Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Gasoline and Onions
The speculators are ripping us off! "The skyrocketing price of gas and oil has nothing to do with the fundamentals of supply and demand, and has everything to do with Wall Street firms that are artificially jacking up the price of oil in the energy futures markets. ... (T)he same Wall Street speculators that caused the worst financial crisis since the 1930s through their greed, recklessness and illegal behavior are ripping off the American people again by gambling that the price of oil and gas will continue to go up."
Apply Lesson of Abbottabad to U.S. Border
In a White House briefing held by conference call shortly after midnight on Monday morning, a group of unnamed "senior administration officials" described the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that resulted in the death Osama bin Laden. "It was a model of really seamless collaboration across our government," one official said, according to the White House transcript. "Since 9/11, this is what the American people have expected of us, and today, in this critical operation, we were able to finally deliver."
'Going Like a Child Into the Dark'
If you threw a dart at the map of the Middle East and North Africa, you almost couldn't miss hitting a spot where an historic event was unfolding. In the headlines of just last Saturday and Sunday (normally slow news days), one could read of Syrian tanks slaughtering the rebellious civilians of Daraa; NATO bombs killing Gadhafi's son and grandchildren (with the U.N. pulling out its staff from Tripoli as a result); 80 percent of Jordan's gas supply taken off line by sabotage; the Taliban starting its spring military offensive in Afghanistan and President Saleh of Yemen refusing to sign a transition deal involving his removal from power, threatening to derail efforts by the Gulf states to control months of unrest in that key U.S. ally. The Washington Post headlined the question "Will Pakistan erupt like Egypt?"
No Surrender: Does Bin Laden's Death Vindicate Obama's Policy of Targeted Killings?
According to the official story, Osama bin Laden was killed because he resisted the Navy SEALs who were attempting to capture him at his hideaway in Abbottabad, Pakistan. "If we had the opportunity to take him alive," John Brennan, the president's counterterrorism adviser, said on Monday, "we would have done that." Does it matter? Evidently the Obama administration thinks it does. But such fastidiousness seems inconsistent with the president's policy regarding terrorism suspects who are not in custody, which is to shoot first and never ask questions.
Obama's Unity Call: Show, Don't Tell
In the spirit of post-bin Laden peace, love and harmony, President Obama has asked all Americans to "harness" national good will and stand together. The commander in chief could practice what he preaches -- by inviting President Bush to stand with him at Ground Zero in New York City on Thursday. It would be an extraordinary -- dare I say "unprecedented," to borrow one of Obama's favorite words -- act of political maturity, good faith and transcendent unity against our common jihadi enemies.
The Moral Confusion of Barack Obama
On May 1, 2011, President Obama announced to the world that he had personally shot Osama bin Laden in the head. Well, not exactly. But it was close. "I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al-Qaida," he said. "I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden ... I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action ... Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan ..."
Media Credit to Bush?
When word emerged Sunday night that President Obama would be making remarks from the White House at 10:30 p.m., viewers knew it must be important. When it began to leak that America had finally found and killed Osama bin Laden, there was joy from sea to shining sea. The nagging pain that this radical Islamic assassin had never received American justice was finally relieved. Crowds gathered in front of the White House and at Ground Zero to chant joyously, "USA! USA!" But for most, it wasn't jubilation. It was the silent fist pump and a silent prayer of thanksgiving for the safety of our extraordinary military. And a thanks to this president for his leadership in bringing justice to that monster.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Times Change
WASHINGTON -- Osama bin Laden's death was announced by the president on May 1, a date that once had worldwide significance on the revolutionary calendar of communism, which was America's absorbing national security preoccupation prior to Islamic terrorism. Times change. Barack Obama, in his pitch-perfect address informing the nation that bin Laden is as dead as communism -- never mind the cadaverous Cuban and North Korean regimes -- rightly stressed that this is "the most significant achievement to date" against al-Qaeda, but that it "does not mark the end of" our effort to defeat that amorphous entity. Perhaps, however, America can use this occasion to draw a deep breath and some pertinent conclusions.
Fed Up With the Fed?
When people in Washington start creating fancy new phrases, instead of using plain English, you know they are doing something they don't want us to understand. It was an act of war when we started bombing Libya. But the administration chose to call it "kinetic military action." When the Federal Reserve System started creating hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air, they called it "quantitative easing" of the money supply.
The Nation We Still Are
The main thing is, we got him. Emphasis on all three words. They count equally, each one. We, the people of the United States, personified in action by some of the best and bravest fighting men since the Spartans, got -- eliminated, sent to hell -- him who threw our times out of kilter through murder and personal vanity of unmeasurable dimensions. We got him. "The bloody dog is dead," as Richmond sums up the downfall of Richard III: words equally applicable to the overthrow of Osama bin Laden. The world has witnessed an act of restoration and of cleansing.
2012 Is the Republicans' Election to Lose
We are living in strange times indeed when it's not laughable to suggest that President Obama will be difficult to beat in 2012. Well, I'm not buying it, even considering any positive (but inevitably temporary) surge Obama may receive with Osama bin Laden's death. In 2008, as an economic crisis played into his hands, Obama ran against an uninspiring opponent in John McCain, campaigned on grandiose promises in lieu of a record, and cultivated and rode a mainstream media wave based on a myth of his messiahship. Yet he still only won with 53 percent of the vote.
How Bin Laden Resembled Michael Moore
In those harrowing first days and weeks after the 9/11 atrocity, Americans were traumatized -- but also bewildered. What vicious hatred was this? Who was this new and terrifying enemy? What could possibly motivate people to sacrifice their lives for the honor of killing innocent American civilians -- and cause thousands of others to cheer mass murder? Naturally, some Americans couldn't resist the temptation to ride their own hobbyhorses. We had it coming, said the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, for tolerating abortion and gay unions. (Falwell later apologized.) On the left, a veritable chorus of "blame the victim" analysis explained that America's crimes had driven our enemies to terrorism. The Nation magazine declared that America was "the world's leading rogue state."
A Funeral and a Wedding
Attending the funeral of a dear friend, who herself had gone to too many funerals too soon in her family, and gazing upon her beautiful grandchildren, bereft now of what they would not know in the years ahead, our hearts sank. Death had settled in and begun to make himself comfortable -- and the rest of us not. But then the service began, and the familiar old words of the Book of Common Prayer began to roll out like a lifeline, like a banner unfurling, like a swelling chord that would fill the chapel with sound, an iron cord that would never rust.
Justice Has Been Done
As crowds gathered outside the White House, at the site of Ground Zero, and in other public places to cheer news of the death of Osama bin Laden, President Obama said in a late Sunday night address from the White House, "Justice has been done." To one man justice has been done, but not to the terrorist movement itself, which is bigger than any one man and whose franchise headquarters appears to have moved now to Yemen. At the end, bin Laden died a coward, hiding in a fortified mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan. This was no Hitler-in-his-bunker moment in which the Nazi dictator expired by his own hand. Adolf Hitler's death came as Allied troops swept into Berlin and by then the German war machine had been crushed.
F-Word Laced Speech Disqualifies Donald Trump From Presidency
The following comments were made in a public speech last week by a man considering running for president of the United States: On gas prices: "We have nobody in Washington that sits back and said, 'You're not going to raise that f---ing price.'" On what he would say as president to China: "Listen, you mother f---ers, we're going to tax you 25 percent." On Iraq and America: "We build a school, we build a road, they blow up the school; we build another school, we build another road, they blow them up, we build again. In the meantime, we can't get a f---ing school in Brooklyn."
In Praise of American Persistence
Osama Bin Laden's death is the result of American persistence and American military professionalism. For at least a century, America's enemies and their propagandists have portrayed the United States as lacking the will to engage in an extended struggle. The roots of this myth actually extend into the 18th century, but with the 20th century and the global proof of America's economic, political and cultural success, the accusations of spinelessness and fecklessness became more elaborate and insistent.
Bin Laden Fall Means Afghanistan Spring
Nothing succeeds like success. In the years since 9/11, Americans have had to live with the fact that President George W. Bush failed to take Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" -- to use the phrase that the former president came to regret. President Obama didn't have to eat his words. In 2008, candidate Obama declared, "We will kill bin Laden." Now Public Enemy No. 1 is dead at U.S. hands. Thank the intelligence operatives and military analysts who -- as the public settled for neutralizing bin Laden -- considered his demise to be "a moral imperative," says Tom Umberg, an Orange County, Calif., attorney, former state lawmaker and Army Reserve colonel who served in Afghanistan.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Shooting From the Hip
When I recently gave a thumbs-up to Donald Trump, I heard from a lot of conservatives who were eager to tell me why that was a bad idea and why I was a dumb bunny. Frankly, I didn't take their complaints to heart. For one thing, a lot of the things they said sounded like stuff they'd read at the Huffington Post or heard at MSNBC. In other words, the same derogatory crap the liberal dunces trumpet about Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Paul Ryan, Scott Walker and any other Republican who attracts a following. I'm not saying that Trump has the same conservative credentials that these other people do or that he was even the horse I was betting on. But he is at this point the only potential candidate who seems to have the brass appendages to take on Barack Obama without worrying about what either the New York Times or the NAACP says about him.
On Foreign Policy, Obama Leads From Behind
Sometimes a sympathetic and perceptive journalist paints a more devastating portrait of a public figure than even his most vitriolic detractors could. A prime example is Ryan Lizza's New Yorker article titled "The Consequentialist" and subtitled, "How the Arab Spring remade Obama's foreign policy." Lizza's article, characteristically well reported and well written, reads less like the story of an adult politician's evolving view of foreign issues and more like the story of the wildly oscillating opinions of a college student now in his junior year.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Working Up a Tax Storm
WASHINGTON -- Tim Storm, an Illinois businessman until a few weeks ago, is now a Wisconsin businessman. Herewith a story about how states can reduce revenues by trying to increase them, and about the economic benefits of federalism. Storm, 42, is founder and CEO of FatWallet.com. The company, until recently one of about 9,000 Illinois "affiliates" of Amazon.com, directs online shoppers to online retailers, which often pay affiliates commissions for referrals that result in sales. Storm's company, which has 54 employees, used to be located in Rockton, Ill., but now is five miles up the road in Beloit, Wis.