It sounded like a freedom-of-religion case when a Columbus, Texas high school relay-race team was disqualified from the state track championship because Derrick Hayes pointed heavenward after his team won the race. That would seem odd in a red state like Texas. It turned out that officials were so strict, they warned runners to make no hand gestures after the finish line. Hayes had apparently pointed forward, and then upward, and for that, he was out. It can be tough to be a student in today’s public schools. Never mind restrictions on the schools. It is becoming impossible to express... continue reading
The Washington Post offered a splashy profile of freshman Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday, and the most surprising thing about it was a lack of venom. The reporter described “the self-assured, nonstop talker who won national debate championships as an undergraduate at Princeton.” Cruz “honed his reputation early in his career as a dazzling Supreme Court advocate” and now “has bashed into the national conversation,” most notably in attacking establishment Republicans who’ve called him and other young Senate conservatives “wacko birds.” This story, however, wasn’t as surprising as James Carville’s declaration on ABC’s “This Week.” He was typically blunt –... continue reading
Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III started tongues wagging when he posted this cryptic message on Twitter: “In a land of freedom we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness.” This was in response to liberal activists showing their rabid intolerance by demanding, so obnoxiously, that the Washington Redskins be renamed the “Redtails.” But the sentiment absolutely fits the reaction to professional basketball player Jason Collins proclaiming “I’m black and I’m gay” in Sports Illustrated. What? A gay athlete? Stop the presses! This, somehow, was the largest news in the known universe. The “announcement is a monumental step... continue reading
The Washington Post reported something surprising on April 29 – a hidden-camera expose by pro-life advocates. On the front page of the Metro section, they reported how a veteran D.C. abortion doctor named Cesare Santangelo told a 24-week pregnant woman that in the unlikely event that an abortion resulted in a live birth, “we would not help it.” "[T]echnically, you know, legally, we would be obligated to help it, you know, to survive, but it probably wouldn't," he said in a way to reassure the woman who was working for the undercover group Live Action. The legal technicality is the... continue reading
As much as liberals had their fingers crossed after the Boston Marathon bombings – please don’t let it be a Muslim, please don’t let it be a Muslim – that’s who the terrorists were. All that wishing and hoping is based on the very ugly premise that “middle America” is a cesspool of bigotry and hate, a sentiment shared by Muslim terrorists. Their quickest stereotype is that the vast majority of Americans traffic only in stereotypes. The hayseeds outside the elite media and universities don’t have the brains to make nuanced distinctions between the Tsarnaev brothers and say, Muslim winners... continue reading
Howard (“Howie”) Phillips was unique. The year was 1987 and the Reagan administration had announced the INF Treaty to limit short-range nukes. Many conservatives were opposed. I elected to host a press conference to make that point publicly. The night before, we met privately. As ringleader, I issued a directive: no attacks on Ronald Reagan. Our beef was with the treaty, not with the Gipper. My co-conspirators agreed, unanimously. But while we were meeting President Reagan was sitting down for an interview with Tom Brokaw and said about conservative opposition, “Some conservatives just believe in the inevitability of nuclear war.”... continue reading
President Obama suffered a large, embarrassing loss in the Senate on a slew of gun-control bills. If this were a Republican president, they’d be sounding the lame-duck alarms on the nightly newscasts. But most media outlets can’t do this. They were fully invested in this campaign alongside Obama, and to underscore his weakness is to acknowledge their own. Since mid-December, the broadcast networks and cable news hosts like Piers Morgan and Joe Scarborough have relentlessly lobbied for gun control. On how many occasions did they completely shred the notion of objectivity -- of journalism itself -- and boldly engage in... continue reading
The trial of notorious Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell -- as close to a demonic presence as anything this country will ever see -- was almost a month old when the network blackout finally ended. CNN broke its silence, as did CBS. National newspapers sent reporters to the trial for the first time. They started covering it only because of a national outrage that they would so deliberately withhold this horror story from the public -- for political reasons. Kirsten Powers in USA Today insisted: “This should be front page news. When Rush Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke, there was non-stop media... continue reading
Country music star Brad Paisley is either an idiot or a genius. If he wrote the song "Accidental Racist" to stir a whirlwind of (mostly bad) publicity, he's a genius. But the negative cultural consensus strongly suggests he should have never been dumb enough to try to write a racial-harmony song. Paisley performed the song as a dialogue with rapper LL Cool J, now a star on the CBS drama "NCIS: LA." He says he wrote the song when he felt he had to defend wearing a T-shirt celebrating the country band Alabama, a shirt with the Confederate flag on... continue reading
The legendary British prime minister Margaret Thatcher has died, and the national media tried to pay their respects, not only for breaking Britain’s “glass ceiling” with a “bruising” political style, but for transforming Britain and helping wind down the Cold War. Still, Thatcher was a conservative and one of Ronald Reagan’s staunchest friends in the world, so you can be sure these journalists were Thatcher-bashers when she was in power. Some of them were American anchors and reporters. Let’s start with a few quotes from long after she left 10 Downing Street. On November 19, 1999, NBC reporter Jim Avila... continue reading