Author: Larry Elder

Last week, a “right-wing activist” (according to Michael Eric Dyson, guest-hosting for Ed Schultz on MSNBC) interrupted President Barack Obama as he explained his executive order that bars deportation for at least 800,000 illegal aliens who came to America — “brought to this country by their parents” — before the age of 16. As Obama […]

After President Barack Obama said, “The private sector is doing fine,” he later quickly regrouped. “The economy is not: doing fine (emphasis added). That’s the reason I had the press conference.” But Obama said he was particularly concerned about losses in the public: sector. The cluelessness is absolutely stunning. Obama is wrong about both the private and […]

President Barack Obama’s re-election turns on his ability to convince voters that 1) Obama inherited a “Great Recession,” 2) every “independent” economist supported the “stimulus,” 3) “bipartisan” economists agree that Obama’s stimulus worked, and 4) as actor Morgan Freeman puts it, racist Republicans say, “Screw the country … we’re going to do whatever we can […]

Once upon a time, analysts, pundits and historians explored the relationship between a given subject and his father. We do so for possible insight into the subject’s values, character, decision-making process, biases, interests, fears, etc. You know — acorn, tree. But the standard intellectual inquiry, for some reason, does not apply to the long, intimate […]

In the 1967 comedy “A Guide for the Married Man,” Joey Bishop’s wife catches him in bed with another woman. As his wife stands at the bedroom door screaming at the sight, Bishop and the mistress calmly get up, make the bed and get dressed. The mistress leaves. Bishop nonchalantly sits down in the living […]

President Obama’s affirmation of gay marriage threatens to undermine the near-monolithic black support Obama enjoyed in 2008. Several members of the black clergy now say they intend to sit out the presidential election. One poll from last November found black opposition to gay marriage at 58 percent, higher than the rest of the country, which […]

National Public Radio’s Kai Ryssdal recently talked about the weak economy. His guests, two reporters from The Washington Post and The New York Times, acknowledged the obvious — that the economy is underperforming. Yet, in the 20 minutes of my sitting and listening in the car in bad Los Angeles traffic, I heard no one […]

A well-regarded Republican strategist at a private gathering recently warned, “And just wait until they play that Mormon card.” By “they,” he meant the Obama campaign and its complicit media cheerleaders. Lawrence O’Donnell, only days later, gave his viewers a historical tutorial on the Mormon religion, darkly suggesting that we all should be afraid, very […]

Calling America’s criminal justice system “racist” is not confined to “civil rights leaders” like the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Then-Sen. Barack Obama, during the 2008 presidential campaign, said it, too. Blacks and whites, said Obama, “are arrested at very different rates, are convicted at very different rates (and) receive very different sentences … […]

“I don’t know any polite way of putting this — but he’s lying,” said professor John Ellis, president of the National Association of Scholars’ California division. Ellis was reacting to a critic’s characterization of the NAS’s damning report, “A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California.” California taxpayers […]

Why did the Trayvon Martin case become such a huge national story? Is it because an innocent black teenager lost his life at the hands of a man, George Zimmerman, who “racially profiled” him? Is it that the victim is black and the shooter was not? Is it because the major media push the narrative […]

“Blacks are under attack,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, irresponsibly turning the Florida shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, at the hands of Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman into a barometer of black-white “race-relations.” President Barack Obama, three years past his inauguration as American’s first black president, weighed in, too. As […]

“I am a refugee,” my anesthesiologist told me after I had awakened from my third surgery in 12 years — one to repair a muscle tear in my left shoulder and two for the same disc in my lower back. “I am part of the British ‘brain drain’ of the late ’60s. Doctors could not […]

“Meet the Press” host David Gregory asked his panel “where civility has gone in our public discourse.” Incredibly, one panelist urged people to be more “mature” and not “poison the atmosphere.” I say “incredibly” because this panelist was none other than the race-hustling, anti-Semitic “civil rights activist” and MSNBC talk show host, Al Sharpton. For […]

“A firestorm of outrage from women after a crude tirade from Rush Limbaugh,” said NBC anchor Brian Williams. This was followed by a reporter who said: “In 2012, the personal is political. What began as a debate over religious freedom has devolved into what some call a ‘war on women.’” The “outrage” over Rush Limbaugh’s […]

Public Television touted the Bill Clinton documentary as a long-awaited warts-and-all piece. USA Today called the two-parter a “solid and even-handed account … of a remarkably skillful politician with an immense intellect.” While calling it “tedious and predictable,” The Washington Post described the documentary as “honest.” In the first hour, the documentary stumbled out of […]

What if actor Clint Eastwood gave an interview in which he explained why, in the 2008 presidential election, he voted for John McCain: “I voted for McCain because he was white. ‘Cuz that’s why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them. … That’s American politics, pure and simple.” No, Eastwood […]

Whitney Houston died at the age of 48. Most articles about her death said something like, “Houston struggled with drug and alcohol problems for years …” But Houston also struggled with something else that black Republicans and black non-Democrats can understand: ridicule and ostracism for “selling out,” or “acting white,” or not being “black enough.” […]

“Which of our Hispanic leaders would you consider to serve in your Cabinet?” A woman attending the last Republican debate in Florida asked this of the four Republican rivals. Oh, for crying out loud! Ethnic-based Cabinet appointees? Do we still need to go out and “seek” people of a certain color or religion to show […]

Forgive Republican candidate Mitt Romney for his alleged failure to adequately explain why he paid “only” 14 percent of his income in taxes. The honest answer — “Well, because my accountants couldn’t figure out how to get them any lower” — does not work in this or very many other election years. Romney seemed flat-footed […]

The Republican re-embrace of former Speaker Newt Gingrich says a lot about whom he sees as his opponent — and it isn’t just President Barack Obama. It’s the media. If not for major media’s embrace, Obama would still be sitting in the Senate, perhaps mulling another run for the presidency. A UCLA economist-political scientist recently […]

Why does President Barack Obama enjoy a no-fly zone on gay marriage? The Republican presidential contenders, with the exception of libertarian Ron Paul, have never supported gay marriage. Barack Obama, on the other hand, in a span of 16 years, has gone from supporting it, to “undecided,” to opposition, to a position that he currently […]

Consider the following hypothetical. Fox News, during the 2008 presidential campaign, learns about a long-ago arrest of a relative of Sen. Barack Obama. Fox calls Obama. It makes an offer Fox assumes he cannot refuse: “Agree to appear on the show of your anti-ObamaCare nemesis, Sean Hannity, or we run the story on your relative’s […]

If libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Paul, as expected, did well in Iowa. His strong third-place finish is substantially better than he did in 2008, and his national poll numbers are twice what they were back then. Paul’s appeal is easy to understand. His antiwar […]

They’re coming for your children! They’re coming for the womenfolk! Then they’re coming after you! Norman Lear, the famous television show producer, offered this hysterically paranoid assessment of the allegedly growing and presumably insidious power of “the right”: “I want to suggest that we lefties start laying claim to what we see as ‘sacred’ and […]

As “Person of the Year,” Time magazine named “The Protester.” The subhead read, “From the Arab Spring to Athens, From Occupy Wall Street to Moscow.” Well, yes, but what about the lack of American black protesters? Good Lord, where is the racial diversity/inclusion/proportional representation? Back in the day, the tea party’s alleged lack of black […]

The next best thing to calling a Republican “racist,” “sexist,” “homophobic,” or “Uncle Tom” (where appropriate) is to call him “out of touch.” Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is the latest wealthy Republican to be called “out of touch.” The proof? Why, he offered to bet rival Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The amount offered was […]

Herman Cain is out. He “suspended” his campaign for the Republican nomination for president this week after a fifth woman made allegations against him. This time, an Atlanta woman claims she had a 13-year-long affair with the former CEO. As with the four other women who made allegations of sexual harassment — two still unidentified […]

When Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., announced his intention not to seek re-election after a 32-year career, not one of the nightly news broadcast network anchors found time or space to mention either Frank’s central role in the housing meltdown or his congressional reprimand. Not one. Similarly, an Associated Press article headlined, “Democratic Rep. Barney Frank […]

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Everything demanded by the Occupy Wall Streeters — whether “free” health care, a “world-class education” or a “guaranteed living-wage income regardless of employment” status — costs money. When a CEO makes a lot of money in the private sector, it is because his company — rightly […]