Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
While Washington Squabbles, Look to Perry for the Answers
Washington -- There is squabbling in the White House. President Barack Obama's approval rating has dipped to unprecedented lows in the polls, and he has not a clue as to what to do about it. Within the president's team there are the pragmatists led by David Plouffe (pronounced plu' fey) and William M. Daley who favor small gestures. I mean really small gestures. They would opt for free trade agreements, possibly with Gabon, perhaps the Maldives. They also support improved patent protections for investors, assuming they can find investors, and something about Michele Obama's garden. At least I thought it was about her garden. At any rate, it was small. Maybe they were advocating growing cherry tomatoes.
Harry S. Obama?
Pundits lately have been comparing Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter, suggesting he is a likely loser in 2012. But my American Enterprise Institute colleague Norman Ornstein, writing in The New Republic, compares Obama to Harry S. Truman, suggesting he may outperform the polls and win. It's always helpful to be reminded that early polls may not be predictive and that opinion can change, as was the case when Truman won in 1948 and when Carter lost in 1980. But we should keep in mind that today's polls are better and more frequent than they were 63 years ago.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Rick Perry's Bad Medicine
Texas, we have a problem. Your GOP governor is running for president against Barack Obama. Yet, one of his most infamous acts as executive of the nation's second-largest state smacks of every worst habit of the Obama administration. And his newly crafted rationalizations for the atrocious decision are positively Clintonesque. In February 2007, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a shocking executive order forcing every sixth-grade girl to submit to a three-jab regimen of the Gardasil vaccine. He also forced state health officials to make the vaccine available "free" to girls ages 9 to 18. The drug, promoted by manufacturer Merck as an effective shield against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) and genital warts, as well as cervical cancer, had only been approved by the Food and Drug Administration eight months prior to Perry's edict.
Ominous Parallels
People are beginning to compare Barack Obama's administration to the failed administration of Jimmy Carter, but a better comparison is to the Roosevelt administration of the 1930s and '40s. Let's look at it with the help of a publication from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Foundation for Economic Education titled "Great Myths of the Great Depression," by Dr. Lawrence Reed.
The GOP Race Heats Up
Did we learn anything from last week's Republican presidential debate? I heard the usual platitudes like "bring people together," but there was also plenty of talk about the private sector. I liked that. So did the guests on my show. One was Steve Forbes, himself a former candidate for the GOP nomination: "We got first the principle: The government does not create prosperity; entrepreneurs create prosperity. The candidates emphasized that, and that was a very positive thing."
The Coming of Perry
The way liberals reacted to Gov. Rick Perry's announcement of his presidential candidacy suggests many think Santa Anna didn't do half enough damage as he should of at the Alamo. Why he didn't burn down the whole &$!&$!& country, is the question seemingly on many minds. For instance, check out The New York Times website for reader comments on Perry: "Texas yahoo," "alpha male Texas quarterback type," "more whackos from Texas," "the Texas twang and the Texas swagger," "tiresome and stupid in a big Texas way."
Obama Could Learn From Ronald Reagan
If President Obama really wants to get the U.S. economy going again, he could do worse than to study the results of my Dad's 1981 Economic Recovery Act, which boosted the economy by leaps and bounds. Take the matter of jobs, for example. Thanks to the 1981 act, an astounding 20 million new jobs were created. Moreover, inflation dropped from 13.5 percent in 1980 to a mere 4.1 percent by 1988, and unemployment fell from 7.6 percent to 5.5 percent.
Rick Perry: Obama's Worst Nightmare
Gov. Rick Perry's entry into the Republican nomination process has transformed the 2012 election into a truly memorable contest. Before his entry, conservatives were stuck with a choice between a hard-nosed newcomer with just two House elections under her belt and a penchant for occasional gaffes, and a smooth-talking corporate type who fathered ObamaCare and ranked 47 out of 50 in state job growth as governor of Massachusetts -- hardly inspiring options. Perry changes the game. This election cycle is going to be about two main issues: the economy and the nature of what America will look like. Perry is an advocate with a record on both scores.
The Authoritarian Temptation
In the weeks during and since the debt-ceiling debate, the media, pushed by the Democratic Party, has peddled the propaganda that our government is broken -- because the Republicans in the House of Representatives negotiated a better deal than the liberals wanted. While it was President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner who, during the debate, said they couldn't assure payments of Social Security or interest on the federal debt payments (while Republican leaders guaranteed there would be no lapse in such payments) it was the GOP that the media accused of irresponsible threats.
Will Boehner's House Fund Group That Kills 910 Babies Per Day?
By the end of September, when fiscal 2011 ends, House Speaker John Boehner must answer a simple yet profound question: Will he lead a Republican-controlled House of Representatives in enacting government funding bills for fiscal 2012 that allow tax dollars to flow to a group that kills an average of 910 unborn babies per day? Boehner ought to say: No way. Case closed. Because Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution says that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law," a voting majority of the House has veto power over federal spending items.
The Right Candidate
On Saturday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry got into the race for the GOP presidential nomination, and within 24 hours, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty got out. Perry didn't exactly chase Pawlenty out of the race; the Iowa straw poll (in which T-Paw finished a distant third) did that. But the two developments are closely related. They're linked by the fact that Barack Obama is very beatable.
Perry's Red-Hot Bernanke Slam
Texas Gov. Rick Perry scorched the political pot Tuesday with a red-hot rhetorical attack on Fed-head Ben Bernanke. When asked about the Fed's reopening the monetary spigots, Perry said, "If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas." And that wasn't all. In a more controversial slam, Perry said, "Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous -- or treasonous -- in my opinion." (Italics mine.)
Fear and Loathing of Bachmann
In the last election cycle, we heard a lot of complaining about the sexist treatment accorded to Hillary Clinton as she campaigned for president. One magazine wrote, "It's her resilience and capacity to survive and thrive against all comers that partly fuels the haters' fury." They even wrote "The anti-Hillary industry has never managed to bring down Hillary herself -- in fact, the more they have attacked, the higher she has risen." That would be Newsweek magazine, in the June 18, 2007 issue. Four years later, Newsweek mocked Republican candidate Michele Bachmann on its cover, making her look pale and confused and, well, nutty -- with the headline "The Queen of Rage." Physician, heal thyself. Now the term "hater's fury" aptly describes the very same "news" magazine that so pompously lectures us about civility every one time one of their favorites is in political crosshairs.
Social Degeneration: Part II
Although much of the media have their antennae out to pick up anything that might be construed as racism against blacks, they resolutely ignore even the most blatant racism by blacks against others. That includes a pattern of violent attacks on whites in public places in Chicago, Denver, New York, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Kansas City, as well as blacks in schools beating up Asian classmates -- for years -- in New York and Philadelphia.
The Power to Mandate Health Insurance Is the Power to Mandate Almost Anything
Opponents of the federal law requiring Americans to buy government-approved medical coverage face a daunting challenge. Because the U.S. Supreme Court has treated the power to "regulate Commerce ... among the several States" like Silly Putty since the New Deal, explaining why it cannot be stretched to cover the health insurance mandate is harder than you might think. But as last Friday's decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit illustrated, the law's defenders have a corresponding problem. Because a limitless "commerce clause" contradicts a fundamental constitutional principle, they have to justify the mandate in a way that does not also justify every other conceivable congressional dictate regarding how we spend our money. So far, they have been unable to do so, which is the main reason the appeals court rejected this "wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority."
Who's In, Who's Out
Who says presidential debates and straw polls don't matter? The field of Republican presidential candidates has both narrowed and expanded after the presidential debate-cum-straw poll at Ames, Ia., the capital of American presidential politics until it moves to the snowy fields of New Hampshire. What a system. If the United States of America follows any plan in selecting its presidents, it must be the same one Topsy followed when she just growed. These close-up-and-personal encounters of the political kind give Americans a chance to judge the field. And after each one, there aren't as many contenders as there were before. Or there may be new ones. For the moment all is still in flux. Like the American economy.
Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography
Even for a television talk show, it was an extraordinary claim. During his January 1, 2000, end-of-the-millennium broadcast, "McLaughlin Group" host John McLaughlin declared that his award for "the Person of the Full Millennium" went to the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a "Muslim visionary who ... abolished the Ottoman sultanate ... emancipated women ... the only leader in history to successfully turn a Muslim nation into a Western parliamentary democracy and secular state.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Social Degeneration
Someone at long last has had the courage to tell the plain, honest truth about race. After mobs of young blacks rampaged through Philadelphia committing violence -- as similar mobs have rampaged through Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee and other places -- Philadelphia's black mayor, Michael A. Nutter, ordered a police crackdown and lashed out at the whole lifestyle of those who did such things.
Corn, Scorn and Forlorn in Iowa
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is the first casualty of the Ames, Iowa, straw poll. After he came in third -- behind firebrand Reps. Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul -- he pulled out of the 2012 GOP presidential race. In politics, you find little sympathy for losers. Insiders point to Pawlenty's failure in a June CNN debate to attack former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for enacting a state universal health care plan. Pawlenty had dubbed the term "Obamneycare" to link Romney's health care law to President Barack Obama's. If Mr. "Minnesota Nice" could not go after Romney when the moment was ripe, politicos asked, perhaps he lacked the fire to go after President Obama, as well.
Still the Only Solution to the World's Problems
There is only one solution to the world's problems, only one prescription for producing a near-heaven on earth. It is 3,000 years old. And it is known as the Ten Commandments. Properly understood and applied, the Ten Commandments are really all humanity needs to make a beautiful world. While modern men and women, in their hubris, believe that they can and must come up with new ideas in order to make a good world, the truth is there is almost nothing new to say.