Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
We Get Obama Instead of Jerry Lewis
This time of year is traditionally about the start of school, the start of football and the end of summer. Labor Day is emblematic of the season, and with Labor Day comes the annual "Jerry Lewis Telethon" to raise money for muscular dystrophy research and treatment. I need to confess at the outset that Jerry Lewis' comedy has brought me not much more than an occasional wry smile. I'll leave the belly laughs to the French, who are said to adore his slapstick antics.
My Fellow Americans ...
President Obama is going to give yet another Big Speech next week. Who among us can contain his excitement? The White House insists this address will have nothing to do with partisan politics and everything to do with getting Americans back to work. Well, suspend your own disbelief as best you can. But one thing is certain: The president will enter the chamber "shovel ready," as it were. One can expect Obama to repeat certain verbal tics. He will quote himself a lot ("As I've said before ..."). He will insist that it's time to put aside partisan differences, by which he means everyone should agree with his ideas.
The Clean Energy Crash-and-Burn
The biggest star in the Obama firmament of green-jobs companies has just imploded. Solyndra, a California-based firm that produced solar panels, declared bankruptcy this week, putting more than a thousand additional workers on the unemployment line. The Solyndra story tells you all you need to know about President Obama's ability to "create" jobs -- green or otherwise.
The Best Show in Town
WASHINGTON -- In that fleeting interval between earthquake/hurricane and the president's 57th (or so) major national address next Thursday, I can finally devote a summer column to the finest efflorescence of that season this city has to offer: the Washington Nationals. They are a baseball team. Not yet very good, mind you, but it matters not. When you live in a town with a great team, you go to see them win. When you live in a town with a team that is passing rapidly through mediocrity on its way to contention -- the Nats have an amazing crop of upcoming young players -- you go for the moments.
MTV's Missing 'Pants'
The pied pipers at MTV were certainly delighted that they attracted their largest audience ever measured for their Video Music Awards show, more than 12 million viewers. It began with Lady Gaga as a male impersonator and ended with rapper Lil Wayne dancing around wearing women's leggings affixed literally below his rear end. Lil Wayne's "song" was called "John (If I Die Today)." It was so studded with F-bombs and N-words that more of this number may have been bleeped than aired. There are five F-bombs in the first eight lines. The song starts: "Four-four bulldog, my mother f---ing pet. I point it at you and tell that mother f---er 'fetch.'" The thought is almost humorous that someone at MTV might review the lyrics in advance to insure they were appropriate.
Deadlier Than Irene
WASHINGTON -- Some have described Hurricane Irene as "the most over-hyped event in history." Americans in the Northeast who were flooded out of their homes and businesses and those without electricity, fuel or water don't agree. But a U.S. official I spoke with this week told me, "The next storm coming from down south is already deadlier than Irene, and nobody is paying attention." My source wants to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to talk about these matters with the media. He doesn't work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the National Weather Service -- and he isn't talking about Hurricane Katia, now approaching the U.S. mainland from the Atlantic Ocean. He works for the Drug Enforcement Administration, and he says, "Our government has helped to create the 'perfect deadly storm.'" Sadly, his forecast is likelier to be right than anything from our weather guessers.
America's Uncle Omar Problem
"Always remember. Never forget." The phrase is now emblazoned in red across the U.S. Department of Homeland Security website. But as the Obama administration disseminates its talking points to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 jihadist attacks, the White House remains stone-silent about the president's Uncle Omar problem. The refusal to deal with Uncle Omar tells you everything you need to know about the emptiness and impotence of Washington's 9/11 platitudes. "Omar" is Onyango Obama, the illegal alien deportation fugitive who is the long-lost Kenyan half-brother of President Obama's father. The president mentioned him in his best-selling book, "Dreams from My Father." But these days, he'd undoubtedly prefer to whitewash him out of the public eye. Last week, Uncle Omar was arrested for drunk driving in Framingham, Mass., and held on an immigration detainer.
God, Politics and Rick Perry
God will not be mocked, as the Scriptures tell us, but the pundits and politicians keep trying. Rick Perry is bringing out both the believers and the scoffers. This is a phenomenon that seems to happen with the presidential cycles. Jimmy Carter was born again, Barack Obama was once the messiah, and his followers -- millions of them -- thought he could walk on water. Now not even Michelle is sure he could walk to Alexandria without getting wet to the knees. All that is gone with the wind and Irene's rain.
Labor vs. Drudgery
"If all the year were playing holidays,/ To sport would be as tedious as to work...." --Henry IV, First Part Like most Americans during this three-day holiday, I come to praise labor, not actually do any of it. Has there ever been a people that sermonized more about the importance of the work ethic -- but was so enamored of labor-saving devices?
The Time for Empty Talk Is Over
As President Obama's presidential term has unfolded, he has made it increasingly clear what he meant all those times he haughtily said, "I won." It's his world, and he has no intention of sharing control over it. This was on stark display when he attempted to pre-empt the Republican debate with a grandiose joint session of Congress called solely for the purpose of delivering another round of economic propaganda. He would have us believe that his speech will be of monumental import, but everyone knows, Democrats included, that it will be nothing more and nothing less than a sales job. There will be nothing new in this speech, no new ideas, no new information.
Don't Confuse Us With Facts; We're the New York Times
They cannot help themselves, The New York Times that is. With absolute regularity, they continue to report certain issues in the most biased and fact-avoiding way possible. An Aug. 31, 2011, story by Al Baker covers a federal judge's ruling that a case challenging the New York Police Department's, NYPD, "stop and frisk" policy can go forward. But the story is so one-sided that it practically topples over as you're reading it.
Joe Biden, Presidential Candidate
Washington -- When Vice President Joe Biden rolls into a room to talk politics, frankly I am ready to laugh. He is, for me, the gaffable Joe Biden. Remember when he told the perky Katie Couric that during the great stock market crash of 1929 President Franklin Roosevelt immediately "got on television" to reassure the American people. Biden apparently reassured Miss Couric; yet others in the audience who knew their history and recognized his blunder got a huge laugh at Joe's expense. The president in 1929 was, of course, Herbert Hoover, and there was no television. Or what about the gaffable vice president declaring, "The number one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be as Barack says, a three-letter word, jobs, j-o-b-s, jobs"? Good old Joe!
Obamacare and the Jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas
In the glossy pages of The New Yorker, in graceful prose and with good reporting, the dreams and nightmares of the admirers of Barack Obama and his policies lie exposed. The dreams include Ryan Lizza's report last April in which he quoted an Obama adviser as saying the president's policy on Libya was "leading from behind." This week, as Tripoli seemed about to fall, the magazine's editor, David Remnick, hailed Obama's "calculated modesty."
Hillary Clinton: World's Second Most Powerful Woman?
Forbes Magazine is a most respected resource for business leaders. The magazine recently came out with a list of the world's Most Powerful Women. Not surprisingly, they chose German Chancellor Angela Merkel as No. 1. This is doubtless because the conservative Merkel has been trying to get the European Union to shape up. Putting out economic fires in Greece, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal, Germany's financial strength has been put to the test. Just how much longer can the EU rely on Germany's productivity to subsidize European sloth? Merkel is like the old E.F. Hutton ads on TV: When Angela talks, Europeans listen.
Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue
In advance of a "major speech" on the economy and jobs, President Obama has selected Princeton University professor Alan Krueger to be chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Krueger is no relation to the horror film character Freddy Krueger, though if his ideas are implemented, they might further "slash" the economy. Alan Krueger is the latest in a long line of professors and academics to populate this administration. Few, if any, have held real jobs in the private sector. They are mostly theorists, whose theories are often proved wrong, but in academia, as well as in government, being wrong rarely disqualifies one from a leadership post. Intentions are all that matter.
Liberals' View of Darwin Unable to Evolve
Amid the hoots at Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry for saying there were "gaps" in the theory of evolution, the strongest evidence for Darwinism presented by these soi-disant rationalists was a 9-year-old boy quoted in The New York Times. After his mother had pushed him in front of Perry on the campaign trail and made him ask if Perry believed in evolution, the trained seal beamed at his Wicked Witch of the West mother, saying, "Evolution, I think, is correct!"
Professors Don't Have All the Answers
President Obama has nominated Princeton University Professor Alan Krueger to be chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors. Saying that "I have nothing but confidence in Alan as he takes on this important role," Obama described him as one of the nation's leading economists. Nonsense! Washington needs to stop listening to these allegedly high-minded academics who have helped get us into this fouled-up economy.
Colorado's Purple Brew
DENVER -- "Beer," said Benjamin Franklin, who knew a thing or two about pleasure, "is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." If so, perhaps He wanted John Hickenlooper to be Colorado's governor. Hickenlooper is a double rarity, the first brewer to become a governor (well, if you don't count Sam Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, the amateur), and, in this time of political dyspepsia, he is a happy man whose constituents seem reasonably happy with him. People may be happier here because sunlight is filtered through less -- a mile less -- of the atmosphere. And because, Hickenlooper says, Colorado has become "the Napa Valley of Beer" and Denver is "the Munich of the West." He deserves some credit for this state having 142 licensed breweries.
Anti-Religious Diatribes Come in Many Forms
In 2007, a prominent Florida televangelist named Bill Keller condemned Mitt Romney's religion in a "daily devotional" to his 2.4 million e-mail subscribers. "If you vote for Mitt Romney, you are voting for Satan!" Keller raged. "There is no excuse, no justification for supporting and voting for a man who will be used by Satan to lead the souls of millions into the eternal flames of hell!" That was ugly, offensive, and intolerant. So was another diatribe about religion, published by a different Bill Keller last week.
The Welfare State: Too Many Takers -- Not Enough Givers
The Irish cabdriver complained almost nonstop during our half-hour drive to the Belfast International Airport. He especially worried about the job prospects for his 20-something son and, for that matter, about those for the generation of young people who face a "sh-tty" future on this beautiful island full of friendly people.