Free Republic

Q: I saw you perform in Portland, Me., back in the ’80s when you opened for the Pretenders. I had never experienced anything like it. You actually licked my hand. A: I was just really happy to be in Maine — I’m a travel enthusiast. And I’m glad I got away with a lick. But those were pretty mainstream shows. It was an introduction to another part of the American public. I remember there was one gig on that tour at Penn State, and it looked just like “Children of the Corn” — these penetrating blue Anglo-Saxon eyes staring at...

THE curse continues. Regardless of party, it’s hara-kiri for a politician to step into the shadow of even a mediocre speech by Barack Obama. Senator Obama’s televised victory oration celebrating his Chesapeake primary trifecta on Tuesday night was a mechanical rehash. No matter. When the networks cut from the 17,000-plus Obama fans cheering at a Wisconsin arena to John McCain’s victory tableau before a few hundred spectators in the Old Town district of Alexandria, Va., it was a rerun of what happened to Hillary Clinton the night she lost Iowa. Senator McCain, backed by a collection of sallow-faced old Beltway...

The United States lost a long battle when Russia, as it announced on Monday, delivered nuclear fuel to an Iranian power plant that is at the center of an international dispute over its nuclear program. Iran, for its part, confirmed on Monday plans to build a second such plant. In announcing that it had delivered the first shipment of enriched-uranium fuel rods to the power plant, at Bushehr in southern Iran, on Sunday, Russian officials said that while the fuel was in Iran, it would be under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear monitoring agency for...

The White House denied that the report was timed to the Senate debate. But the administration controls the timing of such releases and the truth is that fear of terrorism is the only shard remaining of Mr. Bush’s justification for invading Iraq. This administration has never hesitated to play on fear for political gain, starting with the first homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge, and his Popsicle-coded threat charts. It is a breathtakingly cynical ploy, but in the past it has worked to cow Democrats into silence, if not always submission, and herd Republicans back onto the party line. That must...

I was confident the New York Times would find a way to pour cold water on the Fourth of July. Still, turning to it this morning, I was curious to see just what kind of wet [with that cold water]blanket the Times would throw on our national holiday. And the Grey Lady didn't disappoint, with a sour, melancholy editorial viewing America through the eyes of other countries -- and naturally finding us wanting. Looking Outward on the Fourth begins with a lament over "these very difficult times, four years deep into a war that has turned much of the world...

Now it seems as though George W. Bush might be paying more attention to former Secretary of State James A. Baker III’s Iraq Study Group than he initially let on. For starters, the president’s apparent about-face last week from his earlier rejection of meetings with Iran or Syria falls right in line with one of Baker’s chief recommendations.Baker’s blue-ribbon panel, co-chaired with former Democratic Rep. Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana, unveiled 79 recommendations in December for salvaging Iraq. The 10 members of the group — five from each political party — checked their partisanship at the door to draw a...

The older we get, the more we go to funerals for friends and family. As Benjamin Franklin observed, “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.” This isn’t about taxes, nor about the state funeral for former President Ronald Reagan. It’s about Laurie Russell, and about the value of death. Laurie was the wife of a lifelong friend of mine. She was smart and funny, able and wise. She was a positive influence in the lives of all who knew her. Or, I should say, IS a positive influence, because the benefits of who she was and what she did live...