Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, December 17, 2010
In Denial
WASHINGTON -- There's a lot of phony hype about how tough things have gotten for the Obama administration. Last month, the president's party took "a shellacking" from Republicans at the polls. Those aren't my words; they're President Barack Obama's. Since then, he's been depicted as "politically wounded," "forced to accept a new reality" and "pushed into a corner" by tea party Republicans. Don't believe the propaganda. Despite GOP victories in the House of Representatives, governors' mansions and state legislatures Nov. 2, the O-Team persists in pressing its radical domestic agenda and Utopian national security policies. Obama's proclivity for waging class warfare and antipathy toward free enterprise are evident in everything that has happened since the midterm elections.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Holbrooke Thought Highly of Himself, for Good Reason
Reading "Masters and Commanders," Andrew Roberts's magnificent account of British and American leaders in World War II, I was struck by how many of them, working prodigious hours and under great strain, were struck down by heart attacks while in their 60s. This doesn't happen anymore, I thought, with the blood pressure and cholesterol medicines many of us routinely take.
The Empty Chair
The most striking feature of this year's presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize was the empty chair reserved for the winner. Liu Xiaobo could not attend; he had a previous engagement imposed in December of 2008. That's when he was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment for "inciting subversion of state power," that is, advocating freedom in the "People's Republic" of China. In political speech, words can mean their opposite.
Larding the Path to Economic Recovery
When former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich proclaims a measure to be "good for the country," that usually means it's good for Gingrich. When President Obama tells the media that his $858 billion compromise tax package is the fruit of negotiations with GOP "hostage-takers," you have to wonder if he even wants it to pass. Obama finally figured out that Democrats have only hurt themselves in pushing for an extension of the Bush tax cuts -- except for the top 2 percent of earners. You don't raise taxes on anyone during a shaky recovery.
Like a Condom, the First Amendment Can't Always Protect You
First of all, I feel so much more confident that the TSA's nude photos of airline passengers will never be released now that I know the government couldn't even prevent half a million classified national security documents from being posted on WikiLeaks. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder will be getting around to WikiLeaks' proprietor, Julian Assange, just as soon as they figure out which law the New Black Panthers might have violated by standing outside a polling place with billy clubs.
Obamacare in Critical Condition
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as "Obamacare," unconstitutionally imposes a requirement that everyone carry health insurance or be taxed for not doing so, has placed the law on legal life support. Ultimately it will be up to the U.S. Supreme Court to either pull the plug on this unaffordable monstrosity, or uphold it and put taxpayers in the equivalent of a persistent vegetative economic state.
Rorschaching the Left
Back in 1921, Hermann Rorschach developed a set of cards to be used in analyzing possible personality disorders in psychological patients. Theoretically, at least, if a person "saw" certain images in the inkblots, he was considered normal. Otherwise, if, for instance, where most people spotted a butterfly, he saw Leon Trotsky getting bashed with an axe, he stood a good chance of being hatched with the other boobies.
Genocide Is 'an American Concern'
The Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, has just been to the White House, where she implores President Nixon to press the Soviet Union to allow the emigration of Jews who wish to leave. In the Oval Office after she leaves, the president and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, are discussing her request. "The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy," Kissinger tells Nixon, tapping the table for emphasis. "And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. It may be a humanitarian concern —" "Well, we can't blow up the world because of it," Nixon responds.
Obama's Long War
The difference between planning and accomplishing in war is on many minds as the Obama administration reviews progress, such as it has been, in Afghanistan in the 54 weeks since the president simultaneously announced the surge and a July 2011 beginning of "the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan." Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005, was recently asked (on ABC's "This Week") to assess progress there. He responded with minimalist optimism: There has been "localized improvement" in "certain areas."
Bush Tax Cuts: From Bipartisan to Evil
A mere nine years ago, 12 Democratic senators voted for the current tax rates, as well as for a complete phaseout of the estate tax. Twelve! By contrast, ObamaCare and the $800 billion "stimulus" package secured votes from zero Republican senators and zero Republican senators, respectively. The media call them the "Bush tax cuts" or the "Bush-era tax cuts" -- but never the "bipartisan" Bush-era tax cuts. Had President Barack Obama crossed The Aisle to attract 12 Republican Senate votes, the Commission to Chisel Obama's Face on Mount Rushmore would be interviewing stonemasons.
'A Fire in My Belly'
WASHINGTON -- The big news this week is that in the Senate, the Democrats have joined with the Republicans to pass tax relief contained in an extension of the hated Bush tax cuts. Certainly by early next week, the House of Representatives will have done the same. Thus, the burden overhanging the economy of a huge tax increase is eliminated for two years. After that, it sounds as if our president, if he still is our president, threatens to raise taxes. Somehow he came around to accepting the argument that one does not raise taxes in a slow-growing economy. A few months back, it appeared that in the unlikely event that the senators and the representatives extended the hated Bush tax cuts, our president would veto the bill. Now he has accepted it. Has he learned anything?
In Defense of the Liberal Arts
The liberal arts face a perfect storm. The economy is struggling with obscenely high unemployment and is mired in massive federal and state deficits. Budget-cutting won't spare education. The public is already angry over fraud, waste and incompetence in our schools and universities. And in these tough times, taxpayers rightly question everything about traditional education -- from teacher unions and faculty tenure to the secrecy of university admissions policies and which courses really need to be taught.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Change in East Asia
The political framework that has kept Korea's smoldering 60-year-old war from fatally reigniting is changing and changing rapidly. Japan is publicly altering its political approach to North Korea and China. This week, Japan indicated it plans to more fully integrate its military forces with those of the U.S. as well as deploy mobile forces capable of reacting to threats to its southern islands. That sends a hard message to China. These mobile forces could also be employed against North Korea.
Why Do People Believe in Fantasies?
We human beings sure are gullible. Polls report that 27 percent of Americans believe in ghosts, and 25 percent in astrology. Others believe mediums, fortunetellers, faith healers and assorted magical phenomena. I'd think the astrologers or the psychics or the ghost hunters would be eager to prove they were for real. Not only would they convince skeptics, they'd make a million dollars.
The Dems' Lame-Duck Land Grab
Environmentalists hate sprawl -- except when it comes to the size of their expansive pet legislation on Capitol Hill. In a last-ditch lame duck push, eco-lobbyists have been furiously pressuring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to pass a monstrous 327-page omnibus government lands bill crammed with more than 120 separate measures to lock up vast swaths of wilderness areas. Despite the time crunch, Senate Democrats in search of 60 votes are working behind the scenes to buy off green Republicans. House Democrats would then need a two-thirds majority to fast-track the bill to the White House before the GOP takes over on Jan. 5.
Judge Hudson Takes a Step for Freedom
Before U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson ruled in Cuccinelli v. Sebelius that Congress does not have the authority to force Americans to buy health insurance, there was the case of Wickard v. Filburn, which decided the question of whether Congress can tell a farmer how much he can farm. Even after the Supreme Court decides Cuccinelli v. Sebelius, and no matter how it decides, Wickard v. Filburn will stand -- a marker of the incremental erosion of the constitutional limits on federal power.
Barbara Walters vs. Sarah Palin
When ABC's Barbara Walters deems Sarah Palin one of the year's "Most Fascinating People," it's a backhanded compliment. Walters knows Palin has an adoring fan base, and she's definitely not part of it. When the Dec. 2 special began, Walters greeted Palin with "Many people find the thought of you as president a little scary." This is not what Walters asked President Obama in yet another gooey Barack-and-Michelle hour-long ABC interview on Thanksgiving night. Clearly, a large, energized chunk of the American electorate believed -- and continues to believe -- the idea of Obama as president to be horrifying. Instead, Walters lobbed softballs like this...
Behind Bill Clinton's Smile
You've got to give Barack Obama credit. His learning curve gets steeper and steeper, but he continues to climb. "I'm going to let him speak very briefly," Obama said Friday before making the fateful decision to allow a smirking Bill Clinton a none-too-brief moment in front of the cameras. It was the sort of famous blunder that comes after getting into a land war in Southeast Asia or getting into a contest with a Sicilian when death is on the line.
Changing America
Dr. Thomas Sowell, in "Dismantling America," said in reference to President Obama, "That such an administration could be elected in the first place, headed by a man whose only qualifications to be president of the United States at a dangerous time in the history of the world were rhetoric, style and symbolism -- and whose animus against the values and institutions of America had been demonstrated repeatedly over a period of decades beforehand -- speaks volumes about the inadequacies of our educational system and the degeneration of our culture." Obama is by no means unique; his characteristics are shared by other Americans, but what is unique is that no other time in our history would such a person been elected president. That says a lot about the degeneration of our culture, values, thinking abilities and acceptance of what's no less than tyranny. As Sowell says, "Barack Obama is unlike any other President of the United States in having come from a background of decades of associations and alliances with people who resent this country and its people." In 2008, Americans voted for Obama's change. Let's look at some of it.
Clause Escape: Are You Committing Interstate Commerce by Doing Nothing?
During Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings last summer, Sen. Tom Coburn asked her whether a law requiring Americans to eat their fruits and vegetables could be justified as an exercise of the federal government's constitutional authority to "regulate commerce ... among the several states." Kagan's stubborn resistance to answering Coburn's question suggested it was not as wacky as it may have seemed.