Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
At War With the Military
The motive behind the proposed repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy is, hmmm ... what, exactly? A stronger military? Better projection of American might in tight corners like Afghanistan and South Korea? Well, not precisely any of that. The whole idea of opening military enlistment to professed gays is the furtherance of the gay rights cause. It is what you might call an odd motive indeed for adoption of a military policy with mainly cultural implications.
Rhetoric Rides Again
Let's face it, politics is largely the art of deception, and political rhetoric is largely the art of misstating issues. A classic example is the current debate over whether to give money to the unemployed by extending how long unemployment benefits will be provided, or instead to give "tax cuts to the rich." First of all, nobody's taxes -- whether rich or poor -- is going to be cut in this lame duck session of Congress. The only real issue is whether our current tax rates will go up in January, whether for everybody or nobody or somewhere in between.
Harry Reid, Your Number Is Up!
It was election night 2006, and as the results came in, one U.S. Senate seat after another turned from red to blue. And finally, during the early morning hours of November 8th, the final wall was breached. Montana's junior Senator, Republican Conrad Burns was 3,562 votes short of defeating his Democrat opponent, Jon Tester. It was the loss of this Senate seat in Montana that was the deciding seat which handed the Senate Majority Leader gavel over to Harry Reid with a 51/49 margin in the U.S. Senate. Out of 406,505 votes cast, the race was decided by a mere 3,562 votes -- the closest Senate race in the country. Three thousand five hundred and sixty two votes in Montana decided the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.
Elites Should Blame Selves, Not Obama, for Believing His Messianic Pretensions
Have you noticed among the Obama-supporting elite a desperate agony upon realizing that he is not quite the messiah he made himself out to be and as which they willingly embraced him? Many leftists are disgusted with Obama for supposedly betraying the cause on a number of issues, which tells us how irredeemably liberal they are. But their sense of betrayal runs deeper than ideology. It's not just their belief that he's abandoned them on numerous policy issues. It's also their belated discovery that he's not superman.
Monday, December 6, 2010
The American Dream: Pro and Con
It's the rational, fair, humane and, perhaps most of all, patriotic solution to just one aspect of the vast challenge represented by the millions of illegal immigrants in this country. It's called the DREAM Act, and it would allow young people brought into this country illegally but reared as Americans to get on a path to citizenship -- if they enroll in college or join the armed services.
A Justice's Blind Eye to the Truth
I'm not a regular reader of The New York Review of Books, but I wasn't going to miss newly-retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens's essay on capital punishment in the latest issue. Last Sunday, The New York Times spotlighted the Stevens article as a "remarkable" piece of writing that finally settled a "legal mystery" -- namely, why Stevens had changed his original view on the death penalty, and announced in 2008 that he now considered it to be unconstitutional.
Anti-Semitism
It's easy to figure out why the various dictatorships in the Middle East have made a scapegoat of Israel. It allows the various imams and sheiks to keep their oppressed masses focused on a common enemy, lest they awaken and realize that it's not the Jews who keep the men poor and powerless and keep the women ignorant and oppressed. Trying to figure out why government leaders, universities and individuals, in so-called civilized nations choose to side with Arabs and Muslims, who not only out-number Israel's Jewish population 300,000-1, but who represent the antithesis of everything Americans and Europeans allegedly hold dear is the real mystery.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
What Those Miners Found
You didn't read much about this after a world-wide television audience estimated to be over a billion people watched it happen but in a minute you'll know why. A little over a month ago, when 33 miners were miraculously saved in Chile, all of us noticed each wore dark sunglasses to protect their sensitive eyes as they were brought out in a rescue capsule.
'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' on the Way Out
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates released a long-awaited Pentagon working-group report on the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy enacted under President Bill Clinton. Most troops, the review found, would not object to a repeal. Some troops made strong arguments in favor of repeal. As one service member noted, "We need all available men and women who are willing to serve their country, no matter what their sexual orientation is." Another said, "We shouldn't turn people away because of things they do in their private life."
The Case for Engaged Justices
WASHINGTON -- Debates about judicial review concern the propriety and scope of judicial supervision of democracy, and involve the countermajoritarian dilemma: How to square the principle of popular sovereignty with the practice of allowing appointed judges, accountable to no contemporary constituency, to overturn laws enacted by elected legislators? A case destined for the Supreme Court concerns the health care law. The Constitution establishes a government of limited and enumerated powers. Which one empowers Congress to force individuals to purchase health insurance and to punish those who do not?
Saturday, December 4, 2010
The Legend of Johnny Boone
Last weekend there was a lengthy wire story that appeared in a lot of newspapers across the country about a "Robin Hood" of a character named Johnny Boone, who is every bit as famous for growing marijuana in central Kentucky as the late "Popcorn" Sutton was for making copious amounts of moonshine in upper east Tennessee and around Maggie Valley in North Carolina.
Shock Therapy for Jobs
Unemployment jumped to 9.8 percent in a very disappointing November jobs report. Non-farm payrolls increased by only 39,000, and private jobs expanded by just 50,000. This is way below what the economy needs. Most discouraging, the smaller-business household employment number fell for the second time in a row, down 173,000 in November after a 330,000 drop in October. This is the 19th straight month with unemployment above 9 percent.
Trials and Errors
Radio talk show host Dennis Prager posed the following question: What's the difference between the voters in California and the passengers on the Titanic? The obvious answer was that the poor souls on the doomed ship didn't vote to hit the iceberg. That's a very funny line, unless you happen to be a conservative living in California. The problem with liberals is that they never learn from their mistakes. What's worse is that they never stop making mistakes. Instead of changing their awful ways, the only lesson they derive from their endless failures is to double their efforts. Thus, when they find themselves in a hole, instead of climbing out, they merely dig faster.
From The Comedy Store
President Obama's debt panel commission suggested painful reductions in federal spending Wednesday. No one was spared. They even cited the basketball player who elbowed President Obama in the mouth last Friday, saying the cuts didn't go far enough.
Friday, December 3, 2010
A 'Never Mind' Energy Policy
"Never mind." That, in a nutshell, is the White House's new position on domestic oil exploration. In March, President Obama announced that he would allow -- or at least entertain -- some new oil development off the Atlantic Coast and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. This week he reversed himself, saying such exploration is now off the table for at least five years. Only the most black-hearted cynics among us would even contemplate the notion that Obama had his re-election prospects in, say, Florida in mind when he made his decision. Then again, some believed that Obama's initial decision to consider expanded oil exploration was a political pander, too. So let's assume sincerity all the way down the decision tree.
For the Boys' Sake, Don't Kill the SAT
Three years ago, before any of my kids had reached the age to take the SATs, I noticed an interesting piece by Charles Murray on the tests. Murray is always interesting, of course, but I was curious about his take on the SAT because his views on IQ are well known. Murray argued that the SAT should be scrapped. His case was not (no surprise) the usual indictment of the tests as culturally biased. Instead, he argued that the SAT is unnecessary and, in some ways, counterproductive.
Adventures in Polspeak
It's not exactly news that businesses in this country have been cutting jobs and pay for a couple of years in hopes of staying solvent. Now the Obama administration may follow suit. The president has proposed freezing the pay of federal employees for the next couple of years, which is just one of the cost-cutting steps his critics have been proposing for the last couple of years. It is part of Barack Obama's gift of gab that he can make it seem like his own idea.
Gibbs Is a Window Into the Obama Psyche
If White House press secretaries are windows to the presidential mindset, Robert Gibbs continues to reflect President Obama in an unpresidential light. Here the entire nation is in an uproar over the release of stolen U.S. State Department documents by WikiLeaks bad boy Julian Assange, and how does the White House respond?
North Korea Runs Unchecked
Fail to forcefully confront a thug and you generally guarantee that his thuggish behavior will continue. That's true of schoolyard bullies and urban criminals; it's no less true of rogue states run by barbaric gangsters. Yet when it comes to the pathological regime in North Korea, the conventional wisdom throws up its hands and laments that there are no good options for confronting Kim Jong-il over his aggressive provocations.
Voting With Their Feet
WASHINGTON -- Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Hideki Tojo tried and failed. Mao Zedong, Nikita Khrushchev and Ho Chi Minh couldn't do it. But commander in chief Barack Obama may well succeed where others could not. If he has his way, he will demolish the finest force for good in the history of mankind -- the U.S. armed forces. And he wants to make it all happen before the end of the year.