Right Opinion

Government as Innovator

WASHINGTON -- Disregard Barack Obama's rhetorical cotton candy about aspiring to be transformative. He is just another practitioner of reactionary liberalism and champion of a government unchastened by its multiplying failures. The word "entitlements" was absent from his nearly 7,000-word State of the Union address -- a $183 million speech that meandered for 61 minutes as the nation's debt grew $3 million a minute. He exhorted listeners to "win the future" by remembering the past.

From The Comedy Store

President Obama vowed in his State of the Union speech to settle the problem of illegal aliens once and for all. He'd like them to be legal by the next election. By the election after that they'll own their own homes and businesses and vote Republican forever.

The Pathology of Liberalism

If I had the authority, I would use enhanced interrogation methods on progressives. It wouldn't be my intention to hurt them. At least that wouldn't be my sole intention. I would simply want to compel them to face facts and to quit parroting left-wing lies. For one thing, no matter what AARP and the New York Times would have you believe, most Americans don't favor ObamaCare. Even a lot of Democrats don't. That's why it took bribery and intimidation by Obama, Pelosi and Reid, to get the damn thing enacted.

Games NPR Plays

When it comes to bureaucracies, corporate or public, it's not just jobs that can be delegated but any sense of responsibility. This isn't just a familiar pattern, it's standard operating procedure by now. When the head of the outfit is confronted by a scandal that can no longer be ignored, and the public has grown more outraged than usual, protocol demands that the top exec submit ... somebody else's resignation. It could almost be Washington's motto: The buck stops somewhere else. Now it's happened at NPR. Which is one of the many public-private hodgepodges that gets all kinds of funding from all kinds of sources -- and so is hard to pin down when things go embarrassingly wrong. There are more of those around than ever -- Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Government Motors, AIG, American health care in general ... you name it. Their structure tends to resemble that of a medieval chimera, only without the charm.

Waivers for Favors: Big Labor's Obamacare Escape Hatch

At the end of last year, the Department of Health and Human Services had granted some 222 temporary waivers to businesses small and large, insurers, labor and other organizations that offer affordable health insurance or prescription drug coverage with limited benefits. On Wednesday, the agency quietly updated its online list, which now reveals a whopping total of 729 Obamacare escapees -- in addition to four states, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee -- who collectively cover about 2.1 million enrollees.

The Old Obama in New Clothing

WASHINGTON -- The November election sent a clear message to Washington: less government, less debt, less spending. President Obama certainly heard it, but judging from his State of the Union address, he doesn't believe a word of it. The people say they want cuts? Sure they do -- in the abstract. But any party that actually dares carry them out will be punished severely. On that, Obama stakes his re-election. No other conclusion can be drawn from a speech that didn't even address the debt issue until 35 minutes in. And then what did he offer? A freeze on domestic discretionary spending that he himself admitted would affect a mere one-eighth of the budget.

A Perfunctory Performance

There comes a time in just about every American president's tenure when his rhetoric must slip into the perfunctory. Only the great presidents and only when they are facing great crises -- a Washington, Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt -- may be able to avoid that kind of rhetorical slippage. But the perfunctory can be a kind of relief, for it indicates that the crisis is easing. Yet the president must always act, and certainly speak, as if he were in command of events rather than events in command of him. It's almost a duty of the office, and presidents forget it at their and their country's peril. See the sad examples of Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter, who were unable to hide their sense of defeat, malaise or whatever the elevated term is for contagious depression.

Kennedyitis

"This is our generation's Sputnik moment," declared President Obama in his State of the Union address. It was the first of several references -- some oblique, some direct -- to the Kennedy presidency. He issued a "challenge" to America's scientists and engineers, offering to fund an "Apollo" project for clean energy. Echoing Kennedy's iconic 1961 call to put a man on the moon "by the end of this decade," Obama set the year 2035 as the date by which America should obtain 80 percent of its power from clean energy sources. By 2015, he proclaimed, America should have a million electric cars on the road. Within 25 years, he declared, 80 percent of Americans should have access to high-speed rail. "We do big things," said the president.

Wrong Moves by GOP Could Re-elect Obama

With the celebration of Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday now in full swing, I find myself reflecting on the despair that so many of us felt at the midpoint of his first term in office. By "us," I mean those who had worked in GOP campaigns in 1980, felt the euphoria of Reagan's nomination and then worked in the House or Senate in those early days of the Reagan Revolution. But after two years in office, Reagan's approval ratings were in the tank. It seemed they would never rebound. Readers must remember that although conservatives were on the rise in the early '80s, there was no Fox News to balance out a generally liberal media establishment. Reagan was pummeled by the then-"Big Three" TV networks on a nightly basis; and also by The New York Times and The Washington Post. In many ways, his situation had gone from one of great promise to one that looked likely to end his presidency after four short years.

Obama Believes American Exceptionalism Begins With Government

Obama's latest watchword, "investments," is not, as I originally assumed, simply a euphemism for government spending. It captures his entire economic philosophy -- a philosophy that is permanently engrained in the core of his being and disastrous for America's "future." President Bill Clinton shrewdly used the word as a more palatable substitute for income tax rate increases, saying taxpayers needed to "invest" more of their hard-earned dollars in America. But Obama's use of the term was different in two important ways. First, for him, "investments" would apply to the spending side of the fiscal equation. He would ask our support in his plan to "invest" more government money in infrastructure and education.

The 'Good News' of Gay Teens

If anyone doubts that our entertainment industry and our entertainment media are evangelists for a revolution of sexual immorality (or in their lingo, "progress"), he needs only to read the latest cover story in Entertainment Weekly magazine, a "special report" on gay teen characters on TV, and "How a bold new class of young gay characters on shows like 'Glee' is changing hearts, minds and Hollywood." Gay "Glee" actor Chris Colfer and his boyfriend on the show, Darren Criss, lovingly put their heads together on the cover. Colfer just won a Golden Globe for his part, which is another way the Hollywood press rewards propagandizing the youth of America. In his acceptance speech, he lamented anyone who would say a discouraging word about teen homosexuality, somehow putting all of those words in mouths of bullies: "Screw that, kids!"

A New Flavor of Tea

Rep. Michele Bachmann, founder of the tea party caucus in the new Congress, gave more than a response to President Obama's State of the Union speech Tuesday night. We got a look at the new political woman in Washington. Some of the old Republican bulls looked like they were suffering a bad bout of indigestion. She's treading on old toes. She acquitted herself with poise and power, and that's what's scary to the party establishment.

Hard Reality

WASHINGTON -- This year's State of the Union address has been parsed, analyzed, applauded (80 times), celebrated and derided. The rhetoric has been described as "visionary" and "myopic." The president's promises and pledges have been depicted as "important" and "hollow." None of that really matters in the near term. What's most important right now is how the Obama administration handles the increasingly intense cries for greater freedom sweeping from Tunisia to Yemen -- threatening every authoritarian Muslim regime in that region save one: Iran's. The theocrats in Tehran didn't foment the "Jasmine Revolution" -- the youth-driven popular uprising that forced Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee the presidential palace he occupied for 23 years. The unrest that drove Ben Ali into comfortable exile in a Saudi palace began as a protest against government corruption, high unemployment and a spike in the price of basic foodstuffs. But the ayatollahs are capitalizing on the expanding chaos.

Still Not Making the Grade

Why History Matters

For years, conservatives have rightly decried the distortion, misrepresentation and downright ignorance of American history that has sometimes infected left-wing rhetoric. We've complained that public schools do a poor job of teaching our history and an even worse job of transmitting American values. History matters; as the philosopher George Santayana famously said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But what happens when a conservative gets it wrong? Last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann gave a speech to Iowans for Tax Relief in which she said that the Founders "worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States." MSNBC host Chris Matthews called Bachmann a "balloon head" for her remarks, and others in the media and on the left were no less scathing. But some conservatives defended Bachmann's remarks -- even though she mangled her history.

Rahm Seen His Opportunities, and He Took 'Em

WASHINGTON -- Ah so, every day, in every way, it becomes ever clearer that Rahm Emanuel's campaign for mayor of Chicago and mine have striking similarities. Rahm went off to Washington two years ago to pursue politics on the national stage. I left Chicago about 40 years ago to pursue politicians on the national stage, particularly huckster politicians. Two of my targets were Rahm's old boss Bill Clinton and the president's boss, Hillary. This fall, we returned rather recklessly, both to run for mayor. I immediately had major newspapers supporting me and at least one national figure, Sean Hannity, on his estimable TV show. Rahm flummoxed around in the city. His ill-considered campaign was attacked as that of a "carpetbagger" after it became clear that he had not lived in his home for the past two years. His house was in possession of one Rob Halpin, who refused to leave. It was the gesture of a patriot. Critics have hardly questioned my Chicago residency. His friendship with Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced former governor, has been raised. Anyone who has looked into the matter knows I am clean as a hound's tooth. Yet Rahm and I do have the nagging question of our residency. Two judicial panels have taken it up, and this week the second, an appeals court, rejected him. Now his fate is with the Illinois Supreme Court. The courts have not dealt with me yet.

Platitudes Platitudes Platitudes

President Obama's State of the Union address said more about the state of his approach to governing than it did with the present condition of this nation under his governance. It was an uninterrupted march of platitude upon platitude, with nary a solution offered to any of the problems facing the United States. As anyone with one cent's worth of intellect understands, the United States is not only broke, but up to its thinning hairline in debt to -- of all places -- China, which despite its communist government is acting more like a capitalist regime than an old Moscow-style dictatorship.

The Speech

In his State of the Union address, President Obama at times sounded like he was channeling Ronald Reagan: cutting the deficit, hailing private enterprise and individual initiative, talking about the future. But for all his eloquence, the president wrapped his liberal ideology in conservative sheep's clothing. On the surface, the president said many things with which conservatives might agree, but words can mean something, or they can mask true intentions. There was no indication the president plans to retreat on his far-left agenda of the last two years. Why should he? That would require denying who he is.

Obama's Take on U.S. Innovation

The problem with left-leaning elites trying to run the U.S. economy from the top down is simple: They think the answer to America's economic woes is to create more jobs that replicate managers just like them. They cannot comprehend that, to a good number of American voters, the theme of President Obama's State of the Union address -- government innovation -- is an oxymoron. And so they nodded their heads in recognition of their own greater wisdom as the president intoned, "We'll invest in biomedical research, information technology and especially clean-energy technology -- an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet and create countless new jobs for our people." As if more of the same deficit spending is the answer.

The Loud Passing of the Old Order

American reality has been turned upside down in just 20 years. Americans no longer count on their news to be filtered and shaped by the Associated Press or the New York Times. Nor do millions have it read to them in the evening by CBS, ABC or NBC anchorpersons -- not with the Internet, cable news and talk radio. Matt Drudge's website, "The Drudge Report," reaches far more Americans than does CBS anchor star Katie Couric. The old notion that America's most successful citizens are turned out by prestigious four-year universities -- the more private and Ivy League, the better -- overseen by disinterested professors is also nearing an end. Private for-profit trade schools and online colleges are certifying millions in particular skills.