Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
A Skywriter's Story
Every year about this time I still get a bunch of e-mails and telephone calls asking if the old stories about the SEC Skywriter's famous trips are really true. Just last week a guy in Florida called to ask if I actually flew the old lumbering Convair 440 charter airplane that used to take the top sports writers around the South every fall.
Friday, September 3, 2010
These Talks Are Doomed
Hamas sent a greeting card to the quintet of leaders meeting in Washington, D.C., this week to initiate negotiations about a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In a well-planned ambush, they killed four Israeli civilians near the city of Hebron, two men and two women (one nine months pregnant), creating seven orphans. The murderers escaped, and may perhaps have videotaped the atrocity. In Gaza that evening, 3,000 celebrants clogged the streets, waving flags, setting bonfires, passing out candy, and carrying their children on their shoulders. If there is videotape, it will presumably permit the revelers to relive the pleasure, even as the video of Daniel Pearl's beheading has circulated on the Internet.
Our Distracted Commander in Chief
WASHINGTON -- Many have charged that President Obama's decision to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan 10 months from now is hampering our war effort. But now it's official. In a stunning statement last week, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway admitted that the July 2011 date is "probably giving our enemy sustenance."
Big Labor's Legacy of Violence
To mark Labor Day 2010, President Obama will join hands with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in Milwaukee and pose as champions of the working class. Bad move. Trumka's organizing record is a shameful reminder of the union movement's violent and corrupt foundations.
It's Beck's Rally, but Hannity's War
Mainstream media were taken aback when television and radio talk show host Glenn Beck recently hosted a rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The throng of people assembled to celebrate and hear more about religious and civic values than about partisan politics.
Little Girls and Mad Men
Two little girls I know, age 6, showed up the other day at a public pool in Washington for a swim. They were excited by the prospect of escaping, if only for a little while, the heat pushing the thermometer close to 100.
Obama Could Use Some Clintonesque Salesmanship
There's been a lot of talk about Bush nostalgia lately. At Martha's Vineyard, the Obama-bilia wasn't moving like it was during the Obamas' previous visit there. The biggest seller was a T-shirt depicting a smiling George W. Bush with the tagline "Miss Me Yet?"
Teens and 'Sextortion'
Children today are often so voracious and versed in the latest communications technology that they make their parents feel like Myles Standish and Betsy Ross. Three-fourths of young people between 12 and 17 now own cell phones, reports the Pew Internet and American Life Project. And get this: 87 percent of those who send text messages told researchers that they sleep with or next to their phones. Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, and one in three send more than 100, or more than 3,000 texts a month. By contrast, only 30 percent of teenagers talk on those caveman "land line" phones.
Obama's Burden of Being So Bright
Sorry, but I can't allow Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' statement that "we have a lot of re-education to do" slip by without comment. It's amusing when avowed leftists don't even recognize the Marxist buzzwords they're sputtering.
Looking at the Future
LEESBURG, Va. -- The experts tell us that newborn infants like Sarah Jane cannot really distinguish what's before them when they open their eyes. These same experts also say the little smile I see on her tiny lips is just a sign she needs to be burped. Maybe.
Bad News for Labor This Labor Day
The labor movement doesn't have much to celebrate this Labor Day. Congress first established the national holiday in 1894 at unions' behest. Since then, the American labor movement's fortunes rose to their zenith in 1956, when more than three-in-10 workers were union members, only to decline each year after. Today, only 12 percent of workers hold union cards. And if you discount union members who are public employees, barely 7 percent of private-sector workers are union members.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Obama Delivers on His Iraq Promises
When then-Sen. Barack Obama visited the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board in 2008, I had one question for him: Which Democratic candidate for president would be best at keeping Iraq from imploding? "That would be me," Obama answered.
'Clunkers,' a Classic Government Folly
In the market for a used car? Good luck finding a bargain: The price of "pre-owned" vehicles has climbed considerably over the past year. According to Edmunds.com, a website for car buyers, a three-year-old automobile today will set you back, on average, close to $20,000 — a spike of more than 10 percent since last summer. For some popular models, the increase has been much steeper. In July, a used Cadillac Escalade was going for around $35,000, or nearly 36 percent over last July’s price.
Obama Is Not a Muslim
The nonsense about President Obama being a Muslim has got to stop. I rise to defend him from this absurd accusation by pointing out that he is obviously an atheist. Leave aside Obama's fanatical opposition to allowing Illinois hospitals to save the lives of babies with God-given souls inadvertently born alive during abortions. Also leave aside the fact that neither of his parents were Christians. And leave aside his current crop of "spiritual advisers," which is a collection of Mother Earth worshippers, polytheists and other nonbelievers. Now rest from all that "leaving aside."
Book Review
In his Oval Office address Tuesday night announcing the end of combat operations in Iraq, President Obama said "It's time to turn the page" and start focusing on rebuilding the American economy.
The New Old World Order
The post-Cold War new world order is rapidly breaking apart. Nations are returning to the ancient passions, rivalries and differences of past centuries. Take Europe. The decades-old vision of a united pan-continental Europe without borders is dissolving. The cradle-to-grave welfare dream proved too expensive for Europe's shrinking and aging population.
Down With Big Government, Big Business, Big Labor
Some of the most important things in history are things that didn't happen -- even though just about everyone thought they would. Recent example: Scads of liberals gleefully predicted that the financial crisis and deep recession would destroy Americans' faith in markets and increase their confidence in big government. Many conservatives gloomily feared they were right.
The Business of America Is Business
Corporate profits are at all-time highs, and bond rates in the Treasury market are virtually at record lows. That's a good combination for stocks, and it helped trigger a 255 point rally in Wednesday's trading. What's more, a surprisingly positive read on the ISM August manufacturing report delivered a strong blow to the double-dip recession pessimism that has plagued investors for many months.
The Glenn Beck Rule: How to Out a Racist
How does one discredit the massive back-to-the-values-that-made-this-country-great rally in Washington at the National Mall? Easy. Call Glenn Beck, the leader and organizer of the rally, a "racist" -- as does former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean. What makes Beck a racist? The question presupposes the need for a reason.
Welcome to the University
WASHINGTON -- What is your vision of a university? Is it the classic vision, with profs walking the ivy-clad pathways, their books under their arms? Perhaps they wear tweed coats and smoke pipes -- not the lady profs, but the men. The ladies dress accordingly, and maybe they smoke pipes. All pore over their books for hours and impart their knowledge to a select body of students. Not the mob that today is forced -- rather cruelly -- to attend classes in remedial education to make up for what they missed in high school, very elementary things, such as reading and the rudiments of writing.