Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Obama Missed a Fast-Break Opportunity in Libya
As someone who supported a Libyan no-fly zone from the earliest days of what once seemed like a revolution but now looks like a civil war, I have to admit that Operation Odyssey Dawn may be a perfect example of being careful about what you wish for. To use a metaphor suitable for March Madness, Obama blew the fast break. The president, an avid hoopster, should understand the reference.
Economic Lunacy
Economic lunacy abounds, and often the most learned, including Nobel Laureates, are its primary victims. The most recent example of economic lunacy is found in a Huffington Post article titled "The Silver Lining of Japan's Quake" written by Nathan Gardels, editor of New Perspectives Quarterly, who has also written articles for The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Washington Post. Mr. Gardels says, "No one -- least of all someone like myself who has experienced the existential terror of California's regular tremors and knows the big one is coming here next -- would minimize the grief, suffering and disruption caused by Japan's massive earthquake and tsunami. But if one can look past the devastation, there is a silver lining. The need to rebuild a large swath of Japan will create huge opportunities for domestic economic growth, particularly in energy-efficient technologies, while also stimulating global demand and hastening the integration of East Asia. ... By taking Japan's mature economy down a notch, Mother Nature has accomplished what fiscal policy and the central bank could not."
Drilling Ken Salazar
After two years of practicing unrepentant contempt for science, jobs, law and truth, why should Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's words mean anything anymore? While President Obama promotes offshore drilling overseas thousands of miles away in Brazil, Salazar now promises to revitalize America's oil and gas industry. It's like Jack "Dr. Death" Kevorkian promoting himself as a lifesaving CPR specialist. This week, Salazar announced that the administration has just approved the first deepwater oil and gas exploration plan since last spring's BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Mind you: This is not a granting of permits, but a green light for Shell Offshore to seek drilling permits for three new exploratory wells off the Louisiana coast. Shell first submitted and received approval for its original exploration plan in 1985 -- 26 red tape-wrapped years ago.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Dud Deals in California
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Perhaps one of the most dangerous sentences in the English language is: "It can't get any worse." Anyone who doesn't know that should not be trusted with sharp objects or political power. And yet there are California Republican Party convention-goers who made that claim in a city where everyone else asks what's wrong with the Republicans.
The Education of Barack Obama
When Ralph Nader wants to impeach a liberal African-American president for war crimes, you start to get the idea how odd these present times are. Odd and getting odder. Nor is it likely, in spite of the wall of comments concerning our Libyan intervention, that anyone can grasp the meaning. There seems one likelihood to suggest. It is that this won't be the last intervention. We live in that kind of world.
Random Thoughts
Random thoughts on the passing scene: They say that records are made to be broken. President George W. Bush set a record by adding $3.2 trillion to the national debt over the course of his eight years in office. But Barack Obama has already beaten that record with $4.4 trillion in just his first three years in office. People who thoughtlessly give money to panhandlers on the street seem not to realize that this is making installment payments on the degeneration of America.
Scrubbing the Blemishes
WASHINGTON -- The missile strikes that inaugurated America's latest attempt at regime change were launched 29 days before the 50th anniversary of another such -- the Bay of Pigs of April 17, 1961. Then the hubris of American planners was proportional to their ignorance of everything relevant, from Cuban sentiment to Cuba's geography. The fiasco was a singularly feckless investment of American power. Does practice make perfect? In today's episode, America has intervened in a civil war in a tribal society, the dynamics of which America does not understand. And America is supporting one faction, the nature of which it does not know. "We are standing with the people of Libya," says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, evidently confident that "the" people are a harmonious unit. Many in the media call Moammar Gaddafi's opponents "freedom fighters," and perhaps they are, but no one calling them that really knows how the insurgents regard one another, or understand freedom, or if freedom, however understood, is their priority.
War Number Three
Libya's recently resigned ambassador to the U.S., Ali Aujali, is optimistic about the outcome of the bombing of his country. He tells me he thinks dictator Moammar Gadhafi will be ousted, that free and fair elections will be held and that a new government will be pro-Western. From his lips to Allah's ears. Given the history of the Middle East, such a notion requires greater faith than that possessed by the holiest of holy men.
Arab League Redefines Chutzpah
Many readers will recall one of the most famous headlines in modern American newspaper history -- the 1975 New York Daily News headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead." Substitute "Arab League" for "Ford" and "America" for "City" and you've got the perfect headline: "Arab League to America: Drop Dead." I always thought the best illustration of "chutzpah" was that of the boy who kills his parents and then pleads with the court for mercy, on the grounds that he is an orphan.
Dealing With 'Real Enemies'
"We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued, and they must be defeated." That was Barack Obama, speaking at the 2004 Democratic National Convention as a candidate for the U.S. Senate. He was right. His straightforward wording goes right to the heart of the matter: We live in a dangerous world, and it's foolhardy to act otherwise. President Bush wasn't exaggerating when he said we were fighting a "long war." And it can't be won unless we're always on our guard.
Never Mind
In the Democratic primary campaign of 2008, candidate Barack Obama scored points because he, unlike many Democrats, had opposed the Iraq War from the start. Though a state senator at the time of the 2002 congressional vote authorizing military action, Obama had delivered a speech to an anti-war rally in Chicago. He said, "I don't oppose all wars ... What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne."
And Deeper in Debt
If there is one number from the vast jumble the Obama administration calls a federal budget, it's this one: The American economy is projected to grow at the rate of 5 percent a year. That's the figure at the basis of the president's assurances that the country can dig its way out of debt and still afford a full panoply of social entitlements and more to come.
2012: Our National Fiscal Armageddon?
The 2012 presidential and congressional elections are shaping up to be a referendum on whether the American people have the wisdom, the discipline and the will to save this nation. The nation is on an unsustainable path to fiscal bankruptcy, whose leading long-term drivers are Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Yet at every turn, Democrats have obstructed reform with vicious, demagogic attacks on those genuinely trying to reform them.
Monday, March 21, 2011
US Is the Unilateral Power in a Multilateral World
One thing on which there seems to have been agreement during the monthlong debate about how the United States should respond to the uprisings in the Middle East -- in particular to the anti-Moammar Gadhafi rebels in Libya -- is that we must not act unilaterally. It is a terrible thing, Barack Obama and his leaders have implied, for the United States to do anything by itself. We must have allies and the approval and imprimatur of some multinational institution -- it doesn't seem to matter much which one -- before we take anything in the nature of military action.
Keeping Santa's List
We've all known kids who only try to straighten out their behavior when they begin to sense that Christmas is right around the corner. It often strikes me that politicians are the same way, only in their case it's elections that start them thinking in terms of being naughty or nice. But some of us, like Santa's little helpers, are always keeping a list and checking it twice. For instance, when Wisconsin's Governor Walker and 18 out of 19 Republicans finally did the right thing, in spite of the presence of thousands of union goons and the absence of 14 Democrats, most sane Americans celebrated the occasion. But for Democrats such as Hawaii's Senator Inouye, it was a cause for concern. He actually complained that Republicans were basing their demands for budgetary cuts on their campaign promises. What's more, Rep. Pelosi said that it was immoral to cut spending. And I'm sure they weren't the only politicians who were shocked and genuinely upset that Republicans such as Walker and the Tea Partiers in the House, who had run and won elections by vowing to stand up to the public sector unions and restore fiscal responsibility to America, meant to keep their word.
'Nobody Messes With Joe'
If it weren't so sad, this story from the Washington Times would be too funny. It seems that money from President Obama's $862,000,000,000 "stimulus" bill of two years ago has been spent to upgrade the Wilmington, Del., AMTRAK station. Vice President Biden lobbied personally, we read, to get the funding for the station he has famously used ever since he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. Now, AMTRAK, grateful for his support, has all on its own initiative decided to name the spruced-up station the Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. AMTRAK station. Well, we all wanted to know who would replace the late, beloved Robert Byrd of West Virginia as the king of pork. Now we know. Washington legend has it that Sen. Byrd modestly turned down all attempts to re-named the Mountaineer State for him. It seems the name "Byrdland" was already taken.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Thinking Like a Master
NEWPORT, R.I. -- When some Chinese naval officers crossed the Pacific to visit the Naval War College here on an Atlantic-lapped island, they gazed reverently at a desk used by Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914). This compliment to America's pre-eminent naval strategist has scholars here wondering whether Mahan's Chinese readers are taking from him lessons similar to those Theodore Roosevelt derived. How could they not? Mahan did not make TR bellicose; nature did that, immoderately. But Mahan supplied a theory for Roosevelt's metabolic urge to throw around his nation's rapidly growing weight.
Few Angels in the Budget Brawl
The White House Office of Management and Budget projects that this year, mandatory spending will exceed federal revenue. Congress could cut every dime of discretionary spending and Washington would still run a deficit. Years ahead of forecasts, Social Security paid out more money than it took in last year. So who in Washington is serious about tackling the deficit and looming tidal wave of debt? Not President Obama. Not anti-tax hardliners who are going after Republicans who negotiate with Democrats. And not D.C. Democrats who oppose needed entitlement reform.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
'Another Snout at the Public Trough'
If you're looking for a three-word explanation for why so many Americans grow so cynical about government, you could do worse than this one: Erma Fingers Hendrix. That's the impressive name of an alderwoman here in Little Rock, a city government with a top-heavy organizational chart and a top-heavy salary schedule to match. What is her response to these challenging times for local government? She wants the city to ... give her a raise.
The Disconnected Left
A question that I have yet been able to answer is whether liberals are even aware of their double standard. For instance, when they complain about America's occasional alliances with despots, does it ever trouble them when some of their own embrace -- sometimes literally -- a dictator? For instance, over the past decade, we've had Sean Penn defending Saddam Hussein; Oliver Stone, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Michael Moore and several members of the Black Congressional Caucus, singing the praises of Fidel Castro; and Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte all but dancing cheek to jowl with Hugo Chavez.