Latest from Cal Thomas
Searching In Vain for the Perfect Candidate
November 22, 2011, 8:30 AM EST

Now it's Newt's turn. Having risen to the top in some opinion polls, the former speaker of the House is taking heat for large consulting fees paid to him by the government-sponsored mortgage company Freddie Mac for wisdom a New York Times editorial said was so simplistic it might have come from a fortune cookie.

As Republican presidential candidates rise only to fall when their imperfections are brought to light, Republican voters risk disappointment in 2012 by playing the left's game on their turf and by their rules. What they must do instead is to protect their "product" at a time when the opportunity to hold Barack Obama to one term, while taking the Senate and increasing their House majority, has never looked better.

Penn State's Shame and Ours
November 15, 2011, 5:53 PM EST

"Success with Honor" is the motto of Penn State's athletic program. They got it half right.

The alleged sexual abuse of young boys by former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky is disgusting, outrageous, and immoral. That so many at the school's highest level allegedly engaged either in covering up serial abuses, or turned a blind eye to them in order to maintain the "integrity" of the football program and its legendary coach, Joe Paterno, adds insult to unfathomable injury.

Surprise! Iran Has Nukes
November 11, 2011, 12:52 PM EST

If ever there was a time when "see, I told you so" was warranted, it is now as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports this week that Iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon.

That so many in the State Department over several administrations could deceive themselves into believing claims by the Iranians that their intentions are nothing but peaceful and their sole objective is to develop more sources of electricity for their country reminds me of the Munich Agreement of 1938. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Adolf Hitler, thought they had an agreement concerning Czechoslovakia, shook hands on it, and then watched stupefied as Hitler boldly seized the country, en route to Poland, plunging Europe into greater turmoil.

Herman Cain: The Liberal Media's Latest Target for Personal Destruction
November 8, 2011, 11:38 AM EST

In 2007 when she was running for president, Hillary Rodham Clinton told a fundraising event in Carson City, Nev., "I sure don't want Democrats, or the supporters of Democrats, to be engaging in the politics of personal destruction. I think we should stay focused on what we're going to do for America."

Clinton's husband, the former president, used the phrase at the time of his impeachment proceedings for lying under oath about a sexual dalliance in the White House.

The politics of personal destruction is nothing new. It has been around from the beginning of the country when worse things were said about presidents and presidential candidates than have been alleged against Herman Cain.

Herman Cain's Gauntlet
November 4, 2011, 5:34 PM EDT

When it comes to sex, the media apply different standards to Republicans and Democrats.

Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton allegedly trolled for women, using state troopers as his procurers. As president, Clinton engaged in oral sex with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. He lied about it under oath and was impeached, though later acquitted by the U.S. Senate. Other sexual accusations tainted Clinton, including one that he raped one Juanita Broaddrick. That "everybody lies about sex" and "it was just sex" and didn't affect his public responsibilities, were just two of the exculpatory statements from Clinton's Democratic defenders. James Carville slimed Paula Jones, one of Clinton's accusers, by saying you never know what you'll find "when you drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park."

Picture This: Why Pre-Abortion Sonogram Requirements Make Sense
November 1, 2011, 6:25 AM EDT

U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Eagles last Tuesday granted a request for a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocks a provision in North Carolina's new abortion-restriction law that would require women seeking an abortion to view an ultrasound image of their womb within four hours of the procedure.

In her decision to suspend this one requirement, while upholding other provisions in the law pending resolution of the lawsuit by several plaintiffs, Judge Eagles said the ultrasound requirement likely violates patients' First Amendment rights. Come again?

Bobby Jindal's Triumph
October 27, 2011, 12:01 AM EDT

Republican Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana last weekend won re-election with a staggering 65.8 percent of the vote in a state that remains heavily Democratic. It is, the governor's office contends, the highest percentage achieved by a candidate since the state's open primary was created. Jindal won all of the state's 64 parishes, increasing by four the number of parishes he won in 2007.

One might expect this to be big news beyond the state, but most newspapers and TV media outside Louisiana either buried Jindal's win on inside pages and deep into their newscasts, or ignored it.

Could Mitt Romney be 2012's Al Smith?
October 14, 2011, 6:30 PM EDT

It was said of Al Smith, a Roman Catholic, that if he won the 1928 presidential election he would take orders from the Vatican and not uphold the Constitution.

John F. Kennedy famously confronted that anti-Catholic prejudice in a 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. Kennedy said in part, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the president -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote..."

The Innovation Deficit
October 11, 2011, 6:35 AM EDT

The death of one of the great innovators of our time, or any time -- Steve Jobs -- brings a question asked by Pete Seeger in another context. To paraphrase: Where have all the (creative) people gone; long time passing. Jobs and fellow computer innovator Bill Gates represent if not a vanishing breed, then at least one that might be classified, were it an exotic animal, as endangered.

In a country that used to encourage, promote, honor and reward innovation, why does there now seem to be far fewer innovators? In our past, they propelled us to higher standards of living and made life more enjoyable and comfortable. If you missed them while studying sex education in school, try Googling "inventors and innovators" and see what pops up.

GOP Shouldn't Look for a Political Messiah in 2012
October 3, 2011, 11:14 PM EDT

Listening to some establishment Republicans grousing about the field of GOP presidential candidates should serve as a warning. Republicans, if they are not careful, are in danger of catching the same virus that infected Democrats in 2008.

That would be a messiah complex, the belief that one man (or woman) can deliver us from our collective economic, social and foreign policy "sins" and bring redemption to a nation from the consequences of too many wrong-headed choices.

Uncle Sam's Paying the Dead While Taxing Us to Death
September 27, 2011, 10:46 AM EDT

There isn't much about dysfunctional government that shocks me anymore, but this story did.

According to a report by the Office of Personnel Management and reported in Ed O'Keefe's "The Federal Eye" column in the Washington Post, our government has been sending checks to dead people. "In the last five years," O'Keefe writes, "the Office of Personnel Management has made more than $601 million in payments to dead federal retirees, according to the agency's inspector general. Total annual payouts range between $100 million and $150 million."

Texas (Partially) Explained
September 22, 2011, 4:39 PM EDT

The cultural and media snobs are trying to explain Texas to those who don't know the difference between a steer and a bull. If you fall into this category, a steer has been castrated -- a bull has not. I'll leave any analogy to East and West Coast elites for you to sort out.

People who are from Texas, or have lived there, are devoted to it and I never truly understood why until I lived there ... twice. Texans speak of their state with an affection one doesn't often hear from Oregonians or Michiganians. No matter what city they are from, Texans almost always add "Texas" when they introduce themselves, apparently to avoid confusion, as though there were another Nacogdoches or Cut and Shoot anywhere else in the world.

If Israel Disappears
September 20, 2011, 3:15 PM EDT

The world -- or at least the large part of it that hates Israel and wishes it would go away -- moves a step nearer that goal this week when the United Nations votes on whether to recognize a Palestinian state. The vote violates the Declaration of Principles signed by the PLO in 1993, which committed the terrorist group and precursor to the Palestinian Authority to direct negotiations with Israel over a future state. This violation is further evidence the Palestinian side cannot be trusted to live up to signed agreements and promises. Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick rightly calls the prospective UN vote "diplomatic aggression."

Ron Paul Was Right
September 16, 2011, 11:01 AM EDT

In the Republican presidential candidates debate Monday night in Tampa, CNN's Wolf Blitzer posed a hypothetical question. Normally, a hypothetical question should not be answered, but in this case it revealed something about the questioner and sparked a controversial, but necessary answer from Rep. Ron Paul.

For those watching the two Monday Night Football games, the question was: "A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I'm not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I'm healthy, I don't need it. But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it. Who's going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?"

Reasons to Remember 9/11
September 9, 2011, 3:53 PM EDT

The show business publication "Variety" reports "40-plus programs expected to commemorate 10th anniversary of (9-11) attacks." And those are just the specials. They don't include reports within news programs, or overseas TV memorials, which began last month.

How we love our anniversaries. Whether it's "the Maine," "Pearl Harbor" or "9-11" we choose to remember, the question is "Why?" Why remember? To honor the dead? Yes, that is a good reason. How about to remember loved ones and survivors? That, too, is commendable.

A Plan That Works
September 5, 2011, 11:22 PM EDT

This will be a stretch for some, but stay with me. Suppose someone presented a plan that is guaranteed to achieve the objectives everyone (or almost everyone serious about such matters) agrees are necessary to create jobs, end our financial dependence on China, reform the tax code and repair Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid so they not only continue to support people now, but ensure the health and welfare of future generations.

Would the politicians accept this gift from the political gods? Or would they prefer the dysfunction that characterizes virtually everything they do and prevents solutions, guaranteeing instead the continuation of the issue for partisan political gain?

Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue
September 1, 2011, 7:00 AM EDT

In advance of a "major speech" on the economy and jobs, President Obama has selected Princeton University professor Alan Krueger to be chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Krueger is no relation to the horror film character Freddy Krueger, though if his ideas are implemented, they might further "slash" the economy.

Alan Krueger is the latest in a long line of professors and academics to populate this administration. Few, if any, have held real jobs in the private sector. They are mostly theorists, whose theories are often proved wrong, but in academia, as well as in government, being wrong rarely disqualifies one from a leadership post. Intentions are all that matter.

The Tide and Marco Rubio
August 30, 2011, 12:05 AM EDT

In my high school days before sex and environmental education and the general dumbing down of the population, memorization of some Shakespeare was expected in Miss Kauffman's 12th-grade English class. A favorite I still recall is this line spoken by Brutus in "Julius Caesar": "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries..."

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) repeatedly says in various ways it is too soon, or he isn't ready, for higher office, such as vice president. He's been in the Senate for a little more than seven months and has delivered only two major speeches -- his maiden speech on the Senate floor and one last week at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

To the Shores of Tripoli
August 25, 2011, 8:00 AM EDT

Name a single Arab or Islamic state, which, after a revolution that has overthrown a dictator, came to embrace political pluralism, religious tolerance and equal rights for women.

You can't, can you?

Yes, Virginia There Is a Surplus
August 23, 2011, 8:00 AM EDT

While the federal government continues to drown in a sea of debt, several states are reporting surpluses, thanks to policies Washington would do well to emulate.

Nowhere has the economic turnaround been more immediate than in Virginia. When Governor Bob McDonnell took office in January 2010, he was faced with a $2.2 billion shortfall bequeathed to him by outgoing Democratic governor (and now Senate candidate) Tim Kaine. In less than two years, McDonnell has delivered two budget surpluses without raising taxes or causing harm to the "most vulnerable." Instead, he has judiciously cut spending.