abetting a Real War
PIERRE, S.D. -- The good news about Moammar Gadhafi's demise arrived via my cellphone early Thursday morning. A friend from the Reagan administration, remembering the Libyan dictator's attempt to kill my family, called to let me know and added, "You must be very glad to see this day." But it doesn't seem to be a time for celebration. Most of the Libyan people seem to be rejoicing -- and with good reason. They suffered the most under the egomaniacal despot. But unless you are a U.S. Air Force, Navy or Marine pilot who had to brave anti-aircraft fire in Operation Odyssey Dawn, Moammar the Magnificent hasn't posed a serious threat to Americans for years. Now, thanks to the Obama administration's "no boots on the ground" policy for war fighting, America and our allies may actually be more vulnerable.
Biden Sticks to the Playbook
"I wish [critics of the administration's jobs bill] had some notion of what it was like to be on the other side of a gun, or [to have] a 200-pound man standing over you, telling you to submit [to rape]." -- Vice President Joe Biden, Oct. 18, University of Pennsylvania "... at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do, it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds." -- Barack Obama, Jan. 12, 2011, Tucson, Ariz.
Robin Hood vs. the Occupiers
We have entered a new phase of the endless Occupy Wall Street sleepover. Not working is hard work. After a month of tying up the police, generating mounds of trash, railing against Jews while holding up "Nazi Bankers" signs, grappling with pervs, rapists and thieves in their ranks, communing with avowed communists, and hobnobbing with 1 percenter celebrities donning 99 percenter costumes (phew!), the Occupiers are rallying around a new mascot: Robin Hood.