Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
The Zero-Blame Game
The media pandering on behalf of the Obama re-election camp already is astonishing. During the George W. Bush years, everything bad that happened in America somehow was connected to the malignant reign of "The Decider." Last year, CBS even sought out journalist Sally Quinn to claim that Bush's victory in 2000 could be blamed for unraveling Al Gore's marriage 10 years later. God knows, and so, too, do most Americans, that the state of the union is a mess. But in the Obama era, nothing that goes wrong can be traced back to the Democrats in power.
Scalia's Stupid Decision
Fourteen-year-old Tommy, on his way to baseball practice at a neighborhood park, detours by a local computer-and-appliance store. He has cash in his pocket, earned from mowing lawns. He now invests most of it in a vile video game. At the ball field, Tommy hands the game to his friend, Billy -- who instantly stashes it in his equipment bag. "Thanks, Billy," says this hypothetical 14-year-old. "My mom would kill me if she knew I bought that game. We can play it tomorrow when I come over to your place."
The Week of Lying Dangerously
There was a time when Barack Obama seemed more honest than Bill Clinton. While Slick Willie notoriously claimed he smoked pot but "didn't inhale," Obama candidly admitted: "When I was a kid, I inhaled frequently. That was the point." Lately, I have not been so impressed by Obama's truth-telling tendencies. Three incidents last week vividly illustrated the president's Clintonian desire to have things both ways, even if it means insulting our intelligence.
Reinventing Libya
Since the middle of June, Berber rebels based in western Libya's Nafusa Mountain region have launched what is arguably the most successful and sustained rebel offensive action since NATO intervened last March. Berber fighters have secured a supply route from Tunisia and now hold positions south of Moammar Gadhafi's military and political bastion in Libya's capital, Tripoli. So far they have managed to retain their territorial gains. The war was supposed to be short, NATO air power was supposed to be decisive, and Gadhafi was supposed to skedaddle. Instead, the battlefield stalemated and a war of military, political and financial attrition began.
The College Scam
What do Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Mark Cuban have in common? They're all college dropouts. Richard Branson, Simon Cowell and Peter Jennings have in common? They never went to college at all.
Chronicles of Higher Education
Higher education keeps getting lower. And not just in this state, where the core curriculum at the University of Arkansas' campus at Fayetteville is being hollowed out. It's happening all over. In Britain, the study of the humanities is being diluted, too. Happily, this sad trend has inspired a familiar reaction. Over here, as state universities cut back on required courses that once were considered necessary for a well-rounded education, small liberal arts colleges have taken up the slack. Now comes word from England that A.C. Grayling, the renowned philosopher, has joined with other free-spirited academics to start a new, private College of the Humanities.
'That's Racist' as a Punch Line
"That's racist." It's a comedic catchphrase these days, popularized by an online clip from a 2005 TV show "Wonder Showzen" on MTV2. It's not as iconic as Gary Coleman's "What 'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" or Fonzie's "Ayyyyyy" or even Bart Simpson's "Don't have a cow, man." But what it lacks in pedigree, it makes up for in ubiquity and social relevance. Across the country, it's a staple of schoolyards, Internet discussion groups, Twitter and sitcoms.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Time's Orwellian Story on U.S. Constitution Refuted!
Time magazine's cover story shows the U.S. Constitution and asks, "Does it still matter?" Reading this story, we kept waiting for Emmanuel Goldstein to show up for the Two Minutes of Hate. It was difficult to discern whether we were reading Time, or Orwells' 1984. It portrays the Constitution as an outmoded document that we should ignore to whatever extent is expedient to pursue someone's vision of a better society: "We cannot let the Constitution become an obstacle to a future with a sensible health care system, a globalized economy, and evolving sense of civil and political rights."
Marco Rubio: Ready for Political Primetime
At first he didn't want to do any national media, preferring to focus on Florida issues. He didn't make his maiden speech on the Senate floor until June 14, five months after being sworn-in. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) so gifted at age 40, combines passion for his conservative ideas with a humility that could easily spill over into arrogance, if he didn't have a strong sense of self. On the morning of our first meeting, I arrive early. He arrives before his staff and goes around turning on lights with no sense that such action is below his pay grade. In a town full of hubris and self-absorption, Rubio appears not to have yet caught the disease. Perhaps he will turn out to be the Hispanic version of Jimmy Stewart's movie character, "Mr. Smith."
Politics Versus Reality
It is hard to understand politics if you are hung up on reality. Politicians leave reality to others. What matters in politics is what you can get the voters to believe, whether it bears any resemblance to reality or not. Not only among politicians, but also among much of the media, and even among some of the public, the quest is not for truth about reality but for talking points that fit a vision or advance an agenda. Some seem to see it as a personal contest about who is best at fencing with words.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Of Great Empires and Little Minds
He rose to speak in the midst of a colonial war that would prove more than a colonial war but a whole Novus Ordo Seclorum, as it still says on the dollar bill, or A New Order for the Ages. Eloquent rhetorician, thoughtful student of history and insightful analyst of events in his own time, Edmund Burke had decided ideas about what made nations great and what undermined them. The member of parliament for Bristol understood very well what was at stake in the coming conflict over the nature of the British empire: the empire itself.
Liberals: America's Unhatched Boobies
I have often admitted that I could never handle being president. Aside from the dress code that requires suit and tie even if you're only taking out the trash, I simply lack the patience. I'm afraid I'd spend all my time muttering things like "But I don't want to meet with Nancy Pelosi. There's something spooky about an old woman who not only wears her hair like a four-year-old, but sounds like a four-year-old. She's like something out of a Stephen King novel" or "I don't give a hoot what the Supreme Court says. For God's sake, those clowns wear their bathrobes to work. Who do they think they are? Hugh Hefner?" But a job I'd be even less able to carry off is Press Secretary. I can't even imagine what it's like being Jay Carney and having to go out every day and tell lies or provide alibis for the boss. If I had to do that much spinning, I'd fall down before I reached the microphone.
Replacing Property as a Source of Wealth Creation
One of the interesting things about our country, the independence of which the Founders declared 235 years ago today, is that we have been a property-holders' democracy. This is not something the Founders originally advocated. While they protested taxation by a British parliament in which they were not represented, they did not think that everyone had a right to vote. Like their British contemporaries, they thought that only those property-holders should vote. Otherwise representatives elected by the poor majority would vote to take away the property of the rich minority.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Burning Down the House
WASHINGTON -- The louder they talked about the disadvantaged, the more money they made. And the more the financial system tottered. Who were they? Most explanations of the financial calamity have been indecipherable to people not fluent in the language of "credit default swaps" and "collateralized debt obligations." The calamity has lacked human faces. No more.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Do This for 10 Minutes on the Fourth of July
Four years ago, I wrote a column titled "America Needs a July Fourth Seder." In it, I explained that "national memory dies without national ritual. And without a national memory, a nation dies." Many readers and listeners to my radio show responded by creating their own rituals to make the day far more meaningful than watching fireworks and eating hot dogs. I now present a simple 10-minute ceremony that every American can easily use on July Fourth. It is a product of the Internet-based Prager University that I founded nearly two years ago. We call it the Fourth of July Declaration, and here it is. (A paginated and printed version can be downloaded at the website www.prageruniversity.com).
War by Euphemism
War is the health of euphemism. As was demonstrated once again when Robert Gates, who now has served as secretary of defense under two successive presidents, appeared on Fox News the other day. Mr. Gates is (a) a dedicated public servant whose competence the country has relied on for years, and (b) an honest man obliged to explain his boss' disingenuousness. It ain't easy, but he gives the assignment his unconvincing best. For example: Asked whether the country is engaged in hostilities in Libya, a legal point of some interest in the debate over the War Powers Act, our game secretary of defense said that, at the Pentagon, they prefer to say "we're involved in a limited kinetic operation."
From The Comedy Store
Boston mobster Whitey Bulger told feds he went to Tijuana with a fake ID to buy heart medicine while in hiding. They don't require prescriptions. Mexico said it's just another example of Americans sneaking into their country to take advantage of their health care system.
Living Large, Obama-Style
I always find it amusing when Americans look down their noses at the English royals, as so many did on the occasion of Prince William's recent marriage to Kate Middleton. We Yanks can trumpet our democratic ways all we like, but at the end of the day it's all so much idle chatter. We have our own form of royalty, but unlike England's, where the lineage goes back centuries and where they usually know how to carry it off with some dignity and panache, we're stuck with brain-addled actors, brain-fried rock stars, felonious athletes and the Obamas.
Friday, July 1, 2011
What if President Obama Had Said This Instead?
What if -- instead of blaming Republicans, big oil, the "wealthy" and corporate jets -- President Obama had used his recent news conference to say the following? "Look, I've tried my solutions, and they've had ample time to work. If they were going to work, they would have done so by now. So I'm going to ask my party to join with Republicans in focusing on the national debt instead of ginning up envy, jealousy and animosity among people who earn different amounts of money. I'm going to prove that I share the American people's fear about this debt crisis and that I recognize there will have to be structural reform to entitlements. It may involve some cuts in benefits, but if we don't do this now, eventually everyone will lose his benefits, because Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are headed for insolvency -- and much sooner than we thought.
Corporate Jets and Tax Breaks
President Obama's core message in his Wednesday press conference, his first since March, could be found in his advice to Republicans. "You go talk to your constituents and ask them, 'Are you willing to compromise your kids' safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?'" This was just one of six shots the president took at corporate-jet owners. A novice might be forgiven for thinking that the president really doesn't like corporate jets or that the Republicans cared so much about the darn things that they had proposed crossing out "arms" in the Second Amendment and replacing it with "corporate jets." Where's Charlton Heston to proclaim, "From my cold dead hands you can have my Learjet 85..."?