Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
A Field in Which Obama Takes No Prisoners
In May 2009, President Barack Obama proclaimed at the U.S. Naval Academy, "As Americans, we reject the false choice between our security and our ideals." That was the Obama who signed an order to close the military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay and hold civilian trials for such swells as self-described 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. I prefer the current Obama, who kept Gitmo open and gave up on prosecuting Mohammed and company in New York. This is the president who authorized the use of military force that led to the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. Note: The use of U.S. military drones meant that al-Awlaki -- an American citizen who has been linked to the 2009 Christmas Day attempted airline bombing and the Fort Hood shootings that left 13 dead -- would not have a last-minute chance to surrender and have his day in a U.S. court.
Steve Jobs' Father Was ...
On a daily basis, I sit in awe at the amount of nonsense that pervades the world's media. The latest is the preoccupation with the ethnicity of Steve Jobs' birth father. Steve Jobs was adopted at birth. And until his untimely death last week, as far as almost anyone in the world knew, Steve Jobs was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Jobs -- father Paul and mother Clara. In fact, as far as Steve Jobs himself was concerned, his only parents were Paul and Clara Jobs. As The New York Times reported nearly 15 years ago ("Creating Jobs," January 12, 1997), "Jobs holds a firm belief that Paul and Clara Jobs were his true parents. A mention of his 'adoptive parents' is quickly cut off. 'They were my parents,' he says emphatically."
Obama Is Occupying America
Rational people realize that President Obama's policies have been an abysmal failure, which is why his only hope for re-election is to try to sow confusion among the voters, such as those populating "Occupy Wall Street." People often say the success of democracy depends on an informed electorate. Given his record, that's the last strategy Obama can afford to embrace. Short of a fortuitous economic miracle falling into his lap, his only hope for re-election is that enough voters are misinformed.
Reverse Racism
Among those who have been disappointed by President Barack Obama, none is likely to end up so painfully disappointed as those who saw his election as being, in itself and in its consequences, a movement toward a "post-racial society." Like so many other expectations that so many people projected onto this little-known man who suddenly burst onto the political scene, the expectation of movement toward a post-racial society had no speck of hard evidence behind it -- and all too many ignored indications of the very opposite, including his two decades of association with the egregious Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
The Innovation Deficit
Once we applauded innovation. Now, politicians like President Obama, denounce the successful, maliciously labeling them "millionaires and billionaires," as if success were a flu virus that we needed an inoculation to protect ourselves from. If we penalize and stigmatize success we are likely to get less of it. If we promote and encourage the principles that can lead to success, we are certain to get more successful people and the entire world will benefit as a result.
Steve Jobs: Unwanted Child?
Amid the expressions of grief at the passing of one of America's greatest innovators -- Steve Jobs -- one offhand comment by someone on CNN was jarring. Describing his brilliance, his inventiveness, his business genius and his inspired leadership, one host added, "And his parents didn't want him! They gave him up for adoption, if you can believe that!" It is one of the enduring misconceptions of modern life that birthparents who make adoption plans for their children "don't want them" and that this "rejection" scars the adoptee for life. Social science data refutes this. But even before considering the statistics about adoption, consider the absurdity of characterizing adoption this way in an age of widespread abortion. There are countless women who say, "I could never give up my baby for adoption" but who, strangely, see no impossibility in aborting their unborn babies.
Peeking Behind the Liberal Curtain
Even though I'm of their generation, I used to wonder how it was that so many people could stand listening to Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger sing. Even allowing for honest differences in taste, I couldn't figure out their popularity. Then one day I decided that their fans, most of whom were my contemporaries, were the sort of folks who would listen to their caterwauling and think to themselves as they played on their air guitars: "I can sing as well as that." In much the same way, by his mere presence in the White House, rock star Barack Hussein Obama must give hope to millions of other liberal dingbats.
The Power of Civil Society
Conservatives and liberals clash frequently on a wide array of issues, from taxes to trade, from deficits to defense. But their greatest conflict may lie in their contrasting attitudes toward civil society. Conservatives regard the institutions of civil society -- families, churches and communities -- as sources of hope and renewal. Self-styled "progressives" see these institutions as seedbeds of prejudice and ignorance.
Obama Team Split on How to Rally Unruly Coalition
President Barack Obama obviously is scrambling in his attempt to win re-election. He has proclaimed himself the underdog and has given up his pretense of being a pragmatic centrist compromiser in favor of harsh class warfare rhetoric. But it's worth taking note of what he has squandered. In 2008, Obama won 53 percent of the popular vote. That may not sound like a landslide, but it's more than any other Democratic presidential nominee in history except Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.
Subverting the Electoral College
WASHINGTON -- Republicans supposedly revere the Constitution, but in its birthplace, Pennsylvania, they are contemplating a subversion of the Framers' institutional architecture. Their ploy -- partisanship masquerading as altruism about making presidential elections more "democratic" -- will weaken resistance to an even worse change being suggested.
Occupy Wall Street: All Bite, No Apple
As Occupy Wall Street activists clogged New York's Zuccotti Park protesting "corporate greed" and Occupy SF hit San Francisco's Financial District on Wednesday protesting "corporate greed," the world learned that Steve Jobs, perhaps America's most beloved modern capitalist, had died at age 56. The protesters claim to represent the working people, the 99 percent of Americans who, according to their blog, are getting kicked out of their homes, must choose between groceries and rent and "are working long hours for little pay and no rights," if they're working at all. They "are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything."
From The Comedy Store
New York's Occupy Wall Street protesters argued among themselves about whether they should sew their own sleeping bags with winter coming or engage in capitalism and buy them. Also, they argued over whether to beg for food or buy donuts. It took two hours in the real world to convert the entire movement to supply-side economics.
Taking Pot Shots at Big Shots
I don't know how it will play out, but as of this moment, as I sit here, Iran has sentenced a pastor to be executed because at the age of 19 he converted from Islam to Christianity. How much more evidence does anyone require before accepting that the people who blew up the USS Cole and the Twin Towers, ran amok at Fort Hood, blow up Israeli school buses and pizza parlors, and whine about being racially profiled are not anomalies. Rather, they are the faithful followers of their bloody religion, and the sooner we have someone in the White House who doesn't feel compelled to pretend otherwise, the better.
What's Wrong With Romney?
Two new sets of Republicans are feeling deflated today -- the Chris Christie hopefuls and the Sarah Palin stalwarts. The Christie decision didn't surprise me, perhaps because I grew up in Jersey. In fact, Christie and I attended the same high school! Anyway, Jerseyans are many things (not all of them nice), but slick dissemblers we are not. When Christie said, repeatedly, and in ever more colorful terms, that he wasn't running, I believed him. And, while I understand the boomlet for him, I'm also a little relieved to see that he is indeed a truthful guy.
Obama's Behavior Is Getting Worse
Obama's Thursday news conference was a sober reminder of the nature of the man in the Oval Office. I infer that even many of his supporters in the liberal media are finally catching on to the magnitude of his personality disorders. How could a man in his important position continue to act so childishly, accepting no responsibility for his policies and behavior and demonizing everyone who dares to disagree with or oppose him? It's worse than embarrassing; it's unsettling.
Germany Comes of Age
BERLIN -- A united Germany turned 21 this week. Families celebrated a three-day weekend, with the children waving black, red and gold national flags in the bright sunlight of an unseasonal October summer in Berlin. In Bonn, the capital of West Berlin when Germany was divided into the Soviet east and the free West, fireworks flashed across the night sky. Unification has not been without problems, and the conventional wisdom is that it's been harder on Germans in the east, where unemployment is almost double that in the west. But it's difficult to find a German who would return the communists to power.
Steve Jobs -- a Relentless Visionary
Like millions of Apple users around the world, I learned that Steve Jobs had died when I turned on my Mac on Wednesday evening. There his picture was, staring out from the Apple homepage when I went to my browser: his signature black turtleneck; his close-cropped grey hair and beard; his piercing, pale eyes. I felt enormous sadness -- the kind that makes your throat constrict to force back tears, and at first, I couldn't quite figure out why. I certainly didn't know Jobs. I couldn't even have told you whether he had a family or how old he was or where he called home. But I know the world would not be the same if Steve Jobs had not lived.
Sorting Out the 'Extremists'
Brian Phillips is the head of communications for the NYC General Assembly, the group primarily responsible for occupying Wall Street. I learned about him while listening to National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." According to NPR, Phillips is "an ex-Marine with a bachelor's in computer science. Today he is wearing a sock on his head." "My political goal," Phillips says, "is to overthrow the government." Note: That's not some random nut job pulled from his Lyndon LaRouche desk or tricked-out refrigerator box/time machine. That's the communications director for the whole shebang, and his goal is to overthrow the government.
Georgia Guys Are Ganging Up on GOP Presidential Candidates
Make no mistake about it. Both Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich know exactly what they are doing. They are, collectively -- with Cain's significant increase in the polls and Gingrich's slow but steady rise -- working to ensure that a conservative agenda, even a somewhat rebellious agenda, is in place regardless of who is the nominee of the GOP. Cain is a brilliant businessman. Trust me; I know him well. What he lacks in knowledge of government he more than makes up for in business acumen. He could easily damage most of his fellow GOP contenders with one simple question: "Tell me, what is a profit and loss statement and a balance sheet?" Save Mitt Romney, most would muddle their way through an answer.
'Playboy Club' Collapses
NBC President Robert Greenblatt was really committed to the new drama "The Playboy Club" just weeks ago. "What it has going for it is a recognizable brand that's automatically going to draw attention to it, good or bad," he said. "It's the right kind of thing for us to try." They tried it. Three episodes later, NBC made it the first canceled series of the season. Trains have rarely wrecked as ingloriously as this one. By the third episode, NBC could barely muster 3 million viewers, while ABC ("Castle") and CBS ("Hawaii Five-O") were both over 11 million. This show had flop sweat all over it. Entertainment Weekly wrote after the cancellation announcement that "The move is no surprise and, indeed, was expected months before the show premiered." So why on Earth did NBC work so hard to promote this show and its pornographic brand?