Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Build the Ground Zero Mosque on Michael Moore
On the ninth anniversary of the greatest mass murder on American soil in the history of our country, Michael Moore issued a clarion call to the United States. "If the [ground zero] 'mosque' isn't built," he wrote, "this is no longer America." In fact, said Moore, he was opposed to building the ground zero mosque two blocks from ground zero. "I want it built on ground zero," he wrote.
Our Man in Moscow
It's got to be the funniest or the saddest spy story of this post-Cold War period, or maybe both. The two, humor and pathos, blend inextricably in Russia. Like good and evil mixing.
Turkey's Constitutional Referendum: The Beginning of the End?
The struggle for Turkey's political soul continues -- and Turkey's self-proclaimed moderate Islamists are winning. The struggle has major implications for the global war on militant Islamist terror groups like al-Qaida.
The Obamacare Inquisitions: A Brief, Brutish History
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is just the latest creepy keeper of the Obamacare enemies list. The White House has been keeping tabs on individual and corporate critics of the federal health care takeover for more than a year. It started with the health czar's Internet Snitch Brigade. Remember?
Money Is Not What Schools Need
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently claimed: "Districts around the country have literally been cutting for five, six, seven years in a row. And, many of them, you know, are through, you know, fat, through flesh and into bone ... ."
America's New Terrorist Networks
While public attention was diverted by whether or not Florida pastor Terry Jones and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf had reached a compromise, a report critical to our national security went virtually unnoticed.
Torture Tort Terror
During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama criticized the Bush administration for its excessive secrecy, noting that it had "invoked a legal tool known as the 'state secrets' privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court." Obama also promised to end "extraordinary rendition," a practice through which "we outsource our torture to other countries."
The Money of Fools: Part II
Words are supposed to convey thoughts, but they can also obliterate thoughts and shut down thinking. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, a catchword can "delay further analysis for fifty years." Holmes also said, "think things, not words."
The Stupidest Spending Program of All
In the late 1980s, the National Endowment for the Arts seemed to contend honorably for the title. Back then, the NEA funded an exhibit featuring Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ, a photo of a crucifix submerged in urine. The NEA defended the grant on First Amendment grounds -- as if the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and free exercise of religion required the government to extract tax dollars from Christian families so a federal bureaucracy could subsidize blasphemy.
Here Comes the Mud
How long ago it seems now that Barack Obama was inaugurated, and the Great Uniter championed "hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics. ... (T)he time has come to set aside childish things."
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Obama's Delusions of Competence
"Washington, We Have a Problem," proclaims Vanity Fair magazine. In an eerie echo of the verdicts passed during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, namely that the presidency was "too big for one man," Vanity Fair now declares, "The evidence that Washington cannot function -- that it's 'broken,' as Vice President Joe Biden has said -- is all around."
The Times, the Mosque and Islam -- No Moral Nuance
One of the most common self-assessments of the left is that conservatives rarely see nuances in moral questions, while liberals always do. That this is a false conceit can be demonstrated with regard to almost any position held by the left. There is no nuance in liberal positions on abortion, race-based affirmative action, capital punishment, embryonic stem cell research or just about any other social issue.
The Power of Example
When a diminutive Florida "preacher" threatened to burn a copy of the Koran on the anniversary of 9-11 it had an international impact for one reason: the media fell into his hands as they lavished attention on the little man looking his two minutes of fame.
America Rising
Why was this September 11th different from all other September 11ths? Because on this September 11th, there were are signs of reconstruction, even rededication, at Ground Zero. Tangible, concrete, noisy, dusty, comforting, encouraging signs. The whole place, above and below ground, was coming alive again. At last.
The Harsh Bigotry of Their Expectations
Why did Florida pastor Terry Jones garner all that media attention last week for threatening to burn Qurans on Saturday's 9/11 anniversary? I believe it's because network swells had spent weeks trying to frame opponents of the ground zero mosque -- also known as the Lower Manhattan Islamic community center -- as stupid anti-Islam bigots, but that story line wasn't sticking. So networks found a stupid anti-Islam bigot in Florida who had nothing to do with the mosque, but who reinforced their political view.
Purging Evil
Terry Jones, the Florida "minister" who threatened to burn the Koran on the anniversary of September 11, is as much a distraction from the real challenge facing America as was Senator Joseph McCarthy when it came to communism. Communism was (and remains in its Chinese incarnation) a real threat. But radical Islam -- rabid, advancing, intolerant, subjugating -- is potentially a bigger one and must be conquered.
The Money of Fools
Seventeenth century philosopher Thomas Hobbes said that words are wise men's counters, but they are the money of fools. That is as painfully true today as it was four centuries ago. Using words as vehicles to try to convey your meaning is very different from taking words so literally that the words use you and confuse you.
Obama's Tiresome Tolerance Lectures
Why did President Obama choose tolerance as the subject of his speech at the Pentagon ostensibly to commemorate the victims of 9/11? Why is it that he insists on making this the overarching point at such events rather than, say, express our deep regret for the lost lives of the murdered Americans and repeat our national resolve to "bring to justice" those behind the massacre?
Monday, September 13, 2010
The Two Year Itch
People used to talk about the seven year itch as the time in a marriage when one or both spouses was likely to start fantasizing about hooking up with another man or, as is more often the case, another woman. Well, I’ve reached that point. Not with my wife, you understand, but with Barack Obama.
Gangster Government Stifles Criticism of Obamacare
"There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases." That sounds like a stern headmistress dressing down some sophomores who have been misbehaving. But it's actually from a letter sent Thursday from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans -- the chief lobbyist for private health insurance companies.