Right Opinion

America Downgraded!

My father was a product of the Great Depression and World War II. Like so many others of his generation, he, like his parents before him, knew how to "do without." When he told us, "we can't afford it," that did not mean our family was deprived of material things we deserved, instead it marked a boundary not to be crossed because on the other side, waiting to greet us, were the twin demons of bad credit and financial ruin. "Always pay the bank," was my father's sound advice. And so I have, which is why my credit score remains high.

The Angel's Dictionary

The Writers Guild & Me

Thanks to Jack Webb's inviting me to write for "Dragnet," I became a proud member of the WGA back in the late 60s, but the honeymoon came to an unseemly end at a strike meeting a few years later. Because the Guild had decided to try dividing the opposition by allowing independent production companies to keep their doors open during the strike, so long as they agreed to abide retroactively by the final contract, I, who was then employed by Talent Associates, found myself in the odd position of crossing a picket line in the morning and leaving my office to carry a picket sign from 3-4 in the afternoon.

Americans Want the Honor of 'Earned Success'

Why aren't voters moving to the left, toward parties favoring bigger government, during what increasingly looks like an economic depression? That's a question I've asked, and one that was addressed with characteristic thoughtfulness by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg in The New York Times last week. Greenberg argues that voters agree with Democrats on issues but don't back them on policy because they don't trust government to carry it out fairly. I think he overstates their agreements on policies: They may favor "investment in education" until they figure out that it actually means political payoffs to teachers' unions.

Their Ways on the Airways

On Wednesday, congressional Democrats were doing everything in their power not to end the legislative stalemate that shut down the Federal Aviation Administration, but to make sure everyone blamed Republicans. So they did what they always do; they held a news conference to denounce Republicans' "my way or the highway" approach when they wanted their way for the airways. But the Democrats' usual tap dance didn't click. The news conference backfired. The next day, the Senate announced a deal to keep the FAA in business temporarily.

Making Hay in Iowa

WASHINGTON -- Being in politics, said Eugene McCarthy, is like coaching football: You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it is important. The game of presidential politics is especially arcane in the cunning weirdness of the Ames straw poll, a quadrennial fundraising event for Iowa's Republican Party.

From The Comedy Store

President Obama went on TV Tuesday to announce that the debt ceiling bill was passed in the Senate before the deadline. It was a heroic moment. Millions of Americans without jobs or money or a way to pay their bills are thrilled that an economic catastrophe has been averted.

Oslo Discords

For more years than I care to think about, a big lie about the riffraff in Congress is that if they weren't so willing to sacrifice themselves for America, they could all be earning far more money in the private sector. Well, for openers, they couldn't, and prior to holding high office, they weren't. I mean, if they weren't influential members of the House, do you really believe that large corporations or major law firms would be looking to hire the likes of Barney Frank, Henry Waxman, Sheila Jackson Lee or John Conyers? Probably not even for the cleaning crew.

More Obama Spending Won't Do It

There he goes again. Out on the campaign trail, President Obama is proposing more federal spending as his answer to sluggish growth and jobs. That won't do it, Mr. President. He wants more infrastructure spending, undoubtedly in the form of an infrastructure bank. That's a terrible idea. It's borrowed from Latin America, where bloated and corrupt bureaucratic construction agencies have helped bankrupt any number of countries in the past. He wants to lengthen 99-week unemployment insurance, although numerous studies have shown that continuous unemployment benefits are associated with higher unemployment.

The Solution

WASHINGTON -- Conventional wisdom holds that the congressional super-committee established by the debt-ceiling deal to propose further deficit reduction will go nowhere. I'm not so sure. There is a grand compromise to be had. It does, however, require precise sequencing. To succeed it must proceed in three stages:

Grass Trimmed, but Landscaping Postponed

Uncle Sam now owes more on his credit cards than he makes in a year. The national debt passed the total U.S. GDP this week. Mull that over for a bit. Now mull this over: Until the budget deal this week, the federal government borrowed 40 cents for every dollar it spent. And the budget deal didn't do very much to change that. It "cut" $2 trillion over 10 years, which means Uncle Sam will overspend slightly less. If we hold to the deal -- and who among us doubts that Congress won't keep its word? -- spending will "only" increase by $1.8 trillion over 10 years. That's because in the topsy-turvy, laugh-clown-laugh world of so-called baseline budgeting, we've been talking about trimming the rate of increase. Think of Uncle Sam walking in a wind tunnel leading to insolvency. The cuts increased the headwind he has to walk into, but they don't do anything like force him to turn around.

An Appeal for GOP Unity

Before moving on, I'd like to take one more stab at explaining the differing viewpoints of the opposing sides in the contentious internecine conservative debate over the debt ceiling and also assess the deal's winners and losers. I honestly believe there were reasonable grounds for disagreement among conservatives concerning the best strategy and tactics to tackle what they agree -- if all Democrats don't -- to be a national debt crisis. By failing to cut one another slack, we'll only serve to divide our coalition and impede our shared agenda.

Schooling Matt Damon

Actor Matt Damon is a walking, talking public service reminder to immunize your children early and often against La-La-Land disease. In Damon's world, all public school teachers are selfless angels. Government workers and Hollywood entertainers are impervious to economic incentives. And anyone who disagrees is a know-nothing, "corporate reformer" ingrate who hates education.

NBC Leans on Playboy

NBC has placed a new drama called "The Playboy Club" on its fall schedule to capitalize on the scandalous sound of America's most famous pornography empire. If this network had any shame at all, it wouldn't be so desperate to associate itself with female exploitation. So far, one brave NBC affiliate, KSL in Salt Lake City, has refused to join in this porn-promoting parade. "The Playboy brand is known internationally," KSL President Mark Willes declared. "Everyone is clear what it stands for. We want to be sure everyone is clear what the KSL brand stands for, which is completely inconsistent with the Playboy brand. We would be helping to build a brand that stands for pornography. For us, that's just untenable."

Forgotten Places

How appropriate. The exhibit at the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock is called Forgotten Places, and it's been mounted not in one of the main galleries but in a forgettable part of the museum. The exhibit consists largely of black-and-white photographs of old, abandoned houses out in the country. The kind of photographs developed in a darkroom, the almost forgotten way. The pictures are scattered along an upstairs hallway, in nooks, on a landing at the top of stairs, out of the way, or maybe on the way to somewhere else. Perhaps to one of the spacious, brightly lit displays for children. You might pass the pictures right by, just as you would a dilapidated old house by the side of a country road.

A Clash of Visions

In a revealing interview this week with The Wall Street Journal, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor addressed the division that will make compromise in the budget fights ahead nearly impossible. In describing the negotiations leading up to the debt-ceiling deal, Cantor said the talks were made difficult because of a major clash of visions between the parties. "It's almost as if the president and his party really are bent on promoting a welfare state and then thinking about ... our free enterprise system second," Cantor said. "And their emphasis ... has been in trying to promote programs of economic redistribution. And if you hear them speak, it's always about 'everybody should pay their fair share.' And I think the difference is, we believe everyone should have a fair shot."

Dereliction of Duty

The potentates on the Potomac claim that President Barack Obama's signature on the "debt deal" solves the immediate problems created by Washington's spendthrift fiscal madness while "protecting America's future." Truth be told, it does neither. Here's why. The arcane legislation cobbled together by House Republicans, Senate Democrats and the Obama White House doesn't increase our taxes, but it does raise the U.S. government's debt limit by a staggering $2 trillion in order to "preserve our AAA credit rating." The agreement says our government will somehow reduce spending by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade. It also creates a special 12-member Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction -- composed of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, six from each house of Congress -- to propose ways to reduce our federal deficit by $1.5 trillion. This joint committee is to present its deficit reduction plan by Thanksgiving, and Congress must pass it by Christmas. Sound complicated? It is. And worse, the whole agreement is chock-full of dirty little secrets.

Obamanomics: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Beware Those 'Radical' Ideas

Anticipating his entry into the presidential race, the Washington Post ran a long piece on Texas Governor Rick Perry's ideas about higher education. "A man of grand plans," the headline warned, "criticized as not sweating the details." Are the headline writers at the Post on summer break? Did the temps have to dust off headlines from the Reagan era? Reagan's ideas were constantly dismissed by the bien passant as "simplistic." So anyone who gets tagged as simplistic by the Post gets an immediate benefit-of-the-doubt from me. As Margaret Thatcher said at Reagan's funeral, " . . . his ideas, though clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth."

The Evil Mind of the Mass Murderer

Nothing so focuses the mind on the nature of evil like mass murder. The numbers magnify a singular horror, and become collectively unfathomable. Josef Stalin, who knew something about mass murder, showed his cold-blooded ruthlessness when he called one death a tragedy, many deaths a statistic. Anders Behring Breivik, the Oslo shooter, would understand. He defies our ability to explain. He startles us with his ideological rationalizations, perverting Christian ideas beyond recognition, testifying only to his own crazy interpretations. But in sadness and fear, we endlessly probe his psyche, seeking causes and looking for reasons impossible for the human heart to comprehend.