Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Attack the Deficit: The Fierce Urgency of Now
Appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY.) told host Christiane Amanpour he would push for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This is an idea whose time has come. In 1994, Republicans campaigned– and won — on a balanced budget amendment (as part of the Contract with America). Back then; the deficit was just $203 billion. Today, the national deficit is at $1.4 trillion (that's roughly $3,500 for each American, and some $14,000 for each family of four in deficit spending just this year alone).
Culture Challenge of the Week: 'Must-Haves' for Christmas
"He's been asking me for weeks to get him a Nintendo DSi for Christmas," Alicia explained. Her son, Alex, is only nine. Christmas is well over a month away but he's been relentlessly pressing for the "must-have" electronic toy that his classmates already own. Money is tight for Alicia's family these days, and the handheld device starts at 149.99. Games are extra, at $35 a pop. Alicia doesn't indulge in expensive clothes, trendy bags, or "must have" purchases-at least for herself. But when it comes to her son, mom-guilt too easily clouds her perspective.
A Staggeringly Empty Suit
Many commentators are speculating whether President Obama will move to the center or "triangulate" in order to salvage part of his agenda and increase his chances for re-election. I don't believe he has either the inclination to move or the political skills to successfully pretend to (or otherwise outmaneuver Republicans), which leads me to conclude his re-election will depend less on his shenanigans and more on how the GOP acquits itself.
Monday, November 8, 2010
GOP Poised to Reap Redistricting Rewards
Let's try to put some metrics on last Tuesday's historic election. Two years ago, the popular vote for House of Representatives was 54 percent Democratic and 43 percent Republican. That may sound close, but in historic perspective it's a landslide. Democrats didn't win the House popular vote in the South, as they did from the 1870s up through 1992. But they won a larger percentage in the 36 non-Southern states than -- well, as far as I can tell, than ever before.
The Hollow Core
It's all over but the post-mortems as the politicos and pundits do their endless thing after every election, analyzing and re-analyzing the entrails to explain the results and predict the future. Who won, who lost? What does it all mean? Each party will try to put the best face it can on confused things. The real winner, as always, will be hubris. Much the same triumphant declarations that were made after the Millennium arrived two years ago with the presidential election may now be made by the opposite but equally over-excited party. The more things change ... the more they must be rehashed.
How-to Books
It's my belief that in the entire history of the world nobody has ever learned to play a game by reading the enclosed instructions. I have, on occasion, tried reading up on games that I had already mastered -- and even then those confounded instructions made absolutely no sense to me.
Kay-Kay Is Now Kye
George Washington University in the largest institution of higher learning in Washington, D.C. with more than 20,000 students coming from all 50 states, the District, and more than 130 countries. But the Colonials, where football began in 1890 and basketball in 1906, today have quite a problem, far different than the political swirl currently going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It has just been found out that Kay-Kay Allums, who started in 20 women's basketball games last year and averaged 7.4 points per game, is now going by the name of Kye. That's because Allums has decided to become a man instead of a woman and, as far as anybody can tell, will become the first transgender athlete to compete in NCAA Division I sports this week when the season begins in Minneapolis.
From The Comedy Store
John Kerry told a crowd that Rush Limbaugh has turned America into Know Nothings. He is one to talk. John Kerry lost the presidential election six years ago when any idiot could have beaten President Bush, but John Kerry proved he's not just any idiot.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Gov.-Elect Jerry Brown's New Worst Nightmare
"The taxpayers gave and they also took away. On one hand, the people said by a majority, 'Give us a budget.' On the other hand, they said, 'Don't pick my pocket.'" This was Jerry Brown's verdict on California voters' picks on ballot measures delivered at his post-victory press conference Wednesday.
The Iceberg Looms
Some Democrats read the election returns as symptoms of health because things could have been worse: "Happily, we have leprosy, not cholera." But embracing the fallacy of false alternatives is not a step toward recuperation. Neither is continuing the attitude Democrats adopted when passing Obamacare and that foretold their unhappy election: "No compromise with the voters!"
John Kennedy Would Be a Conservative Today
I harbor no doubts that Kennedy would have joined me here on the right if he had lived. Liberals will read that sentence and conclude that if it's true, it's only because he would be 93 years old, and they would attribute it to dementia. But Kennedy, unlike, say, Hubert Humphrey wasn't a knee-jerk left-winger. He was anti-Communist, he favored a strong military and he believed in lower taxes.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
At Last -- Maybe Some Job Creation
Well, look, the president said, while reflecting somberly on why he got "shellacked" at the polls. Look: "If right now we had 5 percent unemployment instead of 9.6 percent unemployment, the people would have more confidence in those policy changes" -- the ones he and fellow Democrats enacted. It's the political version of the ancient hobo's lament: If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs. If we had some eggs ...
The Public Is Watching
Removing the snake from the garden with a stick was a rejection of the snake, but should not be seen as particularly an endorsement of the stick -- except as the closest available tool with which to eject the snake. The stick should not be seen as a substitute snake. That was the tone after the election in which there was a general agreement that the election was a broad and deep repudiation of the president's policies and administration, while also not being an endorsement of the GOP.
Liberals Are Very Bad People
I realize that good manners dictate that we shouldn't generalize about a large group of people. Some would insist that's the case even if that particular group enjoys nothing better than condemning others -- be they Republicans, Tea Party members, the Boy Scouts or evangelical Christians -- as fascists, racists, astroturfers and bigots.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Heroes
PIERRE, S.D. -- Next week, America will observe its 56th Veterans Day. It hasn't always been so. In 1938, Congress declared Nov. 11 -- designated Armistice Day -- a federal holiday to commemorate the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, when World War I ended. In 1954, at the urging of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Congress changed the name of the holiday to Veterans Day to honor American veterans of all wars. Then politics intervened.
Obama Doesn't Seek Compromise; Neither Should We
I take no great pleasure in having been correct in predicting Barack Obama's reaction to his Tuesday "shellacking." To borrow his terminology, he is wired not to hear the American people's opposition to his radical agenda, as painfully demonstrated in his postelection news conference.
A Cautionary Note for GOP in Tuesday's Election
Tuesday was a great night for Republicans, but it would have been better yet had Sen. Harry Reid gone down to defeat. And while many analysts have debated the role the tea party played in a few high-profile Republican losses on Election Day, including that of Reid's opponent Sharron Angle, the real story is what happened with the Hispanic vote.
In Victory, the GOP Will Turn on Each Other
Here's some good news for Democrats who've been blue lately: The coming GOP congressional surge will inevitably lead to a lot of disarray on the right. There will be infighting, bickering and charges of betrayal aplenty. The tea-infused populists will bark at -- and sometimes bite -- the so-called elitists. Many in the Republican establishment will, in turn, show no small amount of ingratitude to the populists who breathed new life into it.
Voters Speak: No to Soak-the-Rich Schemes
Do Americans share President Obama's desire to impose redistributive social justice on the well off? In liberal Washington State, of all places, voters gave a definitive answer this Tuesday: No! The resounding rejection of a punitive "Robin Hood" initiative shows that it's not just red-state Republicans who oppose extreme tax hikes on the nation's wealth generators.
A Reprise of the Goblins
Let's raise a cup o' cheer for robust, aggressive debate, especially for a democracy in an election campaign. Truth will out. Sometimes it takes a while, but determined voters can find out what they need to know from many voices, even when the voices are raised (or especially when they're raised.) The voter, often dismissed by the elites as dumb and unrefined, knows how to select and separate the wheat from the chaff. This week, he left a lot of chaff on the wind.