Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Goodbye, Washington
After nearly 40 years in Washington, I'm leaving the nation's capital pretty much as I found it when I arrived. The players have changed, but the problems haven't. Richard Nixon occupied the White House then, and the United States was involved in a long and unpopular war and faced economic problems at home. In 1971, to combat nearly 6 percent inflation, and a trade and balance-of-payments deficit, and to protect the value of the dollar, Nixon imposed a 90-day freeze on wages and prices, and a 10 percent import surcharge, and ended the convertibility of dollars into gold. He also launched the war on drugs -- a 'war' we still haven't won.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
History Books Get Gay Makeover
According to a shocking news report, California legislators have enacted legislation that gives the state the dubious distinction of being the first state in the nation to require public schools to include the contributions of gays and lesbians in their social studies curriculum. We can be certain that one result of this ill-advised move will subject kids to a form of what CIA spooks call "blow back" -- an inevitable result of a specific action.
The Cold Truth: The Anthony Jury Was Right
I know, and I get it. In my mind -- and this is just my opinion -- Casey Anthony had some involvement in the death of her child Caylee. And in the weeks following the tragedy, Casey displayed behavior that was both bizarre and callous beyond measure. Most of the nation is furious with a Florida jury's verdict of not guilty on the charges involving the death of Caylee Anthony. Having defended a capital murder case, one in which a 17-year-old was facing the possibility of a death sentence, I have a sadly informed perspective when it comes to locally or nationally prominent death penalty trials.
Warming Up for Alibi Ike
WASHINGTON -- The Republicans' 2012 presidential nominee will run against Alibi Ike. Lardner, a Chicago sportswriter, created that character ("His right name was Frank X. Farrell, and I guess the X stood for 'Excuse me.'") who resembles Chicagoan Barack Obama. After blaming his predecessor for this and that, and after firing all the arrows in liberalism's quiver -- the stimulus, cash for clunkers, etc. -- Obama seems poised to blame the recovery's anemia on Republican resistance to simultaneously raising the debt ceiling and taxes. So the Republican nominee's campaign theme can already be written. In 1960, candidate John Kennedy's theme was: "We can do better." In 2012, the Republican candidate should say "Is this the best we can do?"
Summer Books
WASHINGTON -- It is summer and time to read books. I recall that Meg Greenfield, the sainted and deceased former editor of the editorial page of The Washington Post, made fun of the idea of summer books, but I have long filed her quip away as a quip that was quipless. She could read books almost anytime she wanted, but busy people read when they have a special opportunity, and during summer break I would like to remind them of good books to read. This summer, there is an abundance of them.
Illiberal Immigration
Recently, in symbolic fashion, spectators of Mexican ancestry in Pasadena's Rose Bowl did not merely cheer on the Mexican national soccer team in a game against the U.S. national team -- such nostalgia is natural and understandable for recent immigrants -- but went much further and also jeered American players and, indeed, references to the United States. Which was the home team?
The Answer Man
Although I try to maintain a self-imposed schedule of writing three articles a week, sometimes even that's not often enough to keep up with newsworthy events. For instance, Anthony Weiner is long gone from Congress, but now I'm worrying about where he'll turn up next. I mean, one day Eliot Spitzer was the disgraced governor of New York, but did he go into hiding? He did not. The next day, he was co-hosting a TV show. One day, Van Jones, a self-identified Communist, was a disgraced White House czar, and the next day he had an appointment as a "distinguished visiting fellow" at Princeton. Charley Rangel was a disgraced congressman one day, and, well, a disgraced congressman the next.
Time Magazine: We Don't Need No Stinking Constitution
"When the chief justice read me the oath," President Franklin D. Roosevelt said to a speechwriter, "and came to the words 'support the Constitution of the United States,' I felt like saying: 'Yes, but it's the Constitution as I understand it, flexible enough to meet any new problem of democracy -- not the kind of Constitution your court has raised up as a barrier to progress and democracy.'" FDR's statement vividly illustrates the Big Divide between (most) Republicans and Democrats, free marketers and collectivists, Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman. It's the line separating those who believe in the power of individuals from those who believe in the power of government -- so long as they're the ones in power. It's the line that separates those who believe in the welfare state from those who not only believe that the federal government recklessly spends more than it takes in, but also spends it on things not permitted by the Constitution -- and the country is worse off for having done so.
No More 'Right Stuff'?
When Atlantis lifts off on its final mission scheduled for Friday, it will bring to an end an era of space exploration that began for the U.S. with the Soviet launch of the unmanned satellite "Sputnik 1" in 1957 and the first man to fly in space, Russia's Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961. Alan Shepard followed Gagarin into space on May 5, 1961, becoming the second person, and the first American, to fly in space and under John F. Kennedy's vision and with resolve and resources, the U.S. reached his stated goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth" on July 20, 1969.
Racial Quotas, Speech Codes and the Thought Police
It's racially discriminatory to prohibit racial discrimination. That's the bottom line of a decision issued last Friday, just before the Fourth of July weekend, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The case was brought by an organization called By Any Means Necessary to overturn a state constitutional amendment passed by a 58 percent majority of Michigan voters in November 2006. This was not BAMN's first challenge to the proposition. It staged a mini-riot in the secretary of state's office to try to block submission of the signatures that put the proposition on the ballot.
Constitutional Conservatism Ready for Prime Time
Liberal pundits are panicking over constitutional conservatism. They shouldn't, because every child -- whether the parents are liberal or conservative -- will benefit from constitutional conservatism's ascendency. If America elects a constitutional conservative president and Congress in 2012, we'll move forward as a freedom-loving nation. Several outlets on the Left -- such as The New Republic -- are raising an alarm about this disturbing new term, saying that it's secret code for "absolutists" and "zealots" on economic issues, overturning Roe v. Wade, and implying that constitutional conservatives are segregationists bent on creating a theocracy.
U.S. and Europe Listing in the Same Boat
Three years ago this month, then-Sen. Barack Obama told an enthusiastic throng in Berlin, "In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common." I have to hand this to Obama: the bond between Americans and Europeans is stronger than ever. On both sides of the Atlantic, national governments are forced to cut spending, private homes are underwater and public employee pension plans are unsustainable. The United States and Europe are in the same sticky soup, but instead of blaming George W. Bush, Our Betters in Europe are sniping at each other.
Casey Anthony: Single Mom of the Year!
How many months of man-hours did Florida police spend searching for little Caylee Anthony back in 2008, while her mother, Casey Anthony, knew exactly where the child's body was? If you were the victim of a crime in Orlando, Fla., between July and December 2008, you should be enraged that the police couldn't prevent or investigate your crime because they were too busy looking for a missing child whose mother already knew the kid was dead.
Obama's Reagan Parallels Are Falling Away
5.1, 9.3, 8.1, 8.5, 8, 7.1 and 3.9. While that might sound like a controversial series of Olympic curling scores, these numbers in fact add up to a grave problem for Barack Obama. They are the quarterly percentage gains in gross domestic product starting in 1983 through to Election Day 1984. And they aren't the only significant numbers. In 1984, real income for individuals grew by more than 6 percent and inflation plummeted. The unemployment rate in November 1984 was still 7.2 percent -- relatively high -- but it had dropped from 10.8 percent in December 1982, and it was clear the momentum was for even lower unemployment. "Staying the course" with Ronald Reagan made sense to most people, which is why he won re-election in a 49-state landslide.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
All the President's High-Paid 'Engagers'
First rule of Obama transparency: If it's a holiday, it's time for a White House document dump. Over the Independence Day weekend, the administration released its 2011 annual report to Congress on White House staff salaries. While economic data for the rest of America remains bleak, the financial outlook for Obama flacks looks rosier than the president's complexion after his latest round of golf. In total, President Obama's 454 employees at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. will rake in $37 million. That's up $4 million from the income of George W. Bush's staff in 2008, back when the unemployment rate was three points lower, the federal government workforce was 12 percent smaller and the massive deficit was still measured in hundreds of billions, not trillions. One in three of Obama's employees makes more than $100,000 a year.
Obama and the Teachers
A problem as big and many-faceted as the problem of the public schools couldn't possibly be the fault just of teachers -- or even of teacher unions. The National Education, even so, makes clear why teachers have lost so much of the devotion and respect they used to command from Americans. Namely, because unions such as the NEA put their politics over the principles one might hope they hold. Out of Chicago, where the NEA just rose from its annual convention, comes notification -- I didn't say news -- that the country's biggest teacher union is endorsing for president -- come on, guess! -- Barack Obama. As was its right: free speech and all that. Figuring all Republican presidential candidates incapable of saying anything remotely interesting to a teachers union, the NEA, 3.2 million members strong, went ahead and endorsed.
Should We Abolish the Jury System?
On Tuesday, a Florida jury found Casey Anthony not guilty of first-degree murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee Marie. As so often happens in high profile cases, the jury was wrong. Casey clearly murdered her daughter. Her mom, Cindy, reported that Caylee was missing on July 15, 2008. Casey's cover story was unbelievably ridiculous. When Casey's mom, Cindy, confronted Casey at Casey's boyfriend's apartment, Casey actually claimed that a random baby sitter nobody had ever met had taken Caylee away over a month beforehand.
Gross Media Ignorance
There's little that's intelligent or informed about Time magazine editor Richard Stengel's article "One Document, Under Siege" (June 23, 2011). It contains many grossly ignorant statements about our Constitution. If I believed in conspiracies, I'd say Stengel's article is part of a leftist agenda to undermine respect for the founding values of our nation. Stengel says: "The framers were not gods and were not infallible. Yes, they gave us, and the world, a blueprint for the protection of democratic freedoms -- freedom of speech, assembly, religion -- but they also gave us the idea that a black person was three-fifths of a human being, that women were not allowed to vote and that South Dakota should have the same number of Senators as California, which is kind of crazy. And I'm not even going to mention the Electoral College."
Newt's Ideas Worth Considering
One would be hard-pressed to find a better example of sheer misguided reporting than the story in The Washington Post last weekend in which it was reported that "Newt Gingrich thinks he can revive his debilitated campaign by talking about Alzheimer's. ... For most presidential candidates, Alzheimer's is a third- or fourth-tier subject, at best. But as Gingrich sees it, Alzheimer's, as well as other niche topics such as military families' concerns and pharmaceutical issues, are priorities. ... By offering himself as a champion of pet causes, Gingrich believes he can sew together enough narrow constituencies to make a coalition -- an unconventional one, yes, but a coalition nevertheless."
Politics Versus Reality: Part II
No one is more of a master of political talking points than President Barack Obama. Remember "shovel-ready projects"? These were construction projects where the shovels were supposed to start digging the moment the government gave them the "stimulus" money. Two years later, Obama can joke about the fact that the shovels were not as ready as he thought. In reality, the shovels were never ready. It can take forever to get all the environmental approvals to build anything in today's political and legal climate.