Cal Thomas

Obama can't turn the page on Iraq

In his Oval Office address Tuesday night announcing the end of combat operations in Iraq, President Obama said, "It's time to turn the page" and start focusing on rebuilding the American economy. That would be fine with me if we could be certain about what was on the next page, or whether the "book," which is about more than just Iraq, was finished. Have you noticed that those who would undermine what has been accomplished in Iraq and who are part of a larger war to conquer the West have not announced they are ready to turn the page and move on to other things? "Our combat mission is ending," said the president, "but our commitment to Iraq's future is not." What does that mean? Does it...

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Has Obama lost even the liberals?

President Obama may have experienced his Walter Cronkite moment over the economy. Responding to Cronkite's reporting from Vietnam four decades ago that the only way to end the war was by negotiating with the North Vietnamese, President Lyndon Johnson was reported (though never confirmed) to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." Now President Obama appears to have "lost" New York Times liberal economic columnist Paul Krugman. Last week, Krugman, who has enthusiastically supported the president's redistributionist and stimulus plans, bowed to the reality that they are not working. In the column titled "This is Not a Recovery," Krugman took issue with the...

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Politicians can't get us out of this

In 2008, "60 Minutes" visited Denmark to report on a survey of international happiness conducted by Leicester University in England that concluded Danes are among the happiest people on Earth. The reason? They have low expectations and thus, as Morley Safer noted, "are rarely disappointed." This ought to be a Republican Party theme in the November and subsequent elections. If our expectations about politicians and government are lowered, we will then start expecting less from them and more from ourselves, then our prospects for happiness will likely be much improved. Take spending. Clearly we can't go on like this. People should ask their grandparents if their parents told them, "We...

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More peace talks? No thanks

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Never has George Santayana's oft-quoted warning had greater significance than when it comes to Middle East "peace talks," including the latest round scheduled to begin Sept. 2 in Washington, D.C. In constantly pressuring Israel to go far beyond the multiple and unreciprocated concessions it has already made, the United States ensures repetition of past mistakes, which will produce the same outcome. Some history and the results for those who would learn: - The Balfour Declaration (1917) and the Palestine Mandate (1922). These called for the formation of a Jewish homeland while recognizing "nothing shall be done which might...

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U.K. shows us major cuts are only way to fix debt

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — British Prime Minister David Cameron is calling for reinforcements to help him deal with the country’s massive debt, which has been caused by nonstop spending, severe recession and declining tax revenue. According to the UK’s Centre for Policy Studies, at the end of 2008, the national debt was 1,340 billion pounds ($2,090 billion USD), which was 103.5 percent of GDP. This figure includes all the public sector pension liabilities such as pensions, and Private Finance Initiative contracts. It’s likely that figures for last year will be even more alarming. Cameron has commissioned Sir Philip Green, the multibillionaire owner of...

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Concerns about Ground Zero mosque are valid

After months of dithering by the White House about the "Ground Zero Mosque" in lower Manhattan, President Obama endorsed the project at an Iftar dinner Friday night. The president said, "... as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances." After a torrent of criticism, the president on Saturday tried clarifying what he meant. "I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there," he said, "I was...

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Big spending weakens our national defense

As Republicans take their case to the voters in November about the Obama administration's massive overspending and record debt, they should seriously consider what could be a rare bipartisan objective: cutting defense spending. Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- a George W. Bush appointee and an Obama holdover -- has announced plans to reduce what he calls the "cumbersome" American military hierarchy. Gates also wants to cut spending by more than one-quarter on support contractors and close the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., which, according to the Washington Post, "employs about 2,800 military and civilian personnel as well as 3,300 contractors, most of them in southeastern...

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Advocating morality doesn't make people bigoted

SAN DIEGO -- A nation that does not see in law a right to life for its unborn children and a court that allows more than 50 million of them to be killed claiming a nonexistent "penumbra" in the Constitution is not about to acquire a moral -- much less a constitutional -- backbone when it comes to same-sex "marriage." The decision by a single, openly gay federal judge to strike down the will of 7 million Californians, tradition dating back millennia (not to mention biblical commands, which the judge decided, in his capacity as a false god, to also invalidate) is judicial vigilantism equal to Roe v. Wade. As this case proceeds through appeals courts, to think another federal judge, one...

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Obama's 'Mission Accomplished' moment

President Obama claims to have kept his campaign promise to cease American combat operations (though not U.S. troop presence) in Iraq by the end of this month. But it's not about his keeping promises about a war and an objective he never supported. It's about whether the mission has been a success. The answer to that question is: We don't know yet. It will be fall at the earliest before a minimally functioning Iraqi government is formed. If the government and the country eventually collapse into chaos and terrorists overrun Iraq, effectively nullifying American and coalition efforts there, it will matter little about the president's campaign promise. More important is our promise to...

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Daring to call it a war on radical Islam

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich may be the most notable public figure in some time to state the obvious: Radical Islam is a clear and present danger to America. In a speech last week at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Gingrich said, "This is not a war on terrorism. ... This is a struggle with radical Islamists." The problem, he said, is that too many leaders are "sleepwalking" and won't face the threat. Ask yourself: If you wanted to infiltrate a country, wouldn't a grand strategy be to rapidly build mosques from Ground Zero in New York to Temecula, Calif., and establish beachheads so fanatics could plan and advance their strategies under the cover of religious...

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National Health Service is coming to America

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told a group of liberal activists meeting in Las Vegas they shouldn't worry about not getting the single-payer provision in the new health care law. "We're going to have a public option," Reid said. "It's just a question of when." Remember the objections conservatives and many Republicans raised during the debate about government-run health care and the danger of eliminating private health insurance, despite its many flaws? Recall that Britain's National Health Service was frequently cited as an example of where the U.S. health system might be headed: coverage for all, but with lower quality, long waits for major surgery and denial of care...

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GOP has to walk the walk on ethics

Given what members of Congress get away with these days, it takes a lot to break House ethics rules. But that's what a House ethics subcommittee has accused 20-term Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., of doing. Rangel might have avoided a trial had he admitted to any of the charges against him, but after 40 years in Congress, it's as if he sees himself as invincible. Rangel will face a jury of his congressional peers, which, to some, might look a lot like organized crime members trying one of their own. According to the Washington Post, ethics inquiries are focused on Rangel's "failure to declare $239,000 to $831,000 in assets on his disclosure forms, and on his effort to raise money for a...

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Outsourcing government services can save money

In another country also called America, there were no credit cards and excessive debt was seen as a character flaw. In that America, my grandparents and their parents had discussions when they wanted to buy almost anything. The conversations focused on two questions: Can we afford it and do we need it? If the answer to either question was "no," they didn't buy it. So much of our personal and public debt in modern America comes from a refusal to ask these questions. We don't need much of what we have and we certainly can't afford it. But we buy it anyway. The recession may be forcing us to come to our senses, however reluctantly. A Wall Street Journal headline on July 19 could be...

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Liberals succeed at our peril

According to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, nearly six in 10 voters say they have "just some" or no confidence in President Obama to make the right decisions for the country. America -- or at least the part of it that voted for Barack Obama for president -- has made a big mistake. Some of those teary-eyed people in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood on Election Night 2008 would probably admit it if they were interviewed. Many bumper stickers still display fading "Obama '08" stickers, but you'd find fewer that read, "Yes We Can!" Politicians are good at sounding good. The minority party promises to be more honest and ethical than the majority and then when it has gained the...

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Have we the will to cut spending?

A gloomy picture of the economy was painted last weekend by the co-chairmen of President Obama's Debt and Deficit Commission when they appeared at the closing session of the National Governors Association meeting in Boston. Former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, former White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton, called the current budgetary trends a cancer "that will destroy the country from within" unless checked by tough action in Washington. So the place that gave us the problem is now going to provide the solution? I have as much faith in Washington curing its overspending as I do a bartender helping an alcoholic swear off drinking. Cancer is the wrong...

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Law, marriage subject to will of the people

A federal judge in Boston ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) passed by Congress (427 members voted in favor) and signed into law by President Clinton in 1996 cannot take precedence over a Massachusetts law allowing same-sex marriage. The ruling again raises serious questions about the origin and purpose of law. But before we get to that larger question, the "logic" of Judge Joseph L. Tauro's ruling should first be examined. Judge Tauro's decision flies in the face of what the federal government has claimed and is claiming in at least two other significant cases. In 1973, the Supreme Court struck down all state laws restricting a woman's right to have an abortion. In its...

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The 'Right Stuff' getting it wrong

Silly me. I thought America's unparalleled space program (before the present administration began dismantling it) was a triumph of American ingenuity, technology, vision and boldness. Instead, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says its "foremost mission" is not returning to the moon, or completing a mission to Mars; rather it is improving relations with the Muslim world. Bolden says President Obama told him he also wants NASA to encourage children to study science and math, but isn't that best done by applying science and math to a robust space program? Obama is boldly going where no president has gone before. It is a continuation of the president's subjugation of himself (bowing to...

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Stop me before I spend again!

Last weekend as America celebrated the 234th anniversary of its independence from Britain, there was a reminder of how increasingly dependent too many Americans have become on our government. The New York Times headline read: "Illinois Stops Paying Its Bills, but Can't Stop Digging Hole." The Land of Lincoln has become a land of mounting debt: $5.01 billion to be exact. That may not seem like much compared to the growing federal debt -- calculated on the National Debt Clock at midday July 4 at $13,189,792,856,331.20 -- but as the late Illinois Republican Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen is reputed (but never proven) to have said, "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're...

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Stop me before I spend again Might as well face it: Addicted to gov

Last weekend as America celebrated the 234th anniversary of its independence from Britain, there was a reminder of how increasingly dependent too many Americans have become on our government. The New York Times headline read: "Illinois Stops Paying Its Bills, but Can't Stop Digging Hole." The Land of Lincoln has become a land of mounting debt: $5.01 billion to be exact. That may not seem like much compared to the growing federal debt -- calculated on the National Debt Clock at midday July 4 at $13,189,792,856,331.20 -- but as the late Illinois Republican Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen is reputed (but never proved) to have said, "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're...

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The court, clubs and discrimination

"I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member." That familiar one-liner has been attributed over the years to the late Groucho Marx, but in light of the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision this week in the case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (UC Hastings), the sentiment it contains may have some contemporary legal relevance. The court ruled that a public university is not required to subsidize campus groups it considers discriminatory. The Christian Legal Society excludes homosexuals and non-Christians. But isn't the court allowing the university to discriminate against the beliefs of the Christian group, especially if the group is now required to admit people...

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U.S. is deporting the wrong man

What should be done with a man who infiltrated the terrorist group Hamas, spied for Israeli intelligence and broke up terror attacks, saving countless Israeli, as well as Palestinian, lives? Most people would say he should be honored. Not the U.S. government. It's trying to deport him. Mosab Hassan Yousef was more than a spy. He is the son of a founding leader of Hamas, which made him among the highest prizes for Israeli intelligence. Yousef and his Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) handler, Gonen Ben Itzhak, were in Washington last week, meeting with whomever would listen to them. Yousef told me -- and Itzhak confirmed -- that he never killed anyone and, in fact, prevented many...

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Bonhoeffer and a Christian's 'privilege to suffer'

June 18, 2010, marked the 70th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle's historic call to arms for the French to resist the Nazis and also Winston Churchill's "finest hour" address. Another anniversary might have gone unnoticed were it not for a brilliant new biography of a man who gave his life in a failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy" by Eric Metaxas is a major biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, published 65 years after the death of this giant of faith. Bonhoeffer came from a family of intellectuals. His father was Germany's leading psychiatrist. His siblings succeeded in their chosen fields. Dietrich became a theologian to the surprise and...

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President's speech missed his targets

President Obama's first address from the Oval Office can be summed up with a song lyric from the 1951 Broadway musical, "Paint Your Wagon": "Where am I goin'? I don't know. When will I get there? I ain't certain. All that I know is I am on my way." Trying to gain momentum he might have had in the initial days following the BP oil disaster, the president took aim at several targets. He is unlikely to hit any of them, with the possible exception of BP, which could conceivably be forced out of business if retribution becomes the goal. Liberals love to beat up on big business, but beating up BP to the point of bankruptcy will not only cost U.S. jobs, but also threaten thousands of...

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Cairo: One year later

One year ago this month, President Obama addressed the "Muslim world" from Cairo, Egypt. Some saw that speech as unnecessary groveling. Critics -- and I am among them -- think such displays communicate weakness and only encourage those who wish to damage our economy and kill our people. Supporters of the president's speech think he did the right thing and that his attempt to reduce tensions between the U.S. and Muslim world can only bring positive results. National Public Radio recalled the Cairo speech with two Muslim guests, Reza Aslan, author of "Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization," and Ahdaf Soueif, an Egyptian novelist and...

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President Superman? Voters aren't buying it

There is a scene in the film "Superman II" where the Man of Steel chooses to give up his powers and become mortal for Lois Lane, the woman he loves. A major part of President Obama's attraction, especially to the many young people who voted for him, was his supposed difference from other politicians. To those naive worshippers, he seemed so above it all, a superapolitical man. The president's declining poll numbers reveal the disillusionment that has begun to sink in among the politically unsophisticated. They are starting to realize that not only is this president not above politics, but that he, in fact, practices the lowest form of the profession known as Chicago-style...

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Helen Thomas retires, not a moment too soon

Anti-Semite: "a person who discriminates against or is prejudiced or hostile toward Jews." Some prejudices are tolerated by elites in this country. Examples: One can regularly smear political conservatives as know-nothings, Evangelical Christians as believers in a fantasy, Roman Catholics for their church's stand against abortion and birth control and Republicans as greedy people who care only about profit and power. Bill Maher regularly serves up a menu of these prejudices on his HBO program. Comedy Central is working on a cartoon series mocking Jesus Christ but altered a sketch featuring the Prophet Muhammad for fear of a Muslim backlash. Some prejudices must be controlled. One...

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Sinking 'climate change'

Three modern myths have been sold to the American people: the promise of a transparent administration (President Obama); the promise of a more ethical Congress (Speaker Pelosi); and the myth of "global warming," or climate change. The first two are daily proving suspect and now the third is sinking with greater force than melting icebergs -- if they were melting, which many believe they are not. After spending years promoting "global warming," the media are beginning to turn in the face of growing evidence that they have been wrong. The London Times recently reported: "Britain's premier scientific institution is being forced to review its statements on climate change after a rebellion...

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Flotilla incident is a rerun

Does it strike anyone else as beyond coincidence that within hours of Israel's commando raid on a flotilla of ships bound for Gaza -- ships supposedly containing "humanitarian supplies," and left-wing "peace activists" -- that demonstrations broke out in Europe and outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington? And how about the U.N. Security Council, which often acts in slow motion, except when it has the opportunity to criticize Israel. It sprang into action on Memorial Day to listen to haters of the Jewish state denounce Israel as if it already knew who was to blame for the nine civilian deaths and the many wounded. The council has now called for an "impartial" and "transparent"...

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GOP 'listening tour' is redundant

Hillary Clinton did it and it worked for her when she ran for the Senate in New York, so now Republicans will give it a go. It's the listening tour, except unlike Hillary, who traveled from town to town, Republicans plan to stay in one place and invite you to come to them. House Republicans announced on Tuesday a new Website (www.americaspeakingout.com). It invites people to submit their ideas in five categories: American prosperity, fiscal accountability, American values, national security and an "open mic" section on which you can recommend anything not covered by the other four. I do not wish to disparage anyone from asking for good ideas, but isn't this what we elect our...

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Textbook wars rage on

Public interest in wars and "man-caused disasters" (formerly known as the war on terror) isn't what it used to be, except when men try to cause disasters, as in the recent attempted bombing of Times Square. But one war that always attracts public attention is the war over textbook content. Shaping how the next generation thinks is as much about politics and the way one views the world as it is about education. The Texas State Board of Education last week adopted new social study and history curricula. After weeks of comments from the public and heated rhetoric between Republicans and Democrats on the Republican-controlled board, board members voted along party lines on what to teach 4....

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