No, the real story about Trump isn't Trump.
It's the pass given Obama by the media. Whether it's regarding Obama's birthplace, whether Obama personally heard Wright's racist and anti-Semitic sermons, or whether unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers wrote Obama's first book, Obama manages to avoid careful examination from the adoring media.
Trump would not be relevant – if the media had been.
LARRY ELDER
By Larry Elder
April 21, 2011 ~ 01:00 am Eastern
© 2011
Donald Trump isn't going to run for president.
He is rich, enjoys himself, says bold and often stupid things, trades his wife in for a younger model every few years and calls Rosie O'Donnell a "big fat pig." What's not to like?
But President The Donald Trump? Really?!
He couldn't take the scrutiny. Given his swashbuckling life and the media's heightened scrutiny of things Republican, Trump would spend his entire campaign putting out fires. Whether it be shady-side-of-the-line business deals, "bimbo eruptions," tax shenanigans, enemies looking to get even, or Lord knows what else, he'd barely have time to round up enough B-listers to keep "Celebrity Apprentice" afloat.
Then there is the matter of his ideology – as in, what exactly is it? Trump has alternately called Jimmy Carter the worst president ever, then George W. Bush the worst president ever, and now Barack Obama the worst president ever. This nouveau "conservative Republican" supported "universal health care"; advocated a tax on the rich; stood pro-choice on abortion; supported Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; called George W. Bush "evil"; proposed a 25 percent tariff on Chinese imports; and has contributed more money to Democrats than to Republicans. Whew!
Like Ross Perot – an earlier rich, thin-skinned businessman-turned-presidential-aspirant – Trump barks out orders, says jump and expects people to do so. Doesn't work that way in politics. Try jabbing an index finger at an obnoxious New York Times reporter or a pesky rival Republican and saying, "You're fired!"
Nor will he run as an independent – as he once threatened and then un-threatened to do. An indie candidacy would siphon votes away from the Republican candidate, requiring Trump to spend the rest of his life deflecting the blame for Obama's re-election. No fun being the next Ralph Nader, who, after costing Al Gore Florida and the presidency in '00, can't get a table at Chuck E. Cheese's.
This brings us to the only reason to pay attention to The Donald. He's turning over rocks the media can't even locate with a guide dog and a treasure map.
READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com
LARRY ELDER
By Larry Elder
December 09, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern
© 2010
But ... there ... was ... yellowcake. This brings us back to WikiLeaks.
Wired magazine's contributing editor, Noah Shachtman – a nonresident fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution – researched the 400,000 WikiLeaked documents released in October. Here's what he found: "By late 2003, even the Bush White House's staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But WikiLeaks' newly released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction (emphasis added). ... Chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam's toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict – and may have brewed up their own deadly agents."
In 2008, our military shipped out of Iraq – on 37 flights in 3,500 barrels – what even the Associated Press called "the last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program": 550 metric tons of the supposedly nonexistent yellowcake. The New York Sun editorialized: "The uranium issue is not a trivial one, because Iraq, sitting on vast oil reserves, has no peaceful need for nuclear power. ... To leave this nuclear material sitting around the Middle East in the hands of Saddam ... would have been too big a risk."
Now the mainscream media no longer deem yellowcake – the WMD Bush supposedly lied about – a WMD. It was, well, old. It was degraded. It was not what we think of when we think of WMD. Really? Square that with what former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean said in April 2004: "There were no weapons of mass destruction." MSNBC's Rachel Maddow goes even further, insisting, against the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that "Saddam Hussein was not pursuing weapons of mass destruction"!
Bush, hammered by the insidious "Bush Lied, People Died" mantra, endured one of the most vicious smears against any president in history. He is owed an apology.
READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com
"We Are All Socialists Now," said Newsweek in a cover story last year. "No," say the voters. "We are not."
By Larry Elder
Posted: May 20, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern
© 2010
The story line goes like this: Recent elections find voters in an angry, "anti-incumbent" mood.
Time magazine wrote: "This is how it goes in 2010 at the ballot box: old orders are upended, political lions become roadkill, chosen successors get left behind and the outsider, riding a wave of discontent, becomes the new front-runner."
The Associated Press wrote: "It's an anti-Washington, anti-establishment year. And candidates with ties to either better beware. Any doubt about just how toxic the political environment is for congressional incumbents and candidates hand-picked by national Republican and Democratic leaders disappeared late Tuesday."
No. Voters said: "It's not the incumbents, stupid. It's how they voted. It's what they stand for." No incumbent who voted against the Bush/Obama bank bailouts, the "stimulus" package and Obamacare lost his or her job.
Voters hate the bank bailouts. They hate the government takeover of car companies. They do not believe that the $800 billion stimulus package stimulated anything but bigger government. They reject Obamacare and think it's costly and likely to worsen health care. Incumbents who voted for these things now face the music.
Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief that Mark Critz – Democrat and former staffer of the late Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. – won the special election to succeed Murtha. But the pro-life, anti-gun control Critz said he would have voted against Obamacare. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda of higher taxes, more spending and bigger government.
At their convention in Utah earlier this month, Republicans dumped incumbent and TARP supporter Sen. Bob Bennett, who also cosponsored a health care bill that smelled a lot like Obamacare. In Arkansas, another TARP supporter, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, must go through a June runoff election against a Democrat who painted her as a buddy to Wall Street banks. Calling Lincoln "Bailout Blanche," her opponent, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, attacked her for taking contributions from Wall Street firms that received bailouts. He called TARP a cozy "Washington and Wall Street" arrangement that allows financial firms to fill "their pockets with insider deals and stick Arkansas families with the bill."
In March, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, lost her party's nomination for governor. Her opponent, incumbent Gov. Rick Perry, called her "Kay Bailout" over Hutchinson's vote for TARP. A Republican libertarian won the GOP primary for Senate in Kentucky.
In Florida, Republicans dumped Gov. Charlie Crist in the primary race for Senate. Crist, in a photo used against him by his opponents, hugged President Barack Obama. He supported the stimulus package. He also supported Obamacare, a plan rejected by Florida voters, who, according to a Rasmussen poll, favor its repeal 62 percent to 33 percent. His tea-party-backed opponent, Marco Rubio, former speaker of the Florida House, portrayed Crist as insufficiently fiscally conservative.
In Arizona, former Republican presidential candidate John McCain finds himself in a primary dogfight against former Rep. J.D. Hayworth. McCain did a 180 on "immigration reform" and now supports the new Arizona anti-illegal alien law. McCain famously "temporarily suspended" his presidential campaign during the Wall Street meltdown and voted for the widely unpopular bank bailouts.
The message is clear.
READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com
Consider some alternate explanations for the media's comparative lack of interest:
- Those affected, residents and officials, didn't blame others. WSMV general manager Hale praised the spirit of Tennessee. His station, organizers and entertainers came together with two days notice. Quoting one of his news anchors, Hale said, "'Volunteerism is in our DNA.' When the Red Cross came in they were surprised because so much had already been done."
- The media's beloved Obama failed to carry Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi. Those states, alien (if not enemy) territory, are simply of minor importance. It's just hard to feel those folks' pain.
- One Bush critic argued that the president didn't care about New Orleans because it is "black" and "sexy." Perhaps the media's indifference to Nashville is because that city is "only" 25 percent black and therefore "white and redneck."
- Non-Obama voting, self-reliant "Hee-Haw'ers" who aren't blaming somebody for their troubles just don't make for big news.
Where's the race card when you need it?
By Larry Elder
Posted: May 13, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern
© 2010
"Barack Obama doesn't care about white people!"
No, country star Taylor Swift didn't say that about the president. Nor did any of the entertainers who performed on a telethon to raise money for victims of the historic floods ravaging parts of Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi. None accused the Obama administration of indifference or lack of attentiveness to these floods.
Swift, who contributed $500,000, was one of many stars who appeared on this fundraiser put on by the Nashville NBC affiliate, WSMV, and carried by other Tennessee stations.
In 2005, a Hurricane Katrina relief telethon was carried live on CBS, ABC, Fox and NBC, and more than 25 other channels. A separate telethon was broadcast on MTV, VH1 and CMT. During a Katrina fundraiser, rapper Kanye West accused President George W. Bush of indifference to the plight of those suffering. West said, "George W. Bush doesn't care about black people."
Hurricane Katrina was catastrophic. It caused over 1,500 deaths, with property damage estimated at near $100 billion and hundreds of thousands of people displaced. The failures of local and state responders, the widely criticized federal response and subsequent finger-pointing made a tragically newsworthy story even more so.
And, at the moment, there is no shortage of significant news. Major stories include: a naturalized American Muslim terrorist admitted placing a car bomb in Times Square; an underwater oil rig erupted in the Gulf of Mexico near the mouth of the Mississippi, creating the largest domestic oil spill since the Exxon Valdez; Arizona passed a controversial anti-illegal alien law that critics claim "legalizes racial profiling"; Greece faces a financial collapse.
But has the traditional media devoted the time and attention warranted by the historic floods?
"We have been astonished by the lack of national coverage of this disaster," Elden Hale, general manager of Nashville's WSMV, told me. He acknowledged that the story competed with the Times Square terrorist and the Gulf oil spill. He said, "But still ..."
How big a deal are these floods?
Hale said his area received 15 inches of rain in two days, a phenomenon of "biblical proportions." People, he said, still haven't grasped the dimensions of this disaster. The rainfalls are the highest since records have been kept. The resulting floods have been described as the greatest tragedy to hit the area since the Civil War. So far, 30 peopled are listed dead, the count expected to grow as floods recede and bodies are recovered. "Rivers have been created where none existed before," Hale said, "and people who've lost homes didn't carry flood insurance because these areas never flooded before."
Why haven't the floods gotten more attention?
"I don't want to get into that," Hale said, "but you and I both know they care more about the two coasts than they do Middle America." Did NBC network express any interest in airing the telethon? "No," Hale said, "but in fairness, I didn't offer it to them. We intended for it to be a local affair."
As to the lack of media interest, a Newsweek senior writer tried to explain. Unlike the Times Square and oil rig stories, he wrote, the floods lacked "plot twists," a "political hook," and the "Nashville narrative wasn't compelling enough to break the cycle."
No plot twists? No political hook? Not compelling enough?
READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com
It means that the harmful consequences of the exploding welfare state get ignored, trivialized or disputed. It means that "experts," hand-picked and quoted by the media, overwhelmingly support the administration's income-equality agenda. It means that inconvenient news stories – ones that question "bigger and better" government or show there is another side – are downplayed, underreported or dismissed.
The Obama Double Standard Disease is a pre-existing illness – not covered, even under ObamaCare.By Larry Elder
Posted: April 29, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern
© 2010
Obama Double Standard Disease: an affliction that causes the media to ignore, rationalize or trivialize in order to defend, support and advance the tax-the-rich, spread-the-wealth, expand-the-government agenda of President Barack Obama and his party. This stands in stark contrast with the media treatment of those who refuse to embrace the left-wing, America-bullies-the-world, dissenters-are-racist, pro-amnesty, gay marriage-is-a-right, pro-Roe v. Wade worldview.
ODSD is pandemic. Here are just a few cases.
When the economy recovered under President George W. Bush, the major news media pronounced it a "jobless recovery." Now, despite unemployment stalled at 9.7 percent for several months, the same media call it a "surprising" or "unexpected" recovery.
Obama urged passage of an $800 billion "stimulus" package to prevent unemployment from reaching 8 percent. Post-stimulus passage, unemployment reached 10 percent. Consider how the media would have treated President Bush had he given varying predictions about, and then varying accounts of, the number of jobs supposedly "created or saved" – a laughably unprovable yardstick.
Obama brazenly claims that under his policies, 95 percent of "working Americans" received a "tax cut." But nearly half of American workers pay absolutely nothing in income taxes. And after exemptions, tax credits and other deductions, the Obama tax cut even exceeded many workers' payroll taxes. How does a check, given to someone who pays little or no taxes, become a "tax cut"?
The National Rifle Association backed the 2000 presidential candidacy of George W. Bush. Describing the organization's relationship with Bush as "unbelievably friendly," an NRA official said a Bush victory would mean "a president where we work out of their office." Envisioning then-NRA President Charlton Heston sitting at a fold-out table next to the president's desk, the media pounced.
Typical of the coverage was a Washington Post article with this headline: "The NRA Brags That They'll Work Out Of President GW Bush's Oval Office." The Post pointed out that the NRA gave more than $500,000 in 1999 and 2000 to the GOP and that it expected to spend between $12 million and $15 million more on the 2000 election. These stories elicited a denial of undue influence from the Bush camp: "Neither the NRA nor any special interest sets the governor's agenda."
The Service Employees International Union, to elect Obama and other Democrats in 2008, spent $85 million. And in support of corporate bailouts, Obamacare and higher taxes to "spread the wealth differently," SEIU President Andy Stern said, "Western Europe, as much as we used to make fun of it, has made different trade-offs which may have ended with a little more unemployment but a lot more equality."
NBC's Matt Lauer did not ask Obama about the incredible willingness of the SEIU – his biggest financial supporter – to accept fewer jobs for "a lot more equality." CBS' Katie Couric did no story on the union's admission that higher taxes mean fewer jobs. No Washington Post editorial page asked how Stern's "trade-off" of fewer jobs squares with what Obama said about the importance of creating jobs: "That's the single most important thing we can do."
READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com
RELATED VIDEO:Democrats believe that if people are too dumb right now to see the benefits of Obamacare, someday they will. If not, opponents will be powerless to do anything. Some people refuse to see what's best. That's why God created Democrats.By Larry Elder
Posted: March 18, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern
© 2010
Americans resoundingly reject Obamacare. What, then, accounts for the Democrats' determination?
Democrats believe health care is a right. Start with that premise and everything else makes complete sense. Rights – whether the right to vote or to freely assemble or to avoid self-incrimination – exist independent of popular feeling, poll numbers or even, in the case of health care, the Constitution.
Democrats don't care how much Obamacare costs. When President Barack Obama addressed Republicans, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., carefully outlined the costs of this "reform." He explained why costs figure to go up, not down. To someone truly interested in a cost-benefit analysis, these points warrant a rebuttal. But as MSNBC host Ed Schultz said, when it comes to health-care reform and money, "I don't care how much it costs." An owner of an NFL team fired his coach despite the team's winning record. He explained, "I gave him an unlimited expense account – and he exceeded it." To Democrats, "economic justice" knows no price tag.
Democrats consider election losses a small price to pay for health-care "reform." Predictions range from moderate fall election losses to a bloodbath resulting in a Republican takeover of the House and possibly even the Senate. To this Democrats say, "So what?" Once health-care reform becomes law, that's that. Only a Republican charge with a filibuster-proof Republican supermajority in the Senate could undo it. Besides, President Bill Clinton got re-elected when the Republicans took over the House. And although he gives Republicans no credit, Clinton thereafter governed closer to the center, turned House Speaker Newt Gingrich into a convenient whipping boy, cruised to re-election and left office with a budget surplus. Obama, Democrats figure, could do a lot worse.
Democrats blame Americans' confusion about Obamacare's virtues on Republican "lies." Democrats claim that Obamacare would decrease costs while retaining the same or better health-care quality. Republicans say the opposite. Massachusetts' Romneycare, which is similar to Obamacare, has failed to reduce costs. The three big entitlement programs – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – are all in deep financial trouble. At inception, the programs' cost estimates were wildly underestimated. None of this provides cautionary lessons. Republicans lie.
READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com
Politicians face voters upset with spending, borrowing and an ever-increasing federal government. The Constitution's framers wanted "gridlock," with laws deliberated at length before vote and implementation. Government was never designed for "change" or to "solve problems" – if this means bigger government. Our government was designed to be limited.
By Larry Elder
Posted: February 18, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern
© 2010
Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., "shocked" President Barack Obamaand his party by announcing his plan to retire from the Senate. Appearing on CBS' "The Early Show," Bayh explained: Washington suffers from acute partisanship. Washington doesn't work. It is broken.
How noble – a principled position against "divisiveness." Let us honor a good man standing tall against the lack of "bipartisanship." Pass the barf bag.
When has Washington, D.C., not been "divisive" under a president pushing unpopular ideas – whether the war in Iraq, the Senate "amnesty" bill, partial privatization of Social Security or Bill Clinton's attempt to allow gays to serve openly in the military?
Could it be that the "fed-up" senator feared losing re-election? Don't ask. CBS didn't. The possibility that Bayh faced a tough re-election wasn't even hinted at. But imagine Bayh, who explored a 2008 presidential bid, running for re-election while justifying to skeptical Hoosiers his votes for "stimulus," TARP, the auto bailouts and Obamacare.
Here's the big underreported story.
In a hypothetical race against undeclared candidate Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind. – according to a recent Rasmussen poll of likely voters – Bayh was down 3 points. Against another possible opponent, former House Republican John Hostettler, he was only ahead by 3 points. Welcome to the new normal. No Democrat or squishy Republican is safe.
By a 2-1 margin, more people call themselves politically conservative than liberal. Self-identified "independents," who outnumber both the Dems and the Republicans, have turned against Obama with a vengeance. This center-right country now realizes it elected a left-winger for president. And voters don't like what they see or what he's doing.
Even Bayh, perhaps inadvertently, let on that he believes the "stimulus" failed to stimulate. "If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business," he said, "that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months."
READ FULL STORY >
Krugman's flip-flop on the deficit demonstrates a modern economic equation. Hatred of Bush + love for Obama = intellectual dishonesty.
By Larry Elder
Posted: February 11, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern
© 2010
Left-wing economist, Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman hates deficits in tough economic times – when the president of the United States is named George W. Bush.
Krugman, in a November 2004 interview, criticized the "enormous" Bush deficit. "We have a world-class budget deficit," he said, "not just as in absolute terms, of course – it's the biggest budget deficit in the history of the world – but it's a budget deficit that, as a share of GDP, is right up there."
The numbers? The deficit in fiscal year 2004 – $413 billion, 3.5 percent of the gross domestic product.
Back then, a disapproving Krugman called the deficit "comparable to the worst we've ever seen in this country. ... The only time postwar that the United States has had anything like these deficits is the middle Reagan years, and that was with unemployment close to 10 percent." Take away the Social Security surplus spent by the government, he said, and "we're running at a deficit of more than 6 percent of GDP, and that is unprecedented."
He considered the Bush tax cuts irresponsible and a major contributor – along with two wars – to the deficit. But he also warned of the growing cost of autopilot entitlements: "We have the huge bulge in the population that starts to collect benefits. ... If there isn't a clear path towards fiscal sanity well before (the next decade), then I think the financial markets are going to say, 'Well, gee, where is this going?'"
Three months earlier, Krugman said, "Here we are more than 2 1/2 years after the official end of the recession, and we're still well below, of course, pre-Bush employment." In October 2004, unemployment was 5.5 percent and continued to slowly decline. At the time, Krugman described the economy as "weak," with "job creation ... essentially nonexistent."
How bad will it get? If we don't get our "financial house in order," he said, "I think we're looking for a collapse of confidence some time in the not-too-distant future."
Fast-forward to 2010.
The numbers: projected deficit for fiscal year 2010 – over $1.5 trillion, more than 10 percent of GDP.
This sets a post-WWII record in both absolute numbers and as a percentage of GDP. And if the Obama administration's optimistic projections of the economic growth fall short, things will get much worse. So, what does Krugman say now?
We must guard against "deficit hysteria." In "Fiscal Scare Tactics," his recent column, Krugman writes: "These days it's hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on a news program without encountering stern warnings about the federal budget deficit. The deficit threatens economic recovery, we're told; it puts American economic stability at risk; it will undermine our influence in the world. These claims generally aren't stated as opinions, as views held by some analysts but disputed by others. Instead, they're reported as if they were facts, plain and simple."
READ FULL STORY >
By Larry Elder Posted: January 28, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2010 The Massachusetts "Miracle on Ice" hit Democrats like an avalanche crashing in on a downhill skier. Gone is their 60-vote, filibuster-proof Senate supermajority. Likely dead is the Senate version of health-care "reform," if not Obamacare altogether. Stunned and confused, Democrats now scramble around trying to decipher "what it means." President Barack Obama's hard-left base calls the loss of Teddy Kennedy's seat a wake-up call – for bigger spending. They see the defeat as a referendum for broader and bolder "health-care reform" that includes a so-called public option, higher taxes and an expansion of the number of insured through Medicare. Their argument goes like this: People are unhappy, not about reckless spending, but because Obama has governed like a "centrist." He's "caved in to special interests," hasn't gone far enough and hasn't increased government fast enough. He abandoned his "progressive agenda," and voters punished him. Voters, wanting more government, elected a guy who promised less. A Hofstra University professor represents this view in his analysis of "what it means": "The obvious solution, of course, would be a sharp turn to the left. Go where the real solutions are. Fight the good fight. Call liars 'liars' and thieves 'thieves.' Do the people's business. Become their advocate against the monsters bleeding them dry. Create jobs. Build infrastructure. Do real national health care. End the wars. Dramatically slash military spending. Produce actual educational reform. Launch a massive green energy/jobs program. Get serious about global warming. Kick a-- on campaign finance reform. Fight for gay rights. Restore the New Deal-era regulatory framework and expand it. Restore a fair taxation structure. Rewrite trade agreements that undermine American jobs. Rebuild unions. Fill the spate of vacancies in the federal judiciary, and load those seats up with progressives. Rally the public to demand that Congress act on your agenda. Humiliate the regressives in and out of the GOP for their abysmal sell-out policies." Good grief! So much for voters telling Obama to slow down and move toward the center. READ FULL STORY >
By Larry Elder Posted: January 07, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2010 "Sarah Palin, do you guys really like her?" My dad's doctor asked me this a couple of weeks ago. His smile seemed to shout, "Are you guys crazy?" I had taken my 94-year-old Republican father to see him several times, but politics never came up. Did the doc really want to go there? It went something like this: "What's the problem with her?" I said. "Well, she's, she's –" "Stupid?" "All right." "Really? Why, because she isn't as glib or articulate as you elites like? She didn't answer Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson the way President Obama would have?" "Yes – I'm one of those elites." "How stupid do you have to be to take on the establishment in Alaska and win? How stupid do you have to be to have – at the time Republican presidential candidate John McCain picked her – an 84 percent popularity rating in Alaska? She had more executive experience than Obama." "Well, she doesn't come across as prepared." She's bringing leftists to their knees with angst, but is she the best hope for the future of the GOP? Get Sarah Palin's best-seller, "Going Rogue: An American Life" "I don't know what qualities you look for. But I'll tell you what counts for me: character, competence and vision. She's likable. She has a strong, stable marriage with a down-to-earth husband. She has convictions that I agree with. Government too big? Check. People taxed too much? Check. Stay on offense in the war on terror? Check. For me, what's not to like?" "I'd worry about her judgment." "Do you worry about Vice President Joe Biden's?" "No, why should I?" "Where do I start? Put aside all the gaffes. He's the one who, during their debate, cited the wrong part of the Constitution when asked to describe the role of the vice president. As a new member of Congress, he voted to cut off funding to the South Vietnamese. This helped lead to the slaughter of millions in that country and Cambodia. Biden routinely challenged President Ronald Reagan on fighting the Cold War, even though even some Reagan haters now believe Reagan's policies helped speed up the fall of the Soviet Union. Biden opposed the first Gulf War. Wrong. He supported the Iraq War, then argued that Iraq should be divided into three parts, then opposed the surge – said it wouldn't work – and then opposed the war that he earlier voted for. Wrong." "C'mon, you're entitled to change your opinion." "You are. But we are talking about judgment. And Palin has taken a consistent and defensible position on the war. You may disagree, but at least she's clear. And the surge did work. Iraq might just make it. We'll see what the Middle East is like in 20 years. So far this month (of December), zero coalition combat deaths in Iraq. Pretty impressive." "Yeah, it is." READ FULL STORY >
By Larry Elder Posted: November 05, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 I spoke at a recent town-hall forum. The many issues discussed included the Obama administration's attack on Fox News. Later, one of the audience members came up to me and sneered, "Well, even you must admit that Fox News is biased in favor of Republicans." Separate the opinion guys from the news deliverers. Does Fox focus on stuff that the others – MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS – do not? Yes. Is that stuff more critical of liberals and less critical of conservatives? Yes. The best gauge is who watches these stations. Fox News Channel, as a percentage of viewers, includes more self-described libs and indies than CNN or MSNBC includes self-described conservatives and indies. Pew Research Center recently studied the cable channel viewers' politics. CNN? Fifty-one percent liberal, 23 percent independent and 18 percent conservative. MSNBC? Forty-five percent liberal, 27 percent independent and 18 percent conservative. Don't know about the "fair" part, but Fox's audience was the most "balanced," with 39 percent conservatives, 33 percent liberals and 22 percent independents. I know from my appearances that the audiences differ – at least as to the e-mail I receive. When I appear on Fox, as I did to promote my latest book, "What's Race Got to Do with It," I get mostly approving e-mail. When I get one that disagrees, the writer points out – using facts, information or analogies – what, in his or her opinion, undermines my position. But when I appear on Wolf Blitzer's CNN show – oh, man! Hundreds of hostile e-mails accuse me of everything but the Lincoln assassination. Only rarely, such as when someone took exception to the book's premise – that white racism no longer poses a potent or even significant factor in America – does anyone argue intelligently, with facts or information. It's snarl, attack, name-call. On a recent appearance on Ed Schultz's MSNBC show, I opposed Obamacare – or tried to, given the host's interruptions. The e-mails I received were unprintable. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]
By Larry Elder Posted: October 29, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 We've now established that Rush Limbaugh cannot own an NFL team given his "unacceptable" (read: conservative) political comments. What about sports figures, executives and commentators who offer their left-leaning political thoughts? Many of us turn to the sports pages before the news section. For just a moment, we can put aside worries about the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, Obamacare, the "peril" of "global warming," government bailouts and the feds' borrowing and spending. In sports, we want to read or hear about who ran the fastest, scored the most points, defeated the opponent. In sports, there is an oasis – until anti-GOP, anti-Bush, anti-conservative comments slap us. National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern was asked whether Kobe Bryant should continue to play while being prosecuted for rape. Stern responded: "Absolutely. We don't have a Patriot Act in the NBA. That means that you're innocent until proven guilty." What does the Patriot Act –passed to fight terrorism – have to do with the presumption of innocence or guilt? New York Times sports writer George Vecsey wrote about how the French handled the allegation that cyclist Lance Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs. Vecsey wrote, "Personally, I think the French have linked Armstrong with George W. Bush, surely a disservice to the cyclist." Nice. Stephen A. Smith – the usually insightful and entertaining ESPN analyst – in an appearance on Chris Matthews' MSNBC show, said, "(Republican former New York Mayor Rudolph) Giuliani is a dictator." Oh. New York Times sports writer Harvey Araton, in an article about friction between two U.S. Olympic speed skaters, wrote, "At the root of the conflict is (one skater's) belief that (the other skater) has been attempting to swift boat him." You see, "Swift boating," to many liberals, has now become a synonym for "lying." Never mind that the real "Swift boaters" were ex-military men raising legitimate points about the military record of former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Bryant Gumbel, on his HBO "Real Sports" program, said that he wouldn't watch the Winter Olympics. Gumbel said, "Try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention." Gumbel, too, finds soccer boring because he knows "that in soccer they score about as often as Ann Coulter makes sense." [AND THERE'S MORE. CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING]
By Larry Elder Posted: September 24, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 Dear Madame Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, I apologized to President Obama for my "you lie" outburst during his recent speech. The president immediately accepted my apology. Yet you and nearly all members of your party in the House of Representatives demanded that I make yet another apology from the floor of the House. I refused and then received an admonishment by resolution – passed almost completely down party lines. Now it's your turn, Madame Speaker. I invite you and others in your party to apologize publicly to former President George W. Bush for vicious, personal and frequently race-based attacks. "Bush is an incompetent leader," you said of the then-sitting president. "In fact, he's not a leader. He's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon." If a Republican – especially a Southerner – attacked Obama that way, former President Jimmy Carter would call him or her a racist. Apologize, Madame Speaker. Sen. Ted Kennedy died never having apologized. Kennedy accused the Bush administration of lying about the intelligence leading up to the Iraq war. "Week after week after week," Kennedy said from the Senate floor, "we were told lie after lie after lie." Please check the rules for a posthumous resolution of admonition. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]
By Larry Elder Posted: August 27, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 Assisting the needy in health care is a "moral imperative" – not a constitutional right. The two are as different as a squirt gun and an Uzi. If something is not permitted under our Constitution, the federal government simply cannot do it. Period. The Founding Fathers vigorously debated the role of the federal government and defined it in Article I, Section 8 – spelling out the specific duties and obligations of the federal government. Most notably, this included providing a military for national security, coining money, establishing rules for immigration and citizenship, establishing rules for bankruptcy, setting up a postal system, establishing trademark and copyright rules, and setting up a legal system to resolves disputes, in addition to a handful of other matters. Charity is not there. Congress began ignoring its lack of authority for charity before the ink dried on the Constitution. When Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist French refugees in 1792, James Madison – a Founding Father and principal author of the Constitution – wrote, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution, which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." But what about the Constitution's general welfare clause? Madison said: "With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." [READ ENTIRE COLUMN]
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