Columns ‹ Opinion
Richard Cohen Explains Conservatives
On the last day of 2012, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen inadvertently clarified two huge matters regarding the left.
The first was the ignorance about conservatives and conservatism that permeates the left. The second was the primary reason decent people identify with the left: the effective caricaturing and demonizing of the right. Were it not for...
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Hugh Hewitt: What Speaker Boehner should say at the Republican Party retreat
Ghostwriting is supposed to be anonymous, so you won’t know what I have penned for others over the years.
Here’s the exception to the rule, since I wasn’t asked to write it: John Boehner’s brief address to the upcoming GOP House retreat.
“Thank you and thanks to Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., for organizing this weekend. The...
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Cliff Deal Settles One Argument at Least: Obama’s No Intentional Destroyer
The fiscal-cliff deal settled nothing in terms of the desperate, ongoing struggle to bring Washington’s devastating deficits under control, but it should put an end, once and for all, to a bitter debate that’s damaged the conservative movement for the last four years.
With the president participating in successful last-minute efforts to prevent crushing,...
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Michael’s 10 Worst Movies of 2012
(Click to hear Michael’s review)
1- THAT’S MY BOY
2- ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN
3- THE WATCH
4- PEACE, LOVE AND MISUNDERSTANDING
5- HYDE PARK ON HUDSON
6- PROMISED LAND
7- SAVAGES
8- W.E. (Yes, this is technically 2011, but it’s worth revisiting)
9- THE PAPERBOY
10- THE VOW
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Michael’s Top 10 Movies of 2012
(Click to hear Michael’s review)
1- LINCOLN
2- SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
3- LES MISÉRABLES
4- THE IMPOSSIBLE
5- THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER
6- SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN
7- THE HOBBIT
8- A LATE QUARTET
9- ACT OF VALOR
10- WON’T BACK DOWN
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The GOP and Round Two
President Obama won the first round of his second term, but thanks to Mitch McConnell the beating wasn’t as severe as it could have been.
The period between the election and the turn of the calendar was dominated by the president, with Speaker John Boehner as his foil. The Speaker always seemed to assume the president was negotiating in good faith, even as the...
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The “Estrogen Advantage” Is No Cure for Gridlock
With more women elected to the Senate and House, giddy commentators have begun suggesting that more feminine perspectives could cure Washington gridlock.
As Senator Dianne Feinstein of California argued, the new women Senators aren’t driven by “testosterone” and “ego” and so can work more cooperatively with their colleagues.
But when in history...
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The Immigrant Song
They crossed the border. By the millions, they crossed a desert, often at the hands of smugglers known as “coyotes,” seeking work. Seeking manual labor, mostly — seeking a better life for themselves and their families.
Until they stopped coming.
The workers in Mexico got the message. They didn’t need the Wall Street Journal to tell them the Obama economy...
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Hugh Hewitt: The Grand Bargain of 1790
Jon Meacham’s wonderful new biography, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, has within it four pages of particular interest to today’s governing class in D.C.
In late April 1790, the new United States was poised on its first fiscal cliff, a massive public debt held by many but not all states, dating from the Revolutionary War. Some states had acted...
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Irrational Reliance on Higher Powers
It’s Liberals, Not Conservatives, Who Are Crippled by Blind Faith
As Washington staggers into a new year, one side of the political spectrum polarizes and paralyzes all ongoing debates due to its irrational reliance on a higher power.
The problem isn’t religious conservatives and their abiding faith in God; it’s mainstream liberals and their blind...
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Liberal Hypocrisy on Guns, Suicide
In pushing for dramatic new federal action, gun control advocates often mislead the public with the term “gun deaths.” They do so by citing statistics including not only murders committed with firearms, but also including the much greater number of suicides.
Actually, the great majority of more than 30,000 annual gun deaths – nearly two thirds of...
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Les Miz: Mizleading on History of Change
Revolutionary fervor in seizing the barricades for change makes for great theater and grand cinema, but seldom produces the positive results that young idealists desire. Those constructive consequences come much more reliably from middle-aged, middle-class virtues, patience, planning, deferred gratification, hard work, incremental improvement—with far less...
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Santa Is a Conservative
Battered by electoral disaster and a withering budget fight, Republicans should rally their disheartened troops by reclaiming the most beloved figure in American life as one of their own: yes, Santa is a conservative!
In the past, right-wingers made a big mistake by letting their opponents seize on Kris Kringle as a symbol of kind-hearted liberalism. On too...
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‘The Great Divider’ preps for term two
President Obama used the six weeks after his election to remain in full campaign mode and attack the GOP relentlessly with the intent of marginalizing House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, as an effective leader of the Republican opposition.
He succeeded. Decisively. And thus defined his second term as a bitter grind before it even began, just as he signaled to...
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This Is (Futile) 40?
One of Hollywood’s big offerings for the holiday season is a raunchy comedy about midlife crisis, THIS IS 40. Writer-director Judd Apatow, best known for hits like KNOCKED UP, uses his real-life wife, Leslie Mann, and their two young daughters to star in a story of an LA record executive suddenly worried about Viagra, hemorrhoids, and overdue bills.
Despite...
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Memo to the Speaker and the GOP Caucus
Many of you are preparing to break your word to your supporters and vote to raise taxes.
You have talked yourselves into believing that there is no choice. You fear the voters’ wrath because the MSM tells you a failure to reach a deal with the president will produce that wrath. This is the MSM we all know is so fair and disinterested on such things.
You are...
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