Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Explaining Evil
In the aftermath of the senseless wounding of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, and the murder of six others, including U.S. District Judge John Roll and 9-year-old Christina Green, there will be many who will use this tragedy to advance their own political agendas. Explanations will be sought and blame assigned. Necessary questions will be asked: Did the clerk at the Sportsman's Warehouse in Tucson violate any laws in selling the Glock 19 9mm gun to the accused, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner? Loughner reportedly cleared an FBI background check. So why didn't that check discover what one Arizona official called Loughner's "mental issues" and should they have disqualified him from purchasing the weapon?
Eggsploitation
Culture Challenge of the Week: Reproductive Exploitation Jennifer Lahl is a kind, deeply caring woman. A health care worker for 25 years, she's seen medical care at its best -- when it gives fresh hope and renewed health to suffering patients. These days, Jennifer is a passionate advocate on behalf of young women who've experienced medical care at its worst. In the upside-down world of assisted reproduction, too many fertility specialists have dashed the hopes and compromised the health of previously healthy young women -- egg donors.
A Republican Showdown?
They say that, in politics, "overnight is a lifetime." In other words, the journey from triumphant hero to discredited scapegoat can be very brief. In the wake of the Republicans' triumphs in last November's elections, great hopes are being held out that Republican control of the House of Representatives can slam the brakes on Barack Obama's march toward a completely government-controlled economy and ruinous deficit spending.
The Constitution Did Not Condone Slavery
"There's nothing new under the sun," said President Harry Truman, "there's only history we haven't learned yet." The history we haven't learned yet was on display on page one of the Washington Post. Post writers Philip Rucker and David Farenthold reported on the reading of the Constitution by newly sworn-in Members of the 112th Congress. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) led the novel exercise and defended the decision not to read those portions of the Constitution that have been superseded by amendment. After all, it makes little sense to explain in detail how the president and vice president are to be chosen as the top two finishers in the Electoral College when the Twelfth Amendment changed all of that. (A good thing, too. Imagine how well George W. Bush and Al Gore would have gotten along for the first four years of the new century.)
The Left Is Not About to Waste This 'Crisis'
Theme: The left's immediate reaction to the Arizona shooting proves, again, that it will not forgo any chance to exploit a tragedy ("crisis"). Minor theme: In the process, mostly through projection of its own perversions, it is setting records for hypocrisy, irrationality and unfairness. Politico reported that after the shootings, one veteran Democratic operative said that President Obama should "deftly pin this on the tea partiers. Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people."
The First Casualty Is Not Partisanship
How do we react to the horrific murders of Christina Green, 9; John Roll, 63; Gabe Zimmerman, 30; Dorothy Morris, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; and Phyllis Schneck, 79; and the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and 13 others? For one thing, we can refuse to engage in political opportunism. There's been too much of that.
Contemptible Opportunists Obscure Actual Problem
It doesn't require actual violence for the left in America to malign the right as bloodthirsty. So fertile are their imaginations -- or so flexible their ethical constraints -- that even the most orderly and irenic gathering can be twisted into something sinister. Throughout the spring and summer of 2009, as peaceful tea party protesters, clutching their copies of the Constitution, demonstrated against what they regarded as government overreach, the left erupted with bug-eyed warnings that the movement was inciting violence and extremism.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Liberalism Is a Progressive Disease
The reason I devote so much time to liberals is because I find them endlessly fascinating. I simply cannot fathom how so many people manage to be wrong about so many things, ranging from same-sex marriage and the Second Amendment to tax rates, open borders and affirmative action. How is it, I wonder, that liberals find capital punishment far more abominable than they do the criminals who commit capital offenses? And why is it they find it so impossible to acknowledge that America has a problem with Islam? Japan only had to attack us at Pearl Harbor to convince us that we were at war. But the Islamics have attacked us time and again for more than 30 years, and we still have millions of Americans who refuse to acknowledge that they are our sworn enemies.
Deal-maker Daley: Obama's Emissary to Boehner?
"He possesses a deep understanding of how jobs are created and how to grow our economy." That's what Barack Obama said as he announced the appointment of his new chief of staff, William Daley, before a crowd of admiring White House staffers. It's not hard to understand Obama's reasons for choosing Daley. Businesses are sitting on $1 trillion in cash and refusing to make job-creating investments. They are spooked by the Obama Democrats' vast expansion of the size and scope of government and the prospects of ever more intrusive and expensive regulations being churned out by various federal agencies every day.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Rust Belt Revolutionary
WASHINGTON -- Consensus is scarce but almost everyone agrees with this: The government is dysfunctional and the Internet is splendid. But last month, the Democratic-controlled Federal Communications Commission, on a partisan 3-2 vote, did what a federal court says it has no power to do: It decided to regulate the Internet in the name of "net neutrality." The next morning, a man who can discipline the FCC said: Well, we'll just see about that. "We are going to be a dog to the Frisbee on this issue."
Saturday, January 8, 2011
From The Comedy Store
Arizona's new immigration law went into effect on New Year's Day, cracking down on employers. It's now illegal for companies to hire or entice illegal aliens to work for them. For instance, UPS can no longer ask in its commercials what brown can do for you.
Discredit Where It's Due
Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of people taking bows because, let us say, they're the first members of their families to go to college (even though they can't spell or do simple math); or the first person to do the backstroke across the English Channel (there is a tunnel, you know); or the first woman to be the Speaker of the House (while ignoring the fact that she is the worst of the 51 people who have had the job).
For the 112th Time: New Congress, Same Challenges
It's the way every new Congress begins -- with pomp amid familiar circumstances. Once again, the Outs have become the Ins, and the opposition now becomes the majority, at least in the People's House. Change places, allemande right, do-si-do and off we go. Or maybe just march in place to much ado. If this change proves only ceremonial, the other party may soon enough get to call the next dance.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Welcome Aboard
WASHINGTON -- Congratulations, Speaker Boehner, to you and the members of your new majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. The gracious humility of your acceptance remarks was a vivid contrast to your predecessor's ill-mannered comments as she handed over the speaker's gavel. She clearly does not intend to be held accountable for the disastrous performance of her party in last November's elections.
Rejecting Extremism
Americans abhor extremism. It is the reason our democracy has lasted for more than 200 years and why we have rejected both socialism and right-wing radicalism. American political parties have generally hewed to the center, unlike their European counterparts, so that even major political shifts moved the country only from center right (as in the Reagan and Bush administrations) to center left (as in the current administration). It is a lesson that both parties should take to heart, but one that poses special problems for the Republicans as one group of extremists attempts to hijack the GOP on a single issue: illegal immigration.
Memo to Conservatives: Stop Putting Down the Last GOP Revolution
Been there, done that. An angry electorate reacts against a liberal president, so Congress vaults over the castle gate to establish itself as America's new frontline leadership. We're seeing this phenomenon again. Over the past few days, I've heard many a pundit and new member of the GOP majority in the House say that this Congress won't repeat "the failures" of the 1994 GOP revolution and its class of 1995. They say that new Speaker John Boehner won't "operate" as ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich did. The new members won't be "co-opted," as were those who took the House for the first time since the 1950s with the 1994 Contract With America. This group will "get more done."
Doritos and Pepsi Mock God
The Super Bowl is more than just a huge day for professional football fans. Part of the game's massive audience is there for the chance to see how mega-corporations creatively spend millions of dollars for one Super Bowl commercial. Some Super Bowl ads are brilliant and successful. Budweiser knows it has hit one out of the park when its ad is Monday's water-cooler talk.
Pelosi's Final Tall Tale as Speaker
Can you imagine the sheer audacity of outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sermonizing that repealing Obamacare would do "very serious violence to the national debt and deficit"? This is the woman whose four-year tenure as speaker saw the national debt explode from $8.67 trillion to $14.01 trillion. She's the lady who boasted, "Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go." Such is the state of Pelosi's credibility that even 19 of her Democratic colleagues voted against her for speaker.
Israel's Enemies Within
The late Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan once coined a pithy test for whether you have landed in a free country or not. Take a look at the newspapers, he suggested, "If all the news is good, you're not in a free country. If all the news is bad, you are." A corollary to Moynihan's test could apply today: If a nation is beset by concern about human rights violations and injustice within its borders, it is a free country. If it concerns itself only with the supposed human rights violations of other nations, it is not.