Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Black Education Disaster
Harvard University Professor Stephan Thernstrom's recent essay, "Minorities in College---Good News, But...," in Minding the Campus (11/4/10), a website sponsored by the New York-based Manhattan Institute, commented on the results of the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress test: The scores "mean that black students aged 17 do not read with any greater facility than whites who are four years younger and still in junior high. ... Exactly the same glaring gaps appear in NAEP's tests of basic mathematics skills."
The Would-be GOP Kings
Who among us can contain their excitement? The GOP presidential primary season has begun! By my count, there are 24 people who are beneficiaries of nontrivial presidential buzz: Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, John Thune, Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels, Mike Pence, Rick Santorum, Haley Barbour, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan, David Petraeus, Ron Paul, Jeb Bush, John Bolton, Bob McDonnell, Jim DeMint, Chris Christie, Herman Cain, Gary Johnson, Judd Gregg, Marco Rubio and Rick Perry.
Internet Access Is Not a 'Civil Right'
When bureaucrats talk about increasing our "access" to x, y or z, what they're really talking about is increasing exponentially their control over our lives. As it is with the government health care takeover, so it is with the newly approved government plan to "increase" Internet "access." Call it Webcare.
The Year of Right-Wing Terrorists?
There is some very dangerous -- as in red-hot incendiary -- hatred going on, and it's being advanced by the national news media directly. The panel of judges for the Media Research Center's Best Notable Quotables of 2010 found that theme time and time again while selecting the year's worst reporting and punditry.
Defense Secretary Lady Gaga and the Real Obama Administration
During the 2008 election campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly informed the American people that he would call on the country's best minds to advise him. "You know," he told an audience back in May 2008, "my attitude is that whoever is the best person for the job is the person I want." Too bad he thinks the best person for the job of secretary of defense is a bisexual, drug-addled talentless Auto-Tune creation with a relentlessly annoying fan base -- full of faux-profound morons who think that fashioning one's hair into a telephone qualifies as high art.
Uncle Sam Will Help Buy You an Alpaca
I often bash government. I say it can't do anything better than people in a free market. But the government is unequalled in producing one thing: negative unintended consequences. Show me a government activity, and I will show you bad results that even the program's advocates probably don't like. Here's one example. Congressmen say our government should "support and strengthen family-based agriculture."
Season's Greetings From Al-Qaida
"Just how real is the holiday terrorist threat?" The question isn't rhetorical, nor is it an arid theoretical. Since Thanksgiving, it's been the query of the season, reflecting the uneasy spirit of our times. I've had it popped on me at parties, in the gym, on the phone and by my wife. Even though I'd rather drink party punch and talk about football, each unique questioner deserves a thoughtful answer. At some sincere level, the person is asking for a thoughtful opinion regarding the likelihood of life during a season proclaiming joy to the world weighed against the possibility of death at the hands of mass murders driven by a malignant religious zealotry.
Keep the FCC Out of the Internet
When the Obama administration first went to the Supreme Court in March 2009 to explain its understanding of the First Amendment, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart said the administration believed the government could prohibit a corporation from bouncing a book off a satellite into someone's Kindle if that communication took place within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election and if the book included words advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for federal office. "Your position is that under the Constitution, the advertising for this book or the sale for the book itself could be prohibited within ... the 60/30-day period?" asked Justice Anthony Kennedy.
The American Miracle
A few years ago, I was in China and, through the help of a friend, had the chance to spend a few hours with a senior editor of the People's Daily -- the Communist Party's voice, and the most influential journal in China. The highly intelligent editor -- himself, of course, a senior party man -- was cool and dispassionate until we came to a discussion of the causes of revolutions. On that topic, he displayed an almost scholarly knowledge and focused in -- with great passion and concern -- on the dominant role that rising expectations of the people plays in starting a revolution.
Is Julian Assange a Journalist? For First Amendment Purposes, It Doesn't Matter
Despite Vice President Biden's recent squabbling with Republican senators over the meaning of Christmas, he and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell do agree on something. They both say WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has published thousands of confidential Pentagon and State Department documents on his group's website, is "a high-tech terrorist." But assuming that President Obama is not ready to drop a bomb on Assange, punishing him for disseminating military records and diplomatic cables will require specifying what crime he committed under U.S. law. That won't be easy, unless the Justice Department is prepared to criminalize something journalists do every day: divulge information that the government wants to keep secret.
The Talented Mr. Holbrooke
There is so much to be said about Richard Holbrooke, the American diplomat and dynamo who died last week, that it's hard to know where to start. Or stop. One is as hard as the other. He was that kind of character. They say he will be missed. And how. He was no genius, but he began with a native intelligence and then, through education and experience and mainly energy, honed it into the kind of temperament that effective negotiators bring to the table, and effective people maybe to life.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
President Obama Governs as Bush 44
Once upon a time in America, when George W. Bush served as America's 43rd president, Democrats criticized the Bush tax cuts, especially for the wealthy. This month, President Obama called a measure extending all the Bush tax rates "a win for our economy" -- after excoriating liberal critics of his compromise tax package as "sanctimonious." Once upon a time, Democrats trashed Bush for pushing tax cuts during a time of war, and Democrats slammed Bush for not demanding that Americans sacrifice to win the war on terror. This month, while U.S. troops serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama added more tax cuts to the Bush mix.
Four More Days
They're invisible. At least to most of us. You may see them but not perceive them. They shamble along downtown streets, tramp the highways, always en route, never arriving. They wait under bridges, outside the Salvation Army, on dingy corners. They each have a story, real or not. If they approach, we eye them warily, but that's as close as many of us want to come. It's the first law of self-preservation: Avoid eye contact. We're in a hurry. We've got to get to work, or home, or to the next appointment. To wherever we need be. Or think we need to be.
Of Worldly Power and Christmas Tidings
A word about Christmas. Just a word. Having nothing to do with the so-called wars over "happy holidays" vs. "Merry Christmas" and such ephemera. The late elections -- the way they came out doesn't matter for present purposes -- provide useful context for musing on some Christmas particulars: to wit, good tidings of great joy that politicians (supply your own adjectives) don't run the world. What's Christmas about, at one level of understanding, if not the futility of the whole secular enterprise -- rules, regulations, codes, kings, and so on and so on?
Understanding the Left's Intolerance for Intolerance
It's that time of year when we are reminded just how indebted we are to the left's mega-tolerant cultural warriors. Annually, they jolt us out of our complacency to notice how imposing, intolerant and dangerous Christmas and Christianity are. If it weren't for these valiant soldiers, this disturbing proliferation of Christmas celebrations and other Christian symbols would proceed unabated.
A Fatwa on Liam Neeson?
Liam Neeson is the voice of Aslan the Lion in the new 3-D Narnia film, "Voyage of the Dawn Treader." He's got a great voice for the role. Neeson is even from the North of Ireland, the same area from which C.S. Lewis, the beloved Christian author of The Chronicles of Narnia hailed. But actor Neeson is facing hail of a different kind -- a hail of criticism. That's because of his politically correct comments about Aslan. Neeson told interviewers that Aslan should not be interpreted narrowly and exclusively as an allegory of Jesus Christ. Aslan might also be seen, Neeson said, as representing other religious leaders, such as Mohammed or Buddha.
What Do Men Want?
It is said that the one question about men and women that even the great Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, could not answer was: What do women want? Whether or not Freud actually said that is irrelevant. The very popularity of the anecdote testifies to one incontrovertible fact: A lot of men don't know the answer. It is probably fair to say that a lot of women also don't know the answer. If they did, all they would have to do is tell men. That would solve the riddle -- and make most men and women very happy.
Miracles: Do You Believe?
In honor of Christmas, I have set aside my normal format for this column in order to ask you a question: Do you believe in miracles? Marie Fiala certainly does. Her family experienced God's power at one of the darkest moments of their lives. Marie, an attorney, and her husband Kris, a business executive, had created a peaceful, happy family life with their two sons and daughter.
Will Mrs. Obama Downsize Your Kid?
The first lady got a bit of a bum rap last week when some on the right wrenched her comment on the new school lunch program out of context. Justifying an expanded federal program to feed kids healthy breakfasts and lunches at school, Michelle Obama said, "We can't just leave it up to the parents." Some radio shouters let fly at her for that. But immediately before that statement, Mrs. Obama had said, "I meet parents who are working very hard to make sure that their kids are healthy ... They're trying to teach their kids the kind of healthy habits that will stay with them for a lifetime. But ... it's clear that we as a nation have a responsibility to meet as well. We can't just leave it up to the parents."
Random Thoughts
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Let's face it, most of us are not half as smart as we may sometimes think we are -- and for intellectuals, not one-tenth as smart. One of the biggest obstacles to economic recovery is that politicians and the media are both focused on how government can MAKE the economy recover, rather than on how it can LET the economy recover. One of the biggest deterrents to investments, and the jobs they could create, is uncertainty as to what new bright idea will come out of Washington to change the rules in midstream.