Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
'Brothers Forever'
There is a line in the movie "300" that each of us should savor all weekend long because this Monday at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, its words will resonate in a way almost beyond belief. You may remember the film, a fabulous epic from a few years back about the ancient Battle of Thermopylae where King Leonidas and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army.
'Gibbsy' Steps in it
If you are the press secretary to the President of the United States, the main thing to avoid is becoming the story yourself. You are a "spokesman." A mouthpiece. And as such, it's best to keep your size elevens out of your mouth.
The State of the Unions
There was a time in my life, as well as the life of the nation, when unions were a positive force. There was a time when only through the power of collective bargaining that workers had the opportunity to be treated humanely, to be anything but the cheapest, most easily replaced, cogs in the wake of the industrial revolution. In those bad old days, machinery mattered, people didn't.
From The Comedy Store
President Obama delivered a rousing speech at a downtown rally in Philadelphia on Sunday. While the president was onstage reciting all the bills he's passed, someone from the crowd threw a book at him. Don't worry, it passed without anybody reading it.
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Democratic 'D' Now Stands for Demagoguery
I've been in campaign meetings. Sometimes the atmosphere is grim. Your side is down, and you're looking to turn things around. The pollster goes down the list of issues tested. Health care? Nope. They hate your stand on that. The economy? Thumbs down. Foreign policy? Nobody cares anymore. Then, finally, something that works. An assistant at the polling shop throws in a question about campaign contributions by foreigners. Turns out most voters don't like them. They don't think it's an important issue, but, hey, nothing else works. So let's go with it. This or something like it seems to have taken place at Team Obama Central sometime in the past few weeks.
The Sophistry of Coons' Professed Loyalty to the Constitution
It is interesting and disappointing that so many politicians treat "faith" -- at least the Christian faith -- as a poison pill they cannot touch, much less swallow. Republicans often run from it because of PC intimidation, and Democrats because it's in their DNA to do so.
Your Pre-Election Post-Mortem
WASHINGTON -- When the election is over, prizes and trophies and hosannas will be issued left and right. But why wait? As a public service, I present an infallibly prescient scorecard of best and worst of 2010.
The Political Suicide of President Obama
Liberals sit down with the New York Times the way Catholics enter the confessional: To make a clean breast of their sins and to ask for absolution. Except that the Gray Lady offers no promise of confidentiality.
Victory-Deficit Disorder
LAS VEGAS -- It has been an interesting "homecoming" from our most recent Fox News "embed" with U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan. The flights we took, from Kabul to Dubai and onward to Dulles International Airport, were full of Americans -- service members heading home on leave, a gaggle of U.S. government officials, more than a dozen civilian contractors, several private-sector engineers and technicians, and a group of executives seeking "investment opportunities" in Afghanistan. None of those with whom I spoke on these flights expressed any angst about "lack of progress" or "fear of failure" in this war.
Obama's Conscience
Two great questions ricochet around the capital in the countdown to the midterms. The first: Does Barack Obama plan to seek re-election? A remarkable number of top advisers have left the administration. Rank-and-file Democrats are listless. And the economic news is, well, everyone knows about that. President Obama is rumored to be dissatisfied, grumpy, and isolated. He doesn't even enjoy Camp David.
Paging Clark Kent
Education, like politics, is local. You want it close to home, the better to monitor it. That's how it should be.
A Lament for Joe Sobran
Once again it's the time of madness, also known as the midterm elections. This year's recurrence of that seasonal mania was punctuated by an obituary in the New York Times for "Joseph Sobran, 64, Writer Whom Buckley Mentored." Oh, what would we do without the obituaries in the Times, its last saving grace and utility? Give up on what used to be our national paper of record entirely? For its obituaries remain a justification for the whole, ephemeral enterprise that is a daily newspaper.
Tax, Spend and Shovel
Back in early 2009, President-elect Barack Obama was asked on "Meet the Press" how quickly he could create jobs. Oh, very fast, he said. He'd already consulted with a gaggle of governors, and "all of them have projects that are shovel-ready." When Obama revealed the members of his energy team, he explained that they were part of his effort to get started on "shovel-ready projects all across the country." When he unveiled his education secretary, he assured everyone that he was going to get started "helping states and local governments with shovel-ready projects."
Wasting Our Money
President Obama has finally admitted that a core premise of his nearly trillion-dollar stimulus package was false. In an interview this week with The New York Times' Peter Baker, the president acknowledged that "there's no such thing as shovel-ready projects," despite the president's near-constant invocation of the term over a two-year period to explain how government spending was going to create jobs.
Public Enemy No. 1: GOP Donors
The White House attack on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce isn't about "disclosure." It's about disarmament. While posing as campaign finance champions, the ultimate goal of the Democratic offensive is to intimidate conservative donors, chill political free speech and drain Republican coffers.
The Dirtiest Weeks Are Upon Us
A generation ago, the national Republican Party was under the command of the late Lee Atwater. With its personal-political attacks on opponents, the GOP back then knew how to play the roughest brand of political warfare anyone could remember.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Obama the Alien
Believe it or not, with jobs falling for four consecutive months and unemployment stubbornly high near 10 percent, President Obama is out on the campaign trail bashing businesses and promoting class warfare. Huh? Oh my gosh is he off message.
Big-Bucks Whitman Versus Bike-Lane Brown
Californians do not face an easy choice in the race for governor -- as was clear in Tuesday night's debate at Dominican University in San Rafael.
Republicans Need to Man Up and Ask Black Voters, 'Are You Better Off?'
The monolithic pro-Democratic black vote is a clear and present danger to America. As recently as 1956, the GOP captured 39 percent of the black vote. If Republicans can seize just 20 or 30 percent of the black vote, the Democratic Party -- and its ability to pull the country to the left -- could be stopped, if not reversed.
Journey to Destruction
Researchers announced Monday they had injected embryonic stem cells into a patient suffering from a spinal cord injury. It marked the world's first human clinical trial of a procedure developed from such a source. The procedure took place at Shepherd Center, a spinal cord injury facility in Atlanta. The use of embryonic stem cells for such purposes had been banned under the Bush administration, but allowed under the Obama administration.