Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Washington's Racially Polarized Election
Washington D.C.'s mayoral race may not have attracted as much attention as some other high-profile races in Tuesday's elections, but the results could have far-reaching impact across the country. One-term mayor Adrian Fenty lost his chance for a second term in what was one of the most racially polarized elections anywhere. But this wasn't a case of a black candidate defeating a white one -- or the reverse -- or a candidate of one race losing in a city where most residents were of a different race. Nonetheless, race was an important factor that helped determine the outcome.
Extremists Calling Mainstreamers Extremists
I'm surely not the only one who notices the persistent efforts of the leftist establishment and certain establishment Republicans to portray mainstream conservatives, especially those inhabiting the tea party movement, as radicals and extremists. The more they push this theme the more they marginalize themselves.
The View Beyond Ground Zero
NEW YORK CITY -- New York, New York, a wonderful town. The city is a study in "doubleness." The subway runs deep; the buildings scrape the sky. There's an east side and a west side, an uptown and a downtown, two rivers, two coastlines.
Medal of Dishonor
There's a telling scene in the Oscar-winning movie "The Hurt Locker." After all the tension of the action out in the field, trying not to fall victim to a sniper or drive over an explosive device, the soldiers return to the base ... and play war video games. It's hard to believe this genre has such a hold on (primarily) young men.
Burn the Establishment
Forty-four years ago, Bob Dylan released an album with the incendiary title "While the Establishment Burns." That could serve as a metaphor for what seems to be happening to the Washington establishment in general and the Republican Party establishment in particular.
D.C. Voters Betray Their Kids
Amid all the good news from primary season -- the surging grassroots rejection of leviathan government being the theme -- there was one tragedy. The voters of the District of Columbia rejected Mayor Adrian Fenty, and with him the bold education reforms undertaken by schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. Democrat Adrian Fenty may have been an arrogant jerk who offended his constituents in a number of ways, but on his signature issue, education reform, he was getting results.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Like, Is Sarah Palin Totally Conceited?
In the October issue of Vanity Fair now on newsstands, Michael Gross reverts to junior high school to issue gossip-girl digs at Sarah Palin. Next up in Vanity Fair: "Sarah Palin Super Stuck Up; Thinks She's All That."
Lessons of the Koran’s Non-Burning
Terry Jones's 15 minutes of fame have run out, the foreign media have left Gainesville, and we aren't likely to hear much more about the fringe Florida preacher and his abandoned plan to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11. But there are some lessons worth taking away from the episode. Here are three:
Boehner Blew It
WASHINGTON -- Did my ears deceive me? Did I hear House Minority Leader John Boehner say on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, "If the only option I have is to vote for those at 250 and below, of course I'm going to do that"? He was referring to voting for extending the Bush tax cuts to those making less than $250,000 a year. And he was referring to the issue when there is a building momentum to keep the tax cuts for everyone in an era of fragile economic growth and 9.6 percent unemployment. Even some Democrats are willing to keep the tax cuts, but Boehner just made it difficult for them.
Pressed Into Conformity
JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- The crime scene at 138 Griffith St. has changed in 76 years. Today it is a barber shop. In 1934, it was a tailoring and cleaning establishment owned and run by Jacob Maged, 49.
The Money of Fools: Part III
Among the many words that don't mean what they say, but which too many of us accept as if they did, are those staples of political discussion, "liberals" and "conservatives." Most liberals are not liberal and most conservatives are not conservative. We might be better off just calling them X and Y, instead of imagining that we are really describing their philosophies. Moreover, like most confusion, it has consequences.
Obama Asks Thug Nations To Judge America
Does America engage in massive and widespread violations of human rights? The Obama administration thinks so. That's the takeaway of the "Report of the United States of America Submitted to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights." The introduction says it "gives a partial snapshot of the current human rights situation in the United States, including some of the areas where problems persist in our society."
When Policies Flop, Political Enthusiasm Wanes
Two sets of numbers tell you a lot about an important difference between election year 2008 and election year 2010. In 2008, 37 million Americans voted in Democratic presidential primaries and just under 21 million voted in Republican presidential primaries. One reason for the difference was that the Republican nomination was decided earlier. But even counting only the early contests, Democratic turnout was 26 million and Republican turnout was 17 million.
A Great Awakening
After some years of slumbering comfortably, the American people have awakened and they are hopping mad over what they have discovered was going on while they slept. The stunning results of yesterday’s primary contests should be frightening not only to the Democrats, but to those Republicans in name only – RINOs - whose actions have been more or less barely indistinguishable from the Democratic party’s deranged left wing.
Delaware GOP Rumblings
During post-election analysis, Republican luminaries stumbled badly in discussing Christine O’Donnell on the night of the Delaware senatorial primary. But Delaware Republicans had just voted. They had given their support—rather convincingly—to the clearly more conservative O’Donnell in a hotly contested primary election. Where was the unity that night?
Authentically Newt-ered
This is how news gets made. Conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza writes a piece for Forbes pimping his new book, "The Roots of Obama's Rage." During a National Review interview, former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich gushes over the piece and calls it "the most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama" as it reveals the "Kenyan anti-colonial" thinking that motivates Obama.
Obama vs. Castro
In arguing against extending the Bush-era tax cuts for "the wealthy," President Obama claims the government can't afford to "borrow" the estimated $700 billion he says it will "cost government." What about the cost of tax increases for those earning the money? It's funny how the president doesn't mind borrowing money that has put us on a trajectory for a national debt exceeding $13 trillion.
Rethinking George Bush?
Former President George W. Bush left office with the lowest approval ratings since Richard Nixon. In reaction, for nearly two years President Barack Obama won easy applause by prefacing almost every speech on his economic policies with a "Bush did it" put-down.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
You Can't Rule on Personality Alone
Carter campaigned on his personal religiosity far more than any other president since World War II. In an interview with Pat Robertson on the Christian Broadcasting Network, Carter explained that "secular law is compatible with God's laws," but if the two were in conflict, "we should honor God's law." Robertson endorsed Carter. So did Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, who said, "God has his hand upon Jimmy Carter to run for president."
Liberal Crackup
Charles Krauthammer, in his Washington Post column (8/27/10), said, "Liberalism under siege is an ugly sight indeed," pointing out that overwhelming majorities of Americans have repudiated liberal agenda items such as: Obamacare, Obama's stimulus, building an Islamic center and mosque near ground zero, redefinition of marriage to include same-sex marriage, lax immigration law enforcement and vast expansion of federal power that includes unprecedented debt and deficits.