Author: Cal Thomas

My first political convention was in 1964 when Democrats convened in Atlantic City to nominate Lyndon Johnson for a full term as president. I was a young copyboy at the NBC News network bureau in Washington. We arrived from Washington aboard a chartered DC-3 plane that also carried the late anchor/reporter Frank McGee and his […]

TAMPA, Fla. — The delayed opening of the Republican National Convention worked to the advantage of the GOP by both heightening anticipation and forcing the elimination of extraneous speakers, which there are always too many of at these things. Ann Romney kicked off her primetime address wearing a bright red dress, Ronald Reagan’s favorite color […]

This week when Mitt Romney strides to center stage to deliver his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, he might draw inspiration from an unlikely source: the song “I Am What I Am” from the musical “La Cage Aux Folles.” One of the chief complaints from voters about politicians is that they too often […]

It’s trapping season. The targets are Republicans, whom the Democratic-friendly media (the trappers) hunt in order to smear — especially the Romney-Ryan ticket — forcing them off message. The bait in the latest case is the issue of abortion in cases of rape. The hunter’s target was Rep. Todd Akin, a Missouri Republican, who is […]

Dictionary.com defines a “debate” as: “A formal contest in which the affirmative and negative sides of a proposition are advocated by opposing speakers.” That is not what will take place during three exchanges between President Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, or the one vice-presidential exchange between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan. The selection […]

When women complain about men who can’t commit, they can thank — or blame — two people: Playboy magazine publisher Hugh Hefner and the former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, Helen Gurley Brown, who died this week at age 90. Brown was the flip side of Hefner, offering women permission, even encouragement, to embrace a female […]

Last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal editorial “Why Not Paul Ryan?” made the case for his selection as the Republican vice-presidential nominee in this statement: “Romney can win a big election over big issues. He’ll lose a small one.” After Ryan’s serious proposal to restructure Medicare — which virtually everyone knows must be reformed — the […]

To call Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a “mad dog,” as Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank did, is an affront to the canine community and those suffering from legitimate mental illness. Reid was completely sane when he spread hearsay about an anonymous Bain Capital investor who allegedly told him Mitt Romney paid no taxes for […]

Marvin Hamlisch, 68, the composer-conductor who died Monday in Los Angeles after a brief illness was a certified genius. From the age of seven, when he became the youngest student ever admitted to New York’s Juilliard School of Music, Marvin grew up to win both the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for his 1975 musical […]

PLYMOUTH NOTCH, Vt. — Two of my pundit colleagues — David Brooks of The New York Times and Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal — have written about this “boring” and “inconsequential” presidential campaign. Perhaps the reason is that we’ve heard it all before. “There is nothing new under the sun,” wrote the author […]

The Obama re-election team must be in panic mode. The president is stuck in a virtual tie with Mitt Romney in some polls and behind him in others, so in desperation it has reached out to the Big Dog, Bill Clinton, for help. Clinton will speak next month at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, […]

Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy is in hot water with the LGBT community because he committed the cardinal sin in an age of political correctness: Thou must not speak ill of anything gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transgenders wish to do. In an interview with the Baptist Press and later on a Christian radio program, Cathy, whose […]

Like the ghosts of Shakespeare’s Banquo or Dickens’ Jacob Marley, the specter of the late commie-hunting congressman from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, will always be with us. It is summoned up today, by some on the left, who use it as a tool to thwart legitimate questions about people and ideologies that seek to destroy America. […]

By now the script should be familiar. A bombing or a mass shooting occurs and the media immediately look for a simple cause. Invariably, they turn to talk radio or some other conservative pit of “intolerance.” Within recent memory are tragedies like the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the 1999 massacre at Columbine, the 2007 Virginia […]

Stephen Covey, the management guru who died this week, would have had a hard time selling his books in Benjamin Franklin’s America, or Abe Lincoln’s. His best seller “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” would have been considered a self-evident truth, one drummed into earlier Americans by schools, churches and the Puritan ethic. Today, Covey’s […]

Mitt Romney’s speech to the NAACP convention in Houston was — according to one’s political perspective — a “calculated move on his part to get booed…” to help his white base (Rep. Nancy Pelosi), or a presentation to “independent thinking adult citizens” whom he treated as equals (Rush Limbaugh). Having an adult conversation in a […]

In order to get the correct answer to anything, one must ask the right question. That is what former ABC News and current Fox News TV host John Stossel does on his weekly program. If ever there was “must see-TV,” this is it. Stossel’s show on Saturday, June 30 was a classic. It was called […]

President Obama’s attempt to spin the latest discouraging unemployment numbers as “a step in the right direction” is like telling passengers aboard the Titanic to ignore the sinking vessel and listen to the live music. A Wall Street Journal analysis of the June unemployment figures offers little comfort, nor does it produce confidence that the […]

When asked at the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 what the Founders had wrought, Benjamin Franklin famously said, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” That question might also be put to the five Supreme Court justices who voted last week to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, which mandates health […]

When is a tax not a tax? When President Obama says it isn’t, or when the Supreme Court says it is? Obamacare was sold on several fraudulent lines. The president knows the country doesn’t want to pay higher taxes, given the deplorable way their government spends the money. And so the administration packaged it as […]

Throughout America’s history, there have been people who denied threats from our enemies. During the Revolutionary War, significant numbers sided with the British monarchy. Enablers in politics, the media and even religion helped Communism remain in power for seven decades in the Soviet Union. German Nazis had their U.S. apologists. The presidential election in Egypt, […]

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (this was written before the decision), the Obama administration has indicated it will move forward with those parts of the unpopular law it can impose on the country. Guidebooks are helpful when going on vacation. The […]

Those “cannibals” who recently turned up in Miami aren’t the only people eating their own. Following President Obama’s 54-minute snoozer of a speech in Ohio last week, even his “friends” are beginning to feed on him. In 2008, David Brooks of The New York Times played the sycophant when he admired the crease in Obama’s […]

“This notion I can somehow just change the laws unilaterally is just not true. We are doing everything we can administratively, but fact of the matter is there are laws on the books that I have to enforce. And I think there’s been great disservice done to the cause of getting the DREAM Act passed […]

Don’t you find it odd that the word extremism seems to apply only to conservative Republicans? Terminology often drives political discourse and those who control the terms often determine the outcome. Establishment Republicans have too often been uncomfortable in their own skin. When they win elections, they sometimes seem unsure of what to do next. […]

LONDON — One of many things left out of the film “The Iron Lady” was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s warnings on the effects a single currency would have on the economies of European nations. Thatcher’s premonitions place her among the great political prophets of all time. On the single currency, Peter Oborne, a columnist for […]

In his 2007 book, “The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800,” historian Jay Winik writes that among Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, none “believed in political parties, which they feared would lead to ‘rage,’ ‘dissolution,’ and eventual ‘ruin’ of the republic…” The latest poll from the Pew Research […]

If the polls are right, the vote next Tuesday in Wisconsin on whether to recall Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four Republican state senators could amount to a redial of their original victory. Voters who first elected the conservative Walker on a promise to fix the state’s dismal economy and crushing debt […]

On Sunday, Sept. 2, 1945, aboard the battleship USS Missouri at the end of ceremonies marking the unconditional surrender of Japan and the formal end of World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur spoke for a world weary of war and hoping for peace: “Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and […]

There will be investigations and already there are lawsuits over the rollout of Facebook’s overhyped IPO last week, but no investigation is necessary into the reason for the outrage over the stock’s rapid fall. It’s called human nature. It is the same characteristic that causes people to believe against staggering odds that they can win […]