Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Where Have You Gone Willie Shakespeare?
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be." -- William Shakespeare, "Hamlet" Why won't we listen to what used to be called sage advice before the Internet made too many of us think we are re-inventing the world and nothing we think or try has ever been thought or tried before? The Obama administration is rumored to be seriously considering a second stimulus measure to "improve" the economy. Given the job losses since the last stimulus, I'm not sure we can stand more of that kind of stimulation. Never mind that millions from the first stimulus cannot be found and that billions more have yet to be spent. And how soon Democrats forget their once-great concern about burdening future generations with debt and dependency.
Liberal Lies About National Health Care, Part 7
(18) America's lower life expectancy compared to countries with socialist health care proves that their medical systems are superior. President Obama has too much intellectual pride to make such a specious argument, so instead we have to keep hearing it from his half-wit supporters. These Democrats are all over the map on where precisely Americans place in the life-expectancy rankings. We're 24th, according to Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Barbara Boxer; 42nd, according to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell; 35th, according to Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson; and 47th, according to Rep. Dennis Kucinich. So the U.S. may have less of a "life expectancy" problem than a "Democratic math competency" problem.
White-Collar Hero
WASHINGTON -- If you happen to be in Manhattan on Monday, do not miss the Columbus Day parade gliding up Fifth Avenue. It will be a gaudy, joyful affair as always, but it will feature something especially timely. Its grand marshal is a brassy gent who took on Eliot Spitzer when the former New York governor as attorney general was at the height of his reckless powers, publicly slandering private citizens in the hopes of intimidating them into plea bargains while privately employing ladies of delight for what the FBI reported was "unsafe sex," perhaps undertaken at breakneck speed and without a seat belt. Let us pass on; "unsafe sex" does not invite prolonged contemplation in a serious column, and in this column, I am particularly serious. The Columbus Day grand marshal did something uniquely honorable and courageous.
The Mundell-Laffer Solution
Team Obama is in economic trouble on two fronts right now: The dollar could be headed toward its demise, while the jobs and unemployment numbers have gotten worse. (The unemployment rate is up to 9.8 percent as of the September report released last week.) And there's a simple policy mix the White House could adopt to fix this. It could enact the Mundell-Laffer supply-side approach of a steady King Dollar for price stability and low marginal tax rates to spur jobs and economic growth.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Obama in Afghanistan: Losing a War to Reassure his Re-Election
On the weekend of Oct. 3, Taliban fighters in northern Afghanistan launched a mini-Tet Offensive against American troop bases. Over 300 terrorists and their allies stormed the bases in an attack that started in a nearby mosque, which had been used to store weapons and ammunition. While the American soldiers repelled the invaders, they suffered heavy casualties: eight deaths, plus two Afghan Army officers killed and 12 missing Afghan National Policemen. It was one of the deadliest days of fighting since the start of the war.
Transfer Machine
"The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul," George Bernard Shaw once said. For a socialist, Shaw demonstrated good sense with that quotation. Unfortunately, America has become a laboratory in which his hypothesis is being tested. The theory of government I was taught says that government provides benefits, primarily security, to the entire population. In return we pay taxes. But lately the government has been a distributor of special privileges, taking money from some and giving it to others. America is now about evenly split between those who pay income taxes and those who consume them.
Immigration and Political Suicide
WASHINGTON -- Mel Martinez's recent resignation from the United States Senate was for personal and family reasons. But the departure of the Republican Party's most visible Hispanic leader crackles with political symbolism. Martinez does not consider himself disillusioned, but he is "frustrated."
Random Thoughts
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Upon learning that the Constitution requires a president to be a natural born citizen, a college student said: "What makes a natural born citizen any more qualified than one born by C-section?" Airlines that keep passengers trapped for hours in planes sitting on the runway should be prosecuted for unlawful imprisonment. When politicians propose some hugely expensive new program and are asked how the government is going to pay for it, a standard ploy over the years has been to claim that they will pay for it by eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse." At a recent town hall meeting, a citizen raised the obvious question: If you can do that, why haven't you done it already?
Elites and Tyrants
Rep. Diane Watson said, in praising Cuba's health care system, "You can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met." W.E.B. Dubois, writing in the National Guardian (1953) said, "Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature. ... But also -- and this was the highest proof of his greatness -- he knew the common man, felt his problems, followed his fate." Walter Duranty called Stalin "the greatest living statesman . . . a quiet, unobtrusive man." George Bernard Shaw expressed admiration for Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin.
From Guns to Butter
In the 1856 case Dred Scott v. Sandford, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the idea that Africans and their descendants in the United States could be "entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens." To emphasize how absurd that notion was, Chief Justice Roger Taney noted that, among other things, those "privileges and immunities" would allow members of "the unhappy black race" to "keep and carry arms wherever they went."
Afghanistan's Changing Battleground
Eliminate commercial jet transports connecting continents, and the tangled tribal, economic, anarchic and ideological problems vexing Afghanistan become more localized torments afflicting Afghanis and their neighbors. What? The jets aren't going away? Has Barack Obama failed to apologize for American Airlines, Southwest and United? What an uncomfortable fact: swift jet transportation shrinking oceans to a matter of hours places your home within commuting distance of chaos, murder, mass terror and the kind of blighted men who use deadly anarchy and crime to build their version of earthly Paradise.
Spin Doctors for Obamacare
Lights, camera, agitprop! The curtains opened on yet another artfully staged performance of Obamacare Theater this week. One hundred and fifty doctors took their places on the plush lawn outside the West Wing -- many acting like "Twilight" groupies with cameras instead of credible medical professionals. The president approved the scenery: "I am thrilled to have all of you here today, and you look very spiffy in your coats."
Obama's Olympic Arrogance
In the category of "intentional misunderstandings" about the political fiasco over the 2016 Summer Olympics, liberals win the gold medal. Cheers and laughs broke out in conservative offices and radio studios on the morning of Oct. 2 when Chicago's bid came in dead last. This was not an exercise in behavior so flagrantly unpatriotic that it's almost like a flag-burning indoors. It was rejoicing over a come-uppance for the massive, media-enabled egomania of the Obamas and their team of so-called political geniuses inside the White House.
Cherry-picking Intelligence ... Again
Al-Qaida is becoming the weapons of mass destruction of the Obama administration's war in Afghanistan. Or, to be more precise, it is a reverse WMD. For the George W. Bush administration, the likely presence of WMD in Iraq was a major justification for going to war. For Vice President Joe Biden and some senior Obama White House staff members (we do not know the position of the president yet), the alleged weakness and ineffectiveness of al-Qaida is sufficient justification for ending our major ground troop presence in Afghanistan.
Not a Death Panel, a Death Mandate
If you are someone who believes killing unborn children is a right that should be legally protected and made available to all pregnant women, and that the government should eventually take over the U.S. health care system, then you must believe that the government should get into the business of killing unborn babies. And if you believe that, then you believe that the law must compel certain government officials to cooperate in the killing of innocents.
We Need a Bigger House
Watching the House of Representatives on late-night C-SPAN, you might have any number of reactions, including seppuku-inducing boredom. Depending on who's talking, you might also feel disgust, rage, contempt or, in rare cases, inspiration. But one reaction you probably won't have is: "Gosh, if only there were more of these jokers." That's too bad. Because what our political system may be lacking more than anything else is enough members of Congress. No, really. Seriously, stop laughing. Except for a brief effort to accommodate Alaska and Hawaii, the size of the House has been frozen at 435 members since 1911. A 1929 law, driven in part to keep immigrants underrepresented, has kept it that way.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Olympic Gold for Narcissism
In the Niagara of words spoken and written about the Obamas' trip to Copenhagen, too few have been devoted to the words they spoke there. Their separate speeches to the International Olympic Committee were so dreadful, and in such a characteristic way, that they might be symptomatic of something that has serious implications for American governance. Both Obamas gave heartfelt speeches about ... themselves.
Obama Administration Defiantly Defends Another Radical Appointee
I continue to be amazed at the naiveté of people who keep giving President Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt concerning his radical appointments, saying his administration isn't doing its job in vetting the appointees. When will they wake up to the reality that Obama is deliberately picking people, such as Kevin Jennings, who share his radical values? When prescient commentators were warning of Obama's radical friends and colleagues, such as Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, during the campaign, his apologists diverted proper scrutiny, saying it's absurd to judge Obama by association. Even flawed clichés can work wonders when you have the entire mainstream media flacking for you.
Dave's and Roman's World
The Institute for American Values gives us the news that -- all right, they don't say it in so many words, but two and two are easy to add, and there seems no way not to understand that David Letterman didn't inadvertently become a cad and a bounder and Roman Polanski a rapist on the run. Our culture's grasp of the right relationship between men and women --founded on a proper understanding of marriage -- is in sorry shape.
Child Rape and the Values of People Who Make Films
"In defending the director (Roman Polanski), the entertainment industry faces a risk that it will seem out of touch with the audiences it seeks to connect with at the movie house." -- The New York Times, Sept. 30, 2009 What is important in the Roman Polanski issue is not whether the renowned film director should be extradited from Switzerland to the United States. Given the long amount of time that has elapsed, the opposition of the victim to prosecuting Polanski, that his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was butchered by Charles Manson's monsters, and that his mother was murdered in the Holocaust, a legitimate case can be made for Polanski's not receiving jail time.