Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
A Memo to Obama
Mr. Obama: You and Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, Charley Rangel and Lewis Farrakhan, would like to believe that the reason I despise you is because you're black or half-black or half-Muslim, but the truth is that your racial and religious makeup is probably the least odious thing about you. How do I despise you? Let me, like the poets, count the ways.
Jobless Workers
There are two Americas. In one America, working stiffs wonder whether it makes sense for the government to pay unemployment benefits for 99 weeks. In this America, folks have a lot of sympathy for those who are out of work through no fault of their own, but they also fear that when government writes unemployment checks for almost two years, that's an incentive not to get a job. In another America, there is strong support for President Barack Obama's call for another extension of jobless benefits to 99 weeks. Like Obama, these Americans believe that unemployment benefits stimulate the economy. Some want to extend benefits further. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., has introduced a measure to add another 14 weeks on top of 99 weeks.
The Unsexiness of Lady Gaga
This week, the ubiquitously absurd Lady Gaga appeared at the MTV Video Music Awards. Well, actually, she didn't appear -- her alter ego, Jo Calderone, did. Calderone looked frighteningly hideous, with a large coif that looked a good deal like Elvis and a dark brooding look that looked a good deal like crystal meth. Overall, she strongly resembled Sal Mineo in "Rebel Without A Cause." In her opening monologue, Gaga channeling Calderone said, "She left me! She said it always starts out good and then the guys -- meaning me, I'm one of the guys -- we get crazy. I did. I got crazy. But she's f---ing crazy too, right?" Apparently, Gaga as Calderone was telling fans that Gaga left Calderone. Got it?
What's Off the Table in 2012?
What should we not expect during next summer's presidential campaign, given what was put off-limits in 2008 and later?
The Gay Marriage Debate
Most so-called liberals are happy about that. Most conservatives are not. As a libertarian, I think all consenting adults who want to commit to a life partner ought to be treated the same way. To air this issue on my Fox Business show, I invited Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage and David Harsanyi, libertarian columnist at The Blaze.
Obama's Last Economic Policy Chance
President Obama's post-Labor Day "jobs" speech will be his last chance to launch an economic policy with any chance of manifesting its effect -- both economic and political -- before the November 2012 elections. He has three options. In order of descending likelihood they are: a timid hodgepodge of previous proposals, a bold left of center initiative or a turn to free markets "nuclear option."
Seduced by the Cult of Experts
When asked what posed the greatest challenge to statesmen, Harold Macmillan, the former British prime minister, responded, "Events, my dear boy, events." That's because events tend to throw everybody off their plan. For example, Hurricane Irene ended President Obama's vacation early. And the hurricane's steady deterioration upset the plans of news producers who anticipated something more dramatic for their wall-to-wall coverage.
Gadhafi Atrocities Justify Intervention
On Aug. 26, Amnesty International charged that guards loyal to Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi murdered scores of prisoners at two military camps inside Tripoli. The human rights organization based its claim on interviews with detainees who escaped the slaughter. Other media have reported hundreds of civilians dead in Tripoli's streets and in government compounds scattered throughout the city. StrategyPage.com, assessing the grim testimony, concluded that Gadhafi's soldiers and secret police "apparently had orders to kill all rebels, including prisoners."
Race and Economics
Overall U.S. unemployment is 9.1 percent. For white adults, it's 8 percent, and for white teens, 23 percent. Black adult unemployment stands at 17 percent, and for black teens, it's 40 percent, more than 50 percent in some cities, for example, Washington. Chapter 3 of "Race and Economics," my most recent book, starts out, "Some might find it puzzling that during times of gross racial discrimination, black unemployment was lower and blacks were more active in the labor force than they are today." Up until the late 1950s, the labor force participation rate of black teens and adults was equal to or greater than their white counterparts. In fact, in 1910, 71 percent of black males older than 9 were employed, compared with 51 percent for whites. As early as 1890, the duration of unemployment among blacks was shorter than it was among whites, whereas today unemployment is both higher and longer-lasting among blacks than among whites.
The Great Explainers
Glenn Beck -- great explainer, talker extraordinaire, and showman in general -- now has left Fox News. When the midway's star attraction becomes just another bore, it's time to dim the lights and tiptoe out. Much of the audience dozed off some time ago. So the Great Explainer packed up his tree charts and shut down the show, taking whatever's left of his fan base with him. It was a good run. H.L. Mencken said it: Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. But after a while even Americans tire of Great Explanations.
The Obama Tipping Point
Will Barack Obama become the first president in the post-World War II era during whose term real gross domestic product never grew in any quarter at an annual rate greater than 4 percent? With less than optimistic recent forecasts from the Federal Reserve System's Federal Open Market Committee and the Congressional Budget Office, it now seems like a very real possibility.
Screw Up, Move Up, Cover Up: The Fast and Furious Edition
On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced it was shuffling Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, out of his job. The disclosure comes amid continued GOP investigations into the administration's fatally botched straw gun purchase racket at the border and spreading outrage over legal obstructionism and whistleblower retaliation by DOJ brass. The DOJ inspector general is also conducting a probe.
Politicizing Hurricanes Again
Al Sharpton's claim to fame is he has never found a crisis he couldn't exploit -- even when one doesn't exist. On Friday's pre-hurricane episode of his MSNBC show, "PoliticsNation," he warned "Hurricane Irene is nonpartisan" and that it is threatening both red and blue states. But, nonpartisanship doesn't extend to hurricane coverage on TV, where liberals once again boast about the glories of government disaster aid, and conservatives are trashed as lunatics for wanting to limit the untrammeled growth of spending on natural disasters.
Your Lying Eyes: How Fallible Memories Send Innocent People to Prison
In 1986, Tim Cole, a student at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. He was exonerated in 2009, a decade after he died behind bars from a severe asthma attack at the age of 39. Like three-quarters of the defendants who are cleared by DNA evidence, Cole was convicted based on sincere yet inaccurate eyewitness testimony -- a problem the New Jersey Supreme Court highlighted last week when it revised the state's rules for pretrial hearings and jury instructions based on three decades of research exposing the fallibility of human memory. That decision, together with a case the U.S. Supreme Court will hear this fall, reminds us that the most powerful testimony jurors hear may also be the weakest, subject to hidden influences that can send an innocent man to prison if they remain unexposed.
Obama's War on the Secret Ballot
The Obama Administration has fired its opening salvo against a cornerstone of democracy: the right to secret ballot. Last fall, voters in four states voted overwhelmingly to amend their constitutions protect the right of workers to vote by secret ballot in deciding whether or not to form unions. That right has been enshrined in federal law for 75 years but is threatened by bills pending in Congress.
Israel -- an Apartheid State?
Next month, the UN-sponsored hate-Israel festival known as Durban III takes place. Under the heading "anti-racism," the great bulk of the conference, like Durban I and Durban II, consists of condemning Israel for racism and equating it to an apartheid state. Of the world's many great lies, this is among the greatest. How do we know it is a lie? Because when South Africa was an apartheid state, no one accused Israel of being one. Even the UN would have regarded the accusation as absurd.
Irene's Broken Windows
Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc., delivered my favorite quote on the subject to The New York Times: "If you're in the middle of recession, you just wander around blowing up buildings, and that would be your path to prosperity. And clearly, that's not the case. It's not the case with a natural disaster, either." Echoing this thought, Ian Shepherdson, the chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, bluntly noted on CNBC's website that "no one is made better off by the destruction of their home or workplace." He acknowledged the benefits of reconstruction work, but he dismissed the idea that somehow this is a net win for the economy.
A Hurricane, Evolution and Rick Perry
The Hurricane Irene story ought to, but won't, shed light on our prejudices regarding science. The favored liberal Democratic narrative -- we've seen it trotted out against Rick Perry in the past two weeks -- goes like this: Democrats are the party of the enlightenment. They believe in science and facts. They know that Darwin was correct about the origin of species, and that human beings are responsible for potentially catastrophic global warming through production of carbon dioxide. Republicans, on the other hand, are the pre-modern party of superstition, religious explanations for natural phenomena and global warming denial.
Left-Wing Witch Hunt
What fun -- a new way to do presidential politics. Namely, ask the candidates about their religious views, and find out, saith New York Times executive editor Bill Keller, "if a candidate places fealty to the Bible, the Book of Mormon (the text, not the Broadway musical) or some other authority higher than the laws and Constitution of this country." It's kind of fascinating, in a carnivalesque sort of way: the notion of religion as a force alien and dangerous to the American polity, hence to be regarded with fear.
The Near Death of a Convicted Terrorist
When the Scots released convicted Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi on Aug. 20, 2009 -- ostensibly because prostate cancer left him less than three months to live -- Megrahi presented a stooped, frail figure as he boarded his getaway plane. Hours later, when he landed to a hero's welcome in Tripoli, Libya, however, Megrahi appeared triumphant and radiant. Two years later, Megrahi is still alive -- although perhaps not for long. CNN's Nic Robertson talked his way into Megrahi's supersize mansion, where he videotaped the freed terrorist "apparently in a coma." Maybe. Maybe not.