Category: Column

During a recent Fox News Channel debate about the Obama administration’s tax policies, Democrat Bob Beckel raised the issue of “fairness.” He pointed out that a child born to a poor woman in the Bronx enters the world with far worse prospects than a child born to an affluent couple in Connecticut. No one can […]

Bill Press has a new book out called “The Obama Hate Machine.” To read the blurbs, you might wonder if Press thinks no one should be allowed to criticize the president. Here’s Nancy Pelosi touting the book: “In a poisoned political climate, negative personal attacks on President Obama must have no place in our public […]

My boyfriend lacks romantic ambition. In our two years together, we’ve never gone out to dinner someplace I can wear a dress and heels, and he never brings me flowers or does anything for our anniversary or Valentine’s Day. I’ve suggested he pick out lingerie he’d like to see me in and shown him how […]

“If we could just take a little bit from each of them.” I’ve lost track of how many people I have heard say some version of this in the last couple of months. The “each of them” refers to the final four combatants for the Republican nomination. You could take Newt Gingrich’s verbal dexterity, encyclopedic […]

According to Reader’s Digest, public speaking is the No. 1 fear in America, so here are some tips that will relieve you of some of your anxiety. First, as far as I know, Barbara Helleen, who suffered a fatal heart attack while speaking to the Women’s Club of Rosendale, N.Y., Alben W. Barkley, former vice […]

In less than two weeks, Russians go to the polls for a presidential election exercise. The overwhelmingly likely outcome: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will dust off the old stationery from his first two terms as president. In the final run-up, Putin is publishing a series of position papers, the latest one focusing on reloading and […]

It is fascinating to see people accusing others of things that they themselves are doing, especially when their own sins are worse. Academics love to say that businesses are not paying enough to people who work for them. But where in business are there people who are paid absolutely nothing for strenuous work that involves […]

I stated a few weeks ago that I believe that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Sen. Rick Santorum have shown the greatest passion for highlighting and fighting against the war on religion (specifically Christianity) being unleashed by the Obama administration and other secular progressives. They are also avid supporters of Israel. However, in […]

I’d like to offer a simple proposal that, if enacted, could generate a great deal of a most precious resource: moral clarity. It concerns the death penalty. Opponents of capital punishment for murderers argue that the state has no right to take a murderer’s life. Apparently, one fact that abolitionists forget or overlook is that […]

Black History Month honors the achievements of African Americans throughout history and that is a good thing. Unfortunately, a reliance on family and faith, which allowed many African Americans to survive the horrors of Reconstruction, racial injustice and violent acts of discrimination, has become a casualty of the modern welfare state, which has contributed to […]

Many Republican House members, and the bloggers and tea partiers who cheered their victory in gaining a majority in November 2010, seem to be seething with discontent and eager for confrontation. They believe, reasonably, that that victory represented a repudiation of the vast expansion of government by the Obama Democrats. They want to see those […]

Occupy Oakland activists have filed a lawsuit against the city and are seeking damages. The American Civil Liberties Union-backed suit argues that protesters are engaged in “peaceful expressive activity” and that Oakland police have used “excessive force” that has inflicted “mental stress” on activists. The lawsuit also complains that police have not warned activists sufficiently […]

Early on in the 2012 campaign Mitt Romney expressed support for global warming in various ways, the typical comment being this: “I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that.” He holds this belief despite the growing body of evidence that global warming theory is based upon false […]

Two years ago this month, as public debate over Obamacare raged, former President Bill Clinton rushed to the hospital because of a heart condition. He immediately underwent a procedure to place two stents in one of his coronary arteries. It was a timely reminder about the dangers of stifling private-sector medical innovation. No one listened. […]

“My rival in this race,” President Obama announced early in 2007, “is not other candidates. It’s cynicism.” It’s now clear that what he meant by this was other people’s cynicism — not his own. As you may recall, Obama came into office a very inexperienced politician, spouting a lot of hopeful and idealistic rhetoric. He […]

A strong move is on to demonize and marginalize social conservatives, a move that originates from the political left but is being aided by some on the right, a move that is based on assumptions that better describe the leftist accusers than they do their targets. Obama, by rewriting the Bush rules to protect health […]

The shocking death of pop star Whitney Houston built a massive audience for the Grammy Awards telecast Sunday night on CBS. It attracted 39.9 million viewers, making it the most watched non-sports program of the season. The show began with a heartfelt prayer for Houston to “Our Heavenly Father” from the master of ceremonies, CBS […]

To say the least, things do no look good for the Republicans at this moment. Rasmussen polls released Tuesday showed Mitt Romney trailing Barack Obama at 49 to 42 percent and Rick Santorum lagging even further behind at 41 percent. No word on Newt Gingrich, but it’s hard to be optimistic. According to the pollster: […]

“Often wrong but never in doubt” is a phrase that summarizes much of what was done by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the two giants of the Progressive era, a century ago. Their legacy is very much alive today, both in their mindset — including government picking winners and losers in the economy and […]

One theory for why Barack Obama pushed the contraception mandate right now is that it helps Rick Santorum. Others theorize it’s because Obama is an anti-religious bigot with a left-wing agenda. Reasonable minds can disagree on this. But it may end up helping Mitt Romney by reminding people that the “individual mandate” is the least […]

President Barack Obama recently assured El Salvador that the United States would not deport more 200,000 Salvadorans residing illegally in the United States. As the election nears, and the president looks to court Hispanic voters, he also created a new position of “public advocate” for illegal immigrants. His duties would appear to be to advocate […]

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.” […]

When one writes about moral convictions, it’s probably a good idea to consistently live up to them. That way people can still disagree with your convictions, but they have a difficult time accusing you of hypocrisy. Last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, I failed to live up to one of […]

Believers in central planning should take a look at Washington’s Metro rail transit system. While they will find many things to like, they will also see examples of how central planners — and especially rail transit planners — can get things disastrously and expensively wrong. Things to like include aesthetics. Metro stations and cars are […]

In February 2009 — having signed into law his $787 billion stimulus package — President Barack Obama made a pledge to the nation. “Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years,” the president noted, “we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget, the next administration […]