Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
China's Navy Gets Bigger, but Why?
Conditions -- and human intentions -- can change quickly, but creating capabilities takes time. This applies in virtually every realm of human endeavor. The global recession has required painful economic adjustment that in the case of a nation like Greece may take decades to repair. An epidemic can strike, but a vaccine or cure may take years to develop.
Fox News Makes You Stupid?
There is nothing the left believes in more robotically than the stupidity of conservatives. Otherwise, they would not be conservatives. When liberals get routed in an election, they do not question themselves. The first -- and for most, only -- verdict is that the American people were disastrously flooded by a tsunami of stupidity and misinformation. So it's not surprising that left-wing bloggers would rejoice when they can write the headline "New Study Proves That Fox News Makes You Stupid." That's the Daily Kos headline. According to them, Fox News is "deliberately misinforming their viewers" to help Republicans, who "benefited from the ignorance Fox News helped to proliferate," as voters "based their decisions on demonstrably false information."
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
What Do Women Want?
In my previous column, I offered an answer to the question: What do men want? I made the case that what men most want from the woman they love is to be admired. If my answer is correct, and if we presume that the natures of men and women are complementary (a presumption many men and women understandably doubt given how often men and women do not get along), what women most want must be related to that which men most want. I believe it is.
A Reliable Prediction
You don't have to be a psychic who forecasts future events for supermarket tabloids to accurately predict what awaits the new congressional Republican class of 2011. The writing is already on the computer screens and in the TV teleprompters. A preview of coming attractions was trotted out during President Obama's last scheduled news conference of 2010. After spending most of the year worrying about the economy and whether the Democrats could fix it, sycophantic reporters gave new meaning to the term "lapdog."
How Did This Happen?
Last time I checked my royalty statement, the smallest monthly payment listed (none of them is large) came from a website called Jewish World Review. And yet I'd guess that fully half the out-of-state responses to my syndicated column come from those who read it on JWR. It seems to attract kibitzers without regard to race, creed, color, national origin or general disposition. For the few who still haven't heard of it, JewishWorldReview.com is a cozy little website that over the years has grown into a full, even encyclopedic, collection of conservative American opinion of every variety. The way a little pushcart, if its owner has enough gumption, and enough of a work ethic, can develop into a department store.
What if the Bible Really Is True? (Part 2)
If I had to single out one thing that played the greatest role in initially convincing me of the Bible's authenticity and the truth of Christianity, I'd choose the Old Testament prophecies, especially those concerning the Messiah. The specificity of some of the individual prophecies is powerfully probative, but the odds against so many of them being fulfilled in the person of Christ by coincidence are utterly breathtaking.
Elections Have Consequences
Top Reason (as Letterman might put it) for Loving the Establishment Media: their alacrity in back-patting-a-president-they-hated-to-be-so-hard-on. Barack Obama's new-found statesmanship during the pre-Christmas lame-duck session bids fair -- if you take the commentators at their word -- to give him his second presidential wind. Why, the lame ducks of Capitol Hill passed the president's compromise (except, of course, compromise always takes more than one party) on taxes (which measure the liberals had hated when it was announced); repealed the Clinton era "don't ask, don't tell" policy on military service by homosexuals and lesbians; ratified (with vital Republican help) a nuclear arms treaty with Russia; extended unemployment benefits; and thus allowed Obama a Christmas victory lap. Well, I mean, so as you'd suppose just from the thump-thump of the media beat.
Promises, Promises: New Year's Resolutions for Life
Culture Challenge of the Week: Meandering into the New Year In the grocery store near my home, customers typically don't get into conversations with each other. Busy loading groceries on the belt, checking their lists, or keeping little ones from reaching for every candy bar in sight, there's usually no time for casual conversation. But this week, it was different. "So, are you making a New Year's resolution?" The checker's hands scanned the food swiftly as she opened the conversation with one of her regular customers.
Political End Runs
The Constitution of the United States begins with the words "We the people." But neither the Constitution nor "we the people" will mean anything if politicians and judges can continue to do end runs around both. Bills passed too fast for anyone to read them are blatant examples of these end runs. But last week, another of these end runs appeared in a different institution when the medical "end of life consultations" rejected by Congress were quietly enacted through bureaucratic fiat by administrators of Medicare.
Libya and Oil Spell Commercial Warfare
Twenty-two years ago last week, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Scotland. The terrorist attack killed 270 people, including 189 Americans and 11 Scots on the ground in the small village of Lockerbie. After a comprehensive international investigation and a lengthy trial held in the Netherlands, three Scottish judges found former Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi guilty of the 270 murders in 2001 and sentenced him to life in prison. He served a mere eight years.
Monday, December 27, 2010
My Year-End Report
There are those who still can't believe that while the voters in most of the other states were belatedly coming to their senses, out here in California we were electing or re-electing the likes of Barbara Boxer, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsome, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Brad Sherman and Henry Waxman. They weren't even involved in close elections. In fact, the results were about as surprising as an Ethiopian winning a marathon. Back when I was a kid, people were already calling this the land of fruits and nuts. Over the years, things have only gotten fruitier and nuttier. In fact, you won't go wrong if you just think of California as one huge Mission Pak.
Even After Shellacking, Obama Looks OK in 2012
On the day after Boxing Day, it's worth noting that Barack Obama is down but not out. You could tell as much from the contrast between his petulant post-election press conference and his peppy pre-Christmas press conference. In the former, he was crabby about accepting Republicans' demands that income tax rates on all taxpayers not be raised. In the latter, he was celebrating the lame-duck Congress's acceptance of his stands on the New START treaty, repeal of don't ask, don't tell, and even the previously reviled tax deal.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Medicine for Mendicants
WASHINGTON -- The nation's menu of crises caused by governmental malpractice may soon include states coming to Congress as mendicants, seeking relief from the consequences of their choices. Congress should forestall this by passing a bill with a bland title but explosive potential. Principal author of the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act is Rep. Devin Nunes, a Republican from California, where about 80 cents of every government dollar goes for government employees' pay and benefits. His bill would define the scale of the problem of underfunded state and local government pensions, and would notify states not to approach Congress like Oliver Twists, holding out porridge bowls and asking for more.
The Silliest Stories of 2010
2010 was a year consumed with silly stories. The more trivial the controversy, the more airtime it consumed. Although not all the silly stories made conservatives look stupid, the more a squabble tarnished the right, the surer it was to generate talking-head babble. And then they fizzle, as most non-stories do. Where to begin?
Saturday, December 25, 2010
From The Comedy Store
Bill Clinton said Friday he favors same-sex marriage today even though he opposed same-sex marriage when he was president. Forget the logic. Gay groups won't accuse him of inconsistency because, to be fair, he opposed his own marriage when he was president.
A Random Harvest
There are times when so many idle thoughts are running through my head that they threaten to gum up the works if I don't unload them. This is one of those times. A liberal judge granted a felon with a long rap sheet release for a month so he could care for his dad, a recent stroke victim. The con took advantage of his temporary freedom to commit robbery and a rape.
Friday, December 24, 2010
The ACLU's Unholy War on Catholic Hospitals
Ho, ho, ho! Just in time for Christmas, the American Civil Liberties Union has launched a new salvo against people of faith. Even as billions around the world celebrate the birth of Christ, joyless, abortion-obsessed secularists never take a holiday. On Wednesday, the ACLU sent a letter to federal health officials urging the government to force Catholic hospitals in the U.S. to perform abortions in violation of their core moral commitment to protecting the lives of the unborn. They're counting on sympathetic Obama rationing czar Donald Berwick -- a recess appointee whose radical views on wealth and health redistribution were never vetted by Congress -- to dictate which religious principles hospital operators can and cannot follow.
'RINO' Label Used Too Flippantly By Conservatives
Here's both my qualifier and my bona fides for the opinion that follows: I earned my Republican stripes working for a GOP U.S. senator, for Ronald Reagan's first successful presidential campaign and for Newt Gingrich. Since those days, I've occasionally branched out and suggested some policy or position that doesn't reflexively mirror some bedrock conservative outlook. Often some readers of this column, whom I deeply respect and appreciate, will call me out for this or that view by dismissing me as a "RINO" -- a "Republican in Name Only."
Home for Christmas
For a dozen years now, I've spent the days leading up to Christmas in search of a special gift. Not the kind you can buy at the mall or charge on your credit card, but the gift of a traditional Midnight Mass. It goes back to my childhood when I couldn't wait until I was old enough to attend Midnight Mass with my grandmother at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Denver.
Christmas 2010
WASHINGTON -- This magnificent musical work penned by Handel in 1741 is heard all around the world in this season. His powerful lyrics are drawn directly from the Bible and remind us all to be thankful for the birth, sacrifice and resurrection of the Lamb of God. In our family Christmas tradition, Handel's oratorio is performed at our Christmas Eve church service. The following morning, we play it in the background as our children -- and now a dozen grandchildren -- rip into their presents around a carefully decorated Scotch pine. Each time I hear it, the music prompts me to be grateful for the Prince of Peace -- and thankful for those whose selfless service makes it possible for us to enjoy this celebration in tranquility.