Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Musings About Muslims and Obama's Body Parts
It's hard not to appreciate the irony of the man who promised that with his election, the rise of the oceans would begin to slow and the planet would begin to heal having to cut his vacation short because of Hurricane Irene. Apparently Mother Nature doesn't like this guy any more than I do. It occurred to me that between them, George Bush and Barack Obama have spent most of the past decade telling us what a great religion Islam is. They've gone at it like a pair of competing televangelists. All it took was for Muslims to top off 20 years of taking Americans hostage, bombing our embassies, leveling our Marine barracks, blowing up our ships, and killing thousands of us in New York, Iraq and Afghanistan, to make Islam the religion du jour. What makes this especially odd is that in the prior 200 years of our history, no president felt even slightly inclined to pay these folks a single tribute, no matter how insincere.
Salve for Our Wounds
The most interesting question is not how America in 2011 is unlike America in 2001, but how it is unlike it was in 1951. The intensity of today's focus on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 testifies to more than the multiplication of media ravenous for content, and to more than today's unhistorical and self-dramatizing tendency to think that eruptions of evil are violations of a natural entitlement to happiness. It also represents the search for refuge from a decade defined by unsatisfactory responses to 9/11.
Andrew Sullivan's Atlantic Error
In liberals' frenzy to elect Barack Obama in 2008, no one was quite as far out to sea as Andrew Sullivan, a respected columnist for the Atlantic website. He served up his "Daily Dish" by the plateful. Here's perhaps the hottest example of his rhetoric -- quoted endlessly around the blogosphere--back then: "A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man -- Barack Hussein Obama -- is the new face of America. In one simple image, America's soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama's face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can."
10 Years After 9/11
Anniversaries -- even those of such tragic events as 12/7/41 and 9/11/01 -- are occasions which cause us to reflect and take stock. What the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Twin Towers should teach us is to be forever on the alert. Not since the days of the Redcoats have our nation's enemies behaved like gentlemen, and it is high time that we learned that enemies often strike without warning. We should expect them to gouge our eyes and knee our groin, and if we're not prepared to do likewise, we shall remain at the mercy of the unmerciful. On a Sunday in 1941, America discovered that Japan was our mortal enemy, and we spent the better part of the next four years teaching them a well-deserved lesson. On the other hand, in the wake of 9/11, our leaders told us time and again that Islam was a peaceful religion. Moreover, the media tried to convince us that the Palestinians were the good guys in the conflict with Israel, that a mosque at Ground Zero would serve as a monument to good fellowship, and that it was a swell idea to elect as our president a left-wing bigot named Barack Hussein Obama.
The GOP Field Expands -- and Narrows
It was only fitting that the Republican presidential hopefuls -- or at least eight of them out of a growing crowd -- would be invited to gather at the Reagan Library in the once Golden State, whose parlous economic condition now mirrors that of the country. It was an occasion for the candidates to have their picture taken with Nancy Reagan, who's still holding her own as a link with the GOP's glory days. Once again the country seems waiting, in the Gipper's words, for a new beginning, for morning to come to America.
From The Comedy Store
Caroline Kennedy did interviews about her book of Jackie Kennedy's taped conversations describing life with JFK. The book quotes everything her mother said about her father's White House infidelities. Bill Clinton just bought Chelsea two yachts and a car.
Tiny, Targeted and Temporary
Who would have really expected a 300-point stock market plunge on the day after President Obama's so-called jobs speech? Yes, worries over new fears of a Greek default ripped through the markets on Friday. As did fears of an al-Qaida bombing plot on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. But you can't help but think that at least some of the stock plunge is a signal of no economic confidence in Obama's plan. And for that matter, who really expected an unbelievably large $450 billion plan? That's way more than 50 percent of the original $800 stimulus package in 2009 -- which did not work.
Leftist Media Outdid Themselves in GOP Debate
A dispassionate look at the NBC Republican debate moderators' questions reveals that they were not themselves dispassionate, which they have a professional duty to be. NBC's Brian Williams and Politico's John Harris put on a clinic in liberal bias and journalistic unprofessionalism as they fired loaded, sanctimonious questions at the debate participants.
Perry Punches at GOP Debate -- Both Hits and Misses
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry has a problem. The GOP primary has turned into a two-man race between him and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, it became clear during Wednesday's debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Unfortunately for the Texas governor, Republicans have learned the lesson of Sarah Palin. In 2008, the Alaska governor was the fresh face. She promised to be a popular, plain-speaking running mate who could energize the GOP base and appeal to independent voters. Palin did energize the base, but she also turned out to be a polarizing figure who tarnished the party brand.
All the Wrong 9/11 Lessons
Are your kids learning the right lessons about 9/11? Ten years after Osama bin Laden's henchmen murdered thousands of innocents on American soil, too many children have been spoon-fed the thin gruel of progressive political correctness over the stiff antidote of truth. "Know your enemy, name your enemy" is a 9/11 message that has gone unheeded. Our immigration and homeland security policies refuse to profile jihadi adherents at foreign consular offices and at our borders. Our military leaders refuse to expunge them from uniformed ranks until it's too late (see: Fort Hood massacre). The j-word is discouraged in Obama intelligence circles, and the term "Islamic extremism" was removed from the U.S. national security strategy document last year.
Rising From the Rubble
When the twin towers tumbled from the skyline of New York 10 years ago this month, the terrorists figured they had won a great battle. They were right. The two enormous buildings fell, burying almost 3,000 men, women and even children. We wept over personal tragedies and collectively vowed not to be bowed. We're winning the war. Recovery did not run smoothly. There were arguments, conflicts and delays. There has not always been a unity of purpose among the architects, government agencies, insurers, developers, families of victims and survivors about how what happened should be remembered. Often it seems as if the twin towers were transformed into Towers of Babel, with a cacophony of voices demanding different memorials of remembrance and revival. Creative reconstruction was difficult.
'What Have We Learned From This?'
It was the question his handful of young students had learned to expect from him. He asked it of us every time we'd finished translating that day's Scripture or a commentary on it. He taught without an ounce of flash, Rabbi Leo Brener did, taking care to neither add to nor detract from the text. He left the flights of fancy to us. We found him terribly dull. At the time. Only later, looking back, would we come to cherish the way he would pause before answering any question about the text. We got the message: This is Important. Not something to be entered upon lightly.
The 9/11 'Overreaction'? Nonsense
WASHINGTON -- The new conventional wisdom on 9/11: We have created a decade of fear. We overreacted to 9/11 -- al-Qaeda turned out to be a paper tiger; there never was a second attack -- thereby bankrupting the country, destroying our morale and sending us into national decline. The secretary of defense says that al-Qaeda is on the verge of strategic defeat. True. But why? Al-Qaeda did not spontaneously combust. Yet, in a decade Osama bin Laden went from the emir of radical Islam, jihadi hero after whom babies were named all over the Muslim world -- to pathetic old recluse, almost incommunicado, watching shades of himself on a cheap TV in a bare room.
A Decade of War
WASHINGTON -- Everyone older than 20 remembers whom he was with, what he was doing and how he learned we were at war that beautiful Tuesday morning a decade ago. Most of us recall a gorgeous late-summer morning with blue skies -- "shirt-sleeve weather" -- and then the horror: two of the world's tallest buildings collapsing into piles of rubble, the west wall of the Pentagon in flames and a fire-bathed crater in the soil of Somerset County, Pa. Like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that Sunday morning of Dec. 7, 1941, the assault on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, was a complete surprise. Politicians, pundits and quasi-historians have tried to find similarities in the two events, but there are few other real parallels.
Dancing With the Lecturers
For Hollywood, to push America's morality buttons is a win-win proposition. When they challenge those moribund traditional values, they not only strike a blow for the sexual revolution, they create the cherished publicity "buzz" that brings attention -- and viewers -- to their shows. It explains why ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" named to their cast America's most famous transgender activist. Once the cute little blond daughter, Chastity, that everyone of a certain age remembers from the old "Sonny and Cher Show" on CBS is now the female-denying Chaz Bono.
Lean Forward? You First!
During the recent GOP presidential debate, MSNBC ran self-promotional commercials for itself. That's OK; all networks do it. The Hebrew philosopher Hillel's famous line "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" applies for cable news networks, too. And given MSNBC's ratings, that wisdom is particularly poignant. The long-running "Lean Forward" marketing campaign features different MSNBC hosts waxing poetic on the glories of government and liberalism. The ad they kept running during the debate features Rachel Maddow standing on the edge of the Hoover Dam. The spots are a widespread source of ridicule in conservative circles, mostly because they show Maddow on the precipice of the dam in an ad hectoring us all to "lean forward." You first, Ms. Maddow.
Did Rick Perry Blow It on Social Security?
There is a brand of Republican who looks at President Obama's vulnerability on the economy and says "go for it." They argue that the overriding issue of the campaign should be jobs -- and that everything else should be a distant second. There is another kind of Republican who sees the 2012 election as a tipping point for the nation -- a do or die moment when we will either pull back from the precipice of debt and national decline or fall off the edge. This second brand of Republican is hoping that a candidate will emerge who can lay before the American people the nature of the challenge we face in a direct and forthright way. If a campaign is run and won on the need to reform our obese government, the new president will have a mandate to take the necessary steps, once in office.
Myth and Reality After 9/11
Why did radical Islamic terrorists kill almost 3,000 Americans a decade ago? Few still believe the old myth that prior U.S. foreign policy or support for Israel logically earned us Osama bin Laden's wrath. After all, the U.S. throughout the 1990s had saved Islamic peoples from Bosnia and Kosovo to Somalia and Kuwait. Russia and China, in contrast, had oppressed or killed tens of thousands of their own Muslims without much fear of provoking al Qaeda.
Reasons to Remember 9-11
The show business publication "Variety" reports "40-plus programs expected to commemorate 10th anniversary of (9-11) attacks." And those are just the specials. They don't include reports within news programs, or overseas TV memorials, which began last month. How we love our anniversaries. Whether it's "the Maine," "Pearl Harbor" or "9-11" we choose to remember, the question is "Why?" Why remember? To honor the dead? Yes, that is a good reason. How about to remember loved ones and survivors? That, too, is commendable.
Amanda Knox: The New Mumia!
Despite liberals' desperate need for Europeans to like them, the American media have enraged the entire nation of Italy with their bald-faced lies about a heinous murder in Perugia committed by a fresh-faced American girl, Amanda Knox. The facts aren't elusive: In December 2009, the Italian court released a 400-plus page report detailing the mountains of evidence that led the judges and jury to conclude that Knox, along with her Italian beau, Raffaele Sollecito, and a petty thief of her acquaintance, Rudy Guede, had murdered Knox's English roommate, Meredith Kercher, on the evening of Nov. 1, 2007.