Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Newt Gingrich Will Not Leave the Presidential Race
Like the man who stood in the middle of the road, Newt Gingrich has been brutally beaten up by political and media traffic going both ways. But he has vowed not to get out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination. The fact is, knowing how quickly Newt can be prone to hit the "I'm-out-of-here" button, I'm shocked that he has stuck to his guns through as much seemingly disastrous news as he has endured already in the race. Not only was his first "announcement" for president a complete fiasco, but his second "official" announcement gave him a boost, only to be followed soon by having most of his campaign staff walk away from his campaign.
N.Y. Times: Fraught Nexus of Lies, Stupidity and Bigotry
Perhaps instead of taking potshots at me in its Book Review section, The New York Times could consider reviewing one of my books. With only one review -- not in the Book Review -- after eight New York Times best-sellers, the editors can rest assured that I know they don't like me. Reviewing a book about the 1989 rape of the Central Park jogger last week, the reviewer sniped that "coarser pundits like Ann Coulter continue to exploit the case whenever possible."
Farrakhan: The White Man Made Obama Bomb Libya
The White Man made him do it. Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan recently unmasked the reason for President Barack Obama's unpopular, non-congressionally authorized, War Powers Resolution-violating decision to bomb Libya, a country that poses no imminent threat to the United States. "We voted for our brother, Barack," said Farrakhan, "a beautiful human being with a sweet heart, and now he's an assassin. They've turned him into them."
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The Taste of Love
Forget the dollar. This time of year, a different currency holds sway here in Arkansas. It circulates widely. It's carefully assayed and weighed out by judicious appraisers. It's traded freely with satisfaction guaranteed and good will all around. In other parts of the country, dinner guests may arrive with flowers in hand or carrying dessert. But in this bountiful season here in this, the Natural State, as it says on the license plates, folks will come through the door carrying a plain brown paper sack, and inside will be nestled treasure -- red, pink, green, gold or a mixed palette of all.
Palin Movie vs. Media Mythology
More than any other Republican presidential prospect, Sarah Palin draws white-hot journalistic loathing. She's too red-state, too gun-toting, too religious and too unwilling to abort a disabled "fetus." Even so, filmmaker Stephen Bannon remains deeply optimistic that his forthcoming Palin documentary, "The Undefeated," will sway the media to see Palin in a different light. Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs banker turned filmmaker, told National Review's Kathryn Lopez that once he and his producing partner delved into Palin's life story, "we decided that not just the American people but even the mainstream media were both fair and decent -- that when presented with something that represented a completely different point of view, they would be at least open to considering it."
The Dirty Little Secret of the Debt Limit
"Today, the United States has reached the statutory debt limit," Treasury Department Spokeswoman Colleen Murray said in a May 16 statement. Did it really? Or is the legal debt limit merely a sleight-of-hand tactic in the most high stakes shell game every played? Take a look at what the Treasury Department has reported on its Daily Treasury Statements since May 16, when Treasury said it had "reached the statutory debt limit."
War Counsel: Obama Shops for Libya Advice That Lets Him Ignore the Law
During the Bush administration, when the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel got into the habit of rationalizing whatever the president wanted to do, Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen dreamed of an OLC that was willing to "say no to the president." It turns out we have such an OLC now. Unfortunately, as Barack Obama's defense of his unauthorized war in Libya shows, we do not have a president who is willing to take no for an answer. While running for president, Obama criticized George W. Bush's lawless unilateralism in areas such as torture, warrantless surveillance and detention of terrorism suspects. "The law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers," he declared in 2007, condemning "unchecked presidential power" and promising that under his administration there would be "no more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient."
America's New Racists
The late South African economist William Hutt, in his 1964 book, "The Economics of the Colour Bar," said that one of the supreme tragedies of the human condition is that those who have been the victims of injustices and oppression "can often be observed to be inflicting not dissimilar injustices upon other races." Born in 1936, I've lived through some of our openly racist history, which has included racist insults, beatings and lynchings. Tuskegee Institute records show that between the years 1880 and 1951, 3,437 blacks and 1,293 whites were lynched. I recall my cousin's and my being chased out of Fishtown and Grays Ferry, two predominantly Irish Philadelphia neighborhoods, in the 1940s, not stopping until we reached a predominantly black North or South Philly neighborhood.
Jon Huntsman: McCain on Wheels
Jon Huntsman wants you to know he rides a dirt bike. On real dirt! He's Salt of the Earth. Grease of the Garage. Dragster on the Dunes. Huntsman's runnin' and gunnin' for president. But underneath the Steve McQueen costumery, this made-for-cable-TV Moderate Speed Racer is a creaky old John McCain on Wheels. The former Utah Republican governor and Obama ambassador to China is the answer to an election-year problem that doesn't exist. The quadrennial "problem," in the minds of Beltway GOP strategists and liberal media chin-pullers, is that the Republican Party isn't moderate, civil, self-critical or inclusive enough.
Who Is Gary Johnson?
Someone was missing from last week's Republican presidential debate, and that's too bad. He's an announced candidate who was a two-term governor of New Mexico, and he makes a case for strongly limited government. Who is he? Gary Johnson. He was left off the platform because the sponsors say he didn't meet their criteria: an average 2 percent showing in at least three opinion polls. But I grilled him because I think people might want to hear from him.
GOP Not Isolationist
Sen. John McCain, whose life is a continuing exemplar of the American heroic ideal, regrettably has got it quite wrong when he says that growing GOP opposition to the Libyan and Afghan wars is evidence of isolationism. In his words on weekend television: "Well, I was more concerned about what the candidates in New Hampshire the other night said. This is isolationism. There's always been an isolation strain in the Republican Party -- the Pat Buchanan wing of our party. But now it seems to have moved more center stage, so to speak. ... If we had not intervened, Gadhafi was at the gates of Benghazi. He said he was going to go house to house to kill everybody. That's a city of 700,000 people. What would we be saying now if we had allowed that to happen?
Obama's Audacity of Hype
President Obama got a good laugh from his liberal audience at the nationally televised meeting of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. At least all those who joined in the laughter there had jobs. "Shovel-ready was not as . . . uh . . . shovel-ready as we expected," the president jibed. He certainly seemed to be a good sport about it all. One half expected the Daily Show's puckish Jon Stewart to chime in: "Maybe you better not quit your day job, dude!" There's a real problem when the President of the United States feels the need to become the entertainer-in-chief, especially when the joke's about very serious matters that have long-term consequences.
Attrition as the Price of Vacillation
Based on current trends, Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is losing his war against his own people. That's good. Gadhafi's defeat will be another significant victory in the struggle against tyranny. However, inept coalition leadership, especially from the Obama administration, means the war is far from won. In late April, Gadhafi faced a war on five military fronts. A sixth front is now emerging. Gadhafi must divide his forces and devote resources to each sector.
Libya and America's Commitment Problem
Suddenly and sadly, the Libyan war may be one of the most consequential adventures in recent American history. Libya's not important because it is vital to our national security. Nor is it a particularly significant country. It's important solely because the Washington establishment, led by President Obama, made it important. If you set out to take Vienna, Napoleon advised, take Vienna. Similarly, if you invest America's and NATO's prestige in an obstreperous North African backwater, you'd better recoup a worthwhile return on that investment.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
A Constitutional Convention Is a Dangerous Idea
Proponents of a constitutional convention might protest that their goals are far more modest than a new constitution. Well, so were the Framers' plans when they met in Philadelphia to amend the Articles of Confederation. Fortunately, they drafted an entirely new constitution instead, which would be, in the words of former British Prime Minister William Gladstone, "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." Don't ever make the mistake of believing that such a miracle of constitutional craftsmanship will ever occur again in this nation, especially considering the social, cultural, demographic, political and, yes, spiritual changes that have since occurred.
Normalizing Deviance
In the aftermath of the exposure and resignation of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) from Congress, his colleagues, some journalists, ethicists and pundits are trying to sort out what it means. Has a new standard been created in Washington? How can Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) remain in office under an ethical cloud about money and Weiner be forced to resign because he had fantasy sex? It wasn't even "real" sex, like Bill Clinton had. Clinton also lied about sex and was impeached for lying (but not for the sex because as actress Janeane Garofalo told Bill Maher recently, "everyone lies about sex"). Some wondered then if standards had fallen for occupants of the Oval Office, or whether the behavior of Clinton and some Republicans mirror a national moral decline?
Here Come the Extremists!
It isn't quite panic yet, but the sounds emanating from Obamaland are certainly nervous. If you are David Axelrod, chief strategist for President Obama's re-election campaign, you are well aware of your idol's fall and doubtless less than thrilled to get this question from CNN's Candy Crowley: "Something that the president said this week struck me ... he said it's not as cool to be an Obama supporter as it was in 2008... I think he's right. I think it's not as cool to be an Obama supporter now. How do you get cool back into this?"
The Missing Money
One of my earliest memories of revulsion against war came from seeing a photograph from the First World War when I was a teenager. It was nothing gory. Just a picture of a military officer, in an impressive uniform, talking to a puzzled and forlorn-looking old peasant woman with a cloth wrapped around her head. He said simply: "Don't you understand, madam? The village is not there any more." To many such people of that era, the village was the only world they knew. And to say that it had been destroyed in the carnage of war was to say that there was no way for them to go back home, that their whole world was gone.
A Big Win for Common Sense
The Unconscious Prejudice Industry -- the boo-hoo-we're-all-guilty-stop-us-before-we-discriminate-again lobby -- took it deservedly on the chin Monday from the U.S. Supreme Court. Genial enough was the court's unanimous decision not to allow advancement of a sexual discrimination suit against Wal-Mart, inasmuch as the plaintiffs were using the wrong part of the right law. Better still was the conservative bloc's rejection of a claim to the effect that Wal-Mart managers might have been allowing stereotypes to influence their personnel decisions, thus engaging in "gender bias" against 200 actual claimants who wished judicial permission to speak for a million and a half female employees.
How The New York Times Explains Male Sex Scandals
Anthony Weiner, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Arnold Schwarzenegger -- these are just the most recent examples of powerful men who have ruined their lives because of some inappropriate (or, in the case of Strauss-Kahn, allegedly much worse than inappropriate) sexual conduct. Can you name a single woman politician caught in a similar sex scandal? If not, why not?