Columns ‹ Opinion
Next Play, GOP?
It’s that blessed time of the year for college-basketball fans: March Madness. It’s even good fun for people who couldn’t care less about the sport but want to get in on the office betting pool. And if there’s one basketball program that exemplifies everything college hoops is about, it’s Duke University’s.
Since 1980, Duke has made the Final Four...
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The Surprise of Francis
“Anyone who tells you they aren’t surprised is lying.”
That is what then Congressman Chris Cox told me on the KCET television set on election night 1994 when the GOP, led by Newt Gingrich, seized the House majority.
That was very early in my broadcast career, but in the 20 years since I don’t think I have seen so many people as surprised as by...
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Marijuana: Another Gift of the Left to America’s Youth
Denver television station CBS4 reports that Colorado has seen a sharp spike in marijuana use among teenagers since Colorado voters passed Amendment 64 last November legalizing recreational use of the drug. As described in The Economist, along with a Washington State measure also legalizing marijuana, Amendment 64 is “an electoral first not only for America...
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Saying Goodbye to Cars?
I recently said goodbye to car I had enjoyed and cherished for several years, repeating an experience familiar to most of my fellow baby-boomers. Bringing our twenty-year-old son into the garage the night before taking the vehicle back to the dealer at the expiration of the lease, I unsuccessfully invoked the bittersweet nature of the moment. “Take a good...
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Two new goals for congressional GOP
As the debate opens on the Continuing Resolution (“CR”) which Congress must pass to keep the government running, and as the Beltway GOP (well, most of it) wakes up to implications of the example of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., fighting with argument and reason, two political fronts are open to Hill Republicans. They should fight hard on both of...
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Blurring Distinctions in “Crimes Against Humanity”
Secretary of State John Kerry appropriately criticized Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan for characterizing Zionism as “a crime against humanity.”
The original comments listed Zionism as one such crime along with fascism, anti-Semitism and… “Islamophobia.” Fear of Muslim fanaticism may be appropriate or inappropriate, but grouping such concern with...
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Too Many Shades of Breached Privacy
The Style Section of the New York Times recently celebrated a new sexual minority emerging from the shadows and clamoring for public recognition and respect: the so-called “BDSM Community.” Those less trendy than typical Times readers, might be surprised to learn that BDSM stands for “Bondage, Domination, and Sado-Masochism.”
Inspired by the...
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Yesterday’s LollaPaulooza
Here’s what Rand Paul did with his LollaPaulooza yesterday:
He engaged the country in a serious discussion of first principles. You may not agree with him, but he did it. The Constitution was actually discussed on the Senate floor for more than a dozen hours. Incredible.
He put the president on the defensive, using the force of argument to penetrate the...
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Argo and the Big Lie about the Latino “Race”
Imagine a movie using a white actor to play an African-American hero in a stirring true story about a hostage rescue. Would that film ever win the Best Picture Oscar? The answer is an obvious “No!” but this year’s Best Picture, Argo, cast Ben Affleck, a white Anglo with no hint of Hispanic heritage, to play the Mexican-American CIA agent Tony...
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Covering the Conclave
How are American newspapers and networks covering the Conclave? Poorly, if at all. Most of the stories are breathless horserace-style speculations about men they don’t know. When American journalists venture into the issues facing the Roman Catholic Church they rightly mention the abuse scandals and then most stop, except for a few who go on about celibacy...
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“The Left Now Seems To Have Reverence for Fanatics”
This is an edited version of the interview with Lars Hedegaard that took place on Dennis Prager’s nationally syndicated radio show. The entire unedited interview may be heard www.facebook.com/dennisprager.
DENNIS PRAGER: Are you in Copenhagen as we speak?
LARS HEDEGAARD: I can’t really tell you where I am at the moment.
DP: Can you tell me what...
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Hugh Hewitt: Politicians rush in
With the Super Bowl behind us, football fans turn next to the NFL’s Scouting Combine, or to reports of recruiting success coming out of Columbus, Ohio, or South Bend, Ind. (the only two such cities that really matter).
There’s a third venue they should be watching as well: Congress. Ready or not, the folks from the government are here to...
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Let Obama Discover the Unexpected Israel
As Barack Obama prepares for his trip to Israel on March 20th—his first as President—he might consider taking the opportunity to correct common distortions about the Jewish state that his administration has, on occasion, helped to promote. Clearing away some of these persistent misunderstandings on the part of both policy makers and the public could...
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Hugh Hewitt: Choosing the next pope
“Hopefully he will be a pious man,” Cardinal Francis George told John L. Allen Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter last weekend. “Hopefully he’ll be an intelligent man,” the cardinal said.
“He should have a good open personality, which is very important,” he added. “But all that comes together with the question,...
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The Clarity of the Obama Sequester
President Obama’s sequester — he designed it, he demanded it, and it is about to kick in — will have many consequences, some bad, some very helpful.
On the negative side, Stars & Stripes reports that Department of Defense officials are exploring how to collapse the school week to four days at some schools on military bases that serve the...
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Leftist Values Below the Oscar Surface
The 2013 Academy Award broadcast generally steered clear of overt political statements, but two aspects of the occasion demonstrated the movie industry’s strong liberal values.
Most obviously, the selection of First Lady Michelle Obama to announce the Best Picture winner in a live satellite connection from the White House seemed odd and out of place. For one...
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