Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Protecting the Image
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. dollar isn't the only currency headed to new lows. After months of drifting along in "the winds of change," America's diplomatic credibility is sinking alongside the greenback. The Obama White House and the so-called mainstream media -- preoccupied with hoopla over "health care reform," meaningless drivel about the 2016 Olympics and the vacuous award of a Nobel Peace Prize -- barely have noticed the water flooding into our ship of state. Unfortunately, the Iranians, North Koreans, Russians and the Taliban all have been paying attention. Don't count on any of them to help bail out our boat.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Bay Area Bridge That Time Forgot
On Oct. 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake brought down a chunk of the upper deck of the Oakland-Bay Bridge onto the lower deck. Anamafi Moala Kalushia, 23, of Berkeley died. Twenty years later, some 280,000 cars use the bridge daily -- and it still isn't safe. In that time, Iraq has been in two wars and replaced bombed bridges over the Tigris River twice. In little more than a year, Minneapolis rebuilt a bridge that collapsed and killed 13 in 2007. In 1994, when the Northridge earthquake destroyed freeway overpasses in Southern California, GOP Gov. Pete Wilson had the two Santa Monica Freeway bridges restored within 84 days.
Dear Europeans: Obama Is Just Not That Into You
Norway stunned the world by awarding the coveted Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama, who was nominated for the honor after being in office less than two weeks. But the award is in keeping with Europeans' behavior over these first nine months of Obama's presidency. They've gone gaga over the guy. In return, however, their crush is not quite being reciprocated. Obama did his best to avoid British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the recent G-20 summit. The tabloids in Britain still whine about the tawdry gifts the cool Obama gave Brown when he came to Washington earlier this year.
Natural-Born Losers
The question of whether President Obama should send more troops to Afghanistan misses the point. What Obama really needs to do is: Invent a time machine, go back to the 2008 presidential campaign and not say, over and over and over again, that Afghanistan was a "war of necessity" while the war in Iraq was a "war of choice." (Oh, and as long as you're back there, ditch Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett and that gay "school safety" czar.) The most important part of warfare is picking your battlefield, and President Bush picked Iraq for a reason.
Could a Wave Be Building?
WASHINGTON -- Demure Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution, but since then has not made many waves. It might, however, be part of a political wave a year from now, thanks to a direct descendent of Benjamin Franklin. The great man's great-great-great-great-great grandson, Mike Castle, 70, a nine-term Delaware congressman, will be next year's Republican nominee for the Senate seat Joe Biden held for 36 years. This and other candidate-recruitment successes make it reasonable for Republicans to hope that in January 2011 the Senate will contain fewer than 60 Democrats.
The Trouble With Health Care Is Paying for It
The legislative process can also be a learning process, and as Congress considers health care legislation -- the latest act being the Senate Finance Committee's vote in favor of Chairman Max Baucus' bill, or "conceptual language" -- we have been learning something useful. It's that legislators would like to provide generous, even gold-plated health insurance coverage to almost all Americans, but that no one wants to pay for it. The learning process should have started last February, when Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf indicated that the CBO did not back the Obama administration's assertion that preventive care would save money. But it still came as a shock when the CBO confirmed its preliminary finding in its June assessments of the cost of Senate Democrats' bills.
Don't Ask, Tell or Legitimize
I am sympathetic to the story told by Joseph Rocha, who claims in a Washington Post opinion column that he was discharged from the Navy because he is gay, though he says he never told anyone. Rocha says his male colleagues concluded he was gay when he wouldn't laugh at their dirty jokes about women or visit prostitutes with them. Gay service members have a point when they claim a double standard exists for heterosexuals and homosexuals regarding sexual behavior. Rocha also alleges cover-ups by higher-ups about male sexual assaults on lesbians and the pressure he says lesbians feel to keep quiet because by "telling" they could face discharge.
Another Clinton Scandal
WASHINGTON -- I have been defamed by Taylor Branch, and he will not reply to my repeated calls for clarification. The defamation takes place in his new book, "The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With the President." The defamation he printed comes from the Boy President himself, so perhaps my reputation will emerge immaculate. By now, I think it is pretty clear to all Americans that Clinton tells the truth only when he misspeaks.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Why I Hate Obama's America
According to the left, I am now a member of a treasonous group. I cheered when President Obama and his newly made-over milquetoast wife made asses of themselves in Copenhagen while attempting to wheedle the Europeans into granting Chicago the 2016 Olympics. And I gnashed my teeth when the Nobel Prize Committee decided to fete Obama with the Peace Prize. So, that makes me an America-hater.
What Kind of Action in the World Justifies a Nobel Peace Prize?
Action in the world ought to trump worlds evoked by words, especially when awarding a global prize allegedly recognizing sustained, courageous effort on behalf of peace in our world's deeply conflicted corners. We live in an age when the farce of history precedes the tragedy, however, and even a few left-wing media and academic elites realize giving President Barack Obama a Nobel Peace Prize is utter, rollicking balderdash.
Bigot Bonus
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which President Obama plans to sign soon, is named after two men who were murdered in 1998. Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten to death in Wyoming. Byrd, a black hitchhiker, was dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas. Bigotry seemed to play a role in both crimes.
Reading Between the Lines of Obama's Poetry
"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling," Oscar Wilde once remarked. Irving Kristol took Wilde's observation and ran with it. "The amateur's feelings are sincere enough -- why else should he be writing poetry? -- but he takes the writing of poetry to be more important than the poem itself," Kristol noted in his influential 1972 essay, "Symbolic Politics and Liberal Reform." "For him, writing poetry is a kind of symbolic action, in which he liberates his most earnest sentiments, and it is in this impatient action and in this instant liberation that he seeks fulfillment."
What's Michael Moore Talking About?
Michael Moore is confused. His new movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story," begins by suggesting that all was well until Ronald Reagan became president and cut the top 90 percent income tax rate. Everything was downhill from there. But by the end of the movie, he says the problems really began in 1945, when Franklin Roosevelt died without enacting his proposed Second Bill of Rights, which would have "guaranteed' everything from a "remunerative job" and a "decent home" to "adequate medical care," a "good education" and "adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment."