Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Smacking Down Progressives of Pallor
Is there anything more condescending than a porcelain-skinned Hollywood liberal who attempts to show her presumed solidarity with minorities by referring to them as "people of color"? Yes, there is: Two porcelain-skinned liberals attempting to show their allegiance to "diversity" by attacking "people of color" who happen to disagree with their radical politics.
Children Sink Into Adult Swim
A man wearing a Santa hat sits on a roof. He's talking to his ex-girlfriend on a cell phone, trying with feigned cheer to wish her a Merry Christmas. He asks if she's with her new boyfriend. Yes, she replies, and she's with her whole family, opening presents. He says, "That's great, because I have a present for you," and he saws off his own head so it falls down the chimney into the fireplace. This isn't a horror movie. It's a (set ital)cartoon(end ital), filmed in stop-motion animation, like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." It runs on the Cartoon Network, which is owned by Time Warner. And it's aimed at children.
Making Washington Inconsequential
When Texas Governor Rick Perry announced his campaign for president last weekend in a speech to the RedState Gathering in Charleston, S.C., he saved his best line for the end. "I'll promise you this," he said to exuberant cheers and applause, "I'll work every day to try to make Washington, DC, as inconsequential in your life as I can." To a Democrat steeped in the big-government tradition of the New Deal and the Great Society, there could hardly be a greater heresy.
Fiasco: Obama's Mideast Mess
WASHINGTON -- Having completed his three-state "Midwest listening tour," President Barack Obama is now on vacation on Martha's Vineyard. According to his handlers, in between golf outings and cocktail parties, our president also is working on yet another speech on how he will balance our government's books and put Americans back to work. Those who believe that ought to recall his remarks March 22, five days after U.S. and allied military operations began in Libya: "I said at the outset that this was going to be a matter of days and not weeks."
Bad Luck? Bad Faith?
WASHINGTON -- A troubled nation wonders: How did we get mired in 9.1 percent unemployment, 0.9 percent growth and an economic outlook so bad that the Federal Reserve pledges to keep interest rates at zero through mid-2013 -- an admission that it sees little hope on the horizon? Bad luck, explains our president. Out of nowhere came Japan and its supply-chain disruptions, Europe and its debt problems, the Arab Spring and those oil spikes. Kicked off, presumably, by various acts of God (should He not be held accountable too?): earthquake and tsunami. (Tomorrow: pestilence and famine. Maybe frogs.)
Wanted: Ideas That Work
If all politics were truly local, Tim Pawlenty might still be in the race. The former governor of Minnesota made the best offer to Iowans, promising to cook their dinner or mow their lawn. Of course, there was a catch. The winner of the dinner and a freshly clipped lawn had to come up with an example of something specific offered by President Obama to solve the economic mess. It was a trick question because there are no examples. The political rhetoric this season has focused so far on what's not there from this administration. Despite his failure to attract conservative enthusiasm in Iowa, Pawlenty demonstrated both a serious side and a light touch in a time when polarizing trivia make up the substance, such as it is, of the "debates." Most of the rhetoric is little more than a repetitious leveling of ideas.
President Obama on Terror: An Uncertain Trumpet
"George W. Bush, forty-third president -- forty-third president to not kill bin Laden, that is." That's the way the funsters on Saturday Night Live lampooned President Obama's imaginary victory lap after Osama bin Laden was taken out by U.S. forces last May. It was a made-for-Hollywood moment for the president. But it was curiously empty. No one expected, or even thought it would be a good idea, for President Obama to dance in the end zone after that score. Still, the rightful satisfaction Americans should take from this wholly acceptable act of reprisal has been missing.
Autocrats Gotta Know Their Limitations, Too
Why aren't more people offended by the autocrat President Obama for always telling people what to do on economic matters when he obviously has no idea what he's doing? I might have used the term "dictator" or "tyrant," but seeing as Obama is telling carmakers what kind of cars they should make, "autocrat" is especially fitting. You can't make this up. He told carmakers that they should concentrate on building smaller and more fuel-efficient automobiles. He said: "You can't just make money on SUVs and trucks. There is a place for SUVs and trucks, but as gas prices keep on going up, you have got to understand the market."
The Adventures of Captain America
Before President Obama headed off to his rented 28-acre retreat in Martha's Vineyard, he spent a few days campaigning around the Midwest in his new million-dollar, Canadian-made campaign bus, paid for at government expense. He even unveiled what many believe will be his new re-election theme: "Country first." According to his new stump speech, if you oppose his agenda, then you don't care about America as much as he does.
Bilingual Ballots Are a Bad Idea
At a time when many state and local governments cannot afford even necessary government programs, the Obama administration is about to force hundreds of jurisdictions to waste millions of dollars printing ballots in Spanish and other languages for voters who don't need them. Worse, some of these bilingual ballots may be used fraudulently to encourage people who are not citizens to vote illegally in next year's election. A perverse element of the Voting Rights Act makes the whole scheme possible, and, unfortunately, not even Republicans have been willing to challenge it.
Bus Tour a Bust for Obama
It seems like everything is going wrong for President Obama. Polling shows that white voters and independents who bolstered his effort in 2008 have soured on his presidency. Meanwhile members of the Congressional Black Caucus are complaining that he hasn't done enough to address the high unemployment rate for African Americans. And then there's this idiotic bus tour. Who in the administration came up with the brilliant plan of putting the president on what looks like the Darth Vader of buses and sticking him out in territories that are red hot with tea party fever?
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Young Westerners -- Deprived or Decadent?
A once civil and orderly England was recently torn apart by rioting and looting -- at first by mostly minority youth, but eventually also by young Brits in general. This summer, a number of American cities witnessed so-called "flash mobs" -- mostly African-American youths who swarmed at prearranged times to loot stores or randomly attack those of other races and classes. The mayhem has reignited an old debate in the West. Are such criminally minded young Americans and British turning to violence in protest over inequality, poverty and bleak opportunities?"
Hillary in '12! -- The Stupid Left-Wing Case for Dumping Obama
Just when you thought the disgruntled-about-Obama lefties gave up on the "let's replace Obama with Hillary" nonsense, it's back like "Rocky VI." Maybe even in 3-D. Check out this recent newspaper subhead: "President Barack Obama is facing mounting doubts within his own party about his re-election prospects, with fellow Democrats beginning to ask if Hillary Clinton would have made a better president." Well, with favorability numbers in the low 40s and 73 percent of Americans believing America is on the "wrong track," doubts do tend to sort of creep in. But Hillary?!
Liberals Aren't Funny, They're a Riot!
Like you, I've been horrified by the eruptions of mob violence around the globe this summer. But having spent the last two years researching and writing a book about mobs, I'm also grateful to the ruffians for taking to the streets so soon after my book was released. Thanks, you dirty animals. I knew you wouldn't let me down. When I decided to write about mobs, it was a relatively peaceful period. But as long as there is evil in the world, mobs will never be finally defeated. And as long as there are liberals, there will be some people stoking the mobs.
Voting's Not as Easy as It Looks
Although I'm still not certain if I would have voted to raise the debt ceiling, I am one of those who believe the Tea Party movement deserves a shout-out for forcing the politicians -- Democrats and Republicans, alike -- to acknowledge that the nation is headed down the fiscal drain. You should realize that when Republicans such as Michele Bachmann and Rand Paul voted against the measure, it was because the spending cuts were both small and vague, whereas when such liberal stalwarts as Henry Waxman, Charley Rangel, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and sex offender David Wu, voted "No," it was because they can't abide any legislation that doesn't increase revenue, fees or whatever other euphemism the Left is using for "taxes" this week.
Another Department of Jobs?
Floundering. Flopping around like a fish on deck. That's the best description of the Obama administration this summer. The president's now on a bus tour of the Heartland. Next, he's slated to go to Martha's Vineyard for a well-earned vacation. He's done about all the damage he can do for one summer, so let's give him a break. The media shows the president stepping smartly off Air Force One or briskly scaling the stairway up to Air Force One. It's intended to impress us and it does impress. Until you recall that that's $187,000 an hour to fuel and fly the jumbo jet, all added to our national debt.
Guest Column
You come back from a visit to "good old Boston,/ The home of the bean and the cod,/ Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,/ And the Cabots talk only to God," only to walk into the Devil's own furnace. For you emerge out of Little Rock's airport into an all-time, 114-degree high for the city. It's like having a blanket thrown over you, and it's not even a wet one. It's good to be home, just to know where things are once again. It's also a comfort to have a standard of comparison. And realize that Little Rock's crazy drivers are a model of sanity compared to those in Boston, the wildest this side of Italy's winding roads.
A New Wave of Bigotry?
As defined by Collins English Dictionary, a bigot is "a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, especially on religion, politics, or race." In contemporary culture, those who claim to tolerate everything are intolerant of ideas that come from perspectives other than their own, especially when those ideas are rooted in conservative politics or evangelical faith.
Not So 'Special' Anymore
LONDON -- During the Second World War, a future prime minister, Harold Macmillan, said America is "the new Roman empire and we Britons, like the Greeks of old, must teach them how to make it go." How goes the tutoring of Rome by Athens? We are in the fifth month of the Libyan intervention that Barack Obama's administration said would involve "days, not weeks," an undertaking about which Prime Minister David Cameron was much more enthusiastic than Obama, who rarely mentions it. The intervention resulted from Cameron's and French President Nicolas Sarkozy's sudden zest for waging humanitarian war.
Social Degeneration: Part III
The orgies of violent attacks against strangers on the streets -- in both England and the United States -- are not necessarily just passing episodes. They should be wake-up calls, warning of the continuing degeneration of Western society. As British doctor and author Theodore Dalrymple said, long before these riots broke out, "the good are afraid of the bad and the bad are afraid of nothing."