Free Republic

Another tape-recorded message from Saddam Hussein surfaced this week, making it the third audiotape he has released in the past month. If we're really serious about finding this guy, maybe we should start searching Iraq's recording studios. On the tape, Hussein acknowledged the death of his sons Uday and Qusay Hussein and called their deaths "good news" – which is more than the Democrats have said. He thanked God for his sons' "martyrdom." Indeed, Hussein said that even if he had 100 other children, he "would offer them the same path." Apparently the alluring path of martyrdom is not one...

The Howard Dean campaign was forced to cancel events this week in response to events in Iraq (news - web sites). Donations to the Odai and Qusai Hussein Memorial Fund can be submitted directly to the Dean campaign. Dean responded to the passing of these martyrs to American jingoism by angrily announcing that the ends don't justify the means. This is a war we're talking about. Why don't the ends justify the means? (Note to the Democrats: Just because you defended Bill Clinton (news - web sites) doesn't mean you have to defend every government official who is reliably reported...

Earlier this year, the Screen Actors Guild issued a statement lamenting that "those in the public eye should suffer professionally for having the courage to give voice to their views. Even a hint of the blacklist must never again be tolerated in this nation." Feeling the lash of a right-wing blacklist, the Dixie Chicks recently played to an adoring, sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden. But earlier this week, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., denounced a radio corporation's decision not to play the Dixie Chicks as similar to Nazism and McCarthyism. The Dixie Chicks lead singer ridiculed President Bush before...

<p>John G. Adams, a key figure in the proceedings that effectively ended Sen. Joseph McCarthy's career, passed quietly from the scene last week at age 91. Not surprisingly, his death made no news; it's been a while since those heady days when McCarthy launched his investigations of the Army, which had, he charged, been shielding countless Communist agents at Fort Monmouth and elsewhere. It fell to Adams, the Army's chief counsel, to deal with the charges, which he did to devastating effect in the Army-McCarthy hearings that held the nation in thrall in the 1950s.</p>

Few would dispute that she’s a babe. Lanky, skinny, with long blonde hair tumbling down to her breasts, Ann Coulter has been photographed in a shiny black latex dress. She’s whip-sharp in public debates, has done a fair amount of homework and has made a lot of the right enemies. If much of modern American conservatism has made headway because of its media savvy, compelling personalities and shameless provocation, then Coulter deserves some pride of place in its vanguard. But that, of course, is also the problem. In the ever-competitive marketplace of political ideas — in a world of blogs...

On our nation's birthday, it is appropriate to honor the five men who did the most to defend our freedom in the last century. The names are easy to remember – they are the five men most loathed by liberals: Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, Whittaker Chambers and Ronald Reagan. McCarthy died censured and despised at 48 years old, his name a malediction. Hoover is maligned for having been a mad spymaster and is lyingly smeared as a cross-dresser – by people who admire cross-dressers. Nixon was forced to resign the presidency in disgrace. Though persecuted in his...

Will the 'true' imperialist religion please stand up? Media organizations from CNN to the New York Times have all recently admitted to years of lying about conditions in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. They explain that they faced either losing "access" or subjecting their Iraqi employees – and, of more relevancy, themselves – to Saddam's torture chambers. Stipulating for purposes of argument that the media were performing a service to anyone other than Saddam Hussein by being his pimp, rather than just pulling out, it still leaves another devilish question. Why, then, were these same news organizations – CNN and the...

The Viet Cong Admiration Society retreats Historian Paul Johnson refers to the American left's behavior during the Vietnam War as "America's suicide attempt." The firing of NBC reporter Peter Arnett this week proves the nation has fully recovered. Now we don't have to wait 20 years for a history book to tell us that Walter Cronkite lied about the Viet Cong's Tet offensive being a smashing success. The sedition lobby can't compete with the truth available in the new media. As American servicemen swept through Iraq, securing oil fields, rescuing POWs, risking their own lives to protect Iraqi civilians, Peter...

The enemy within Posted: March 26, 2003 6:55 p.m. Eastern © 2003 Universal Press Syndicate Just five days into the war in Iraq and the New York Times was hopefully reporting that despite a thrilling beginning, American troops had gotten bogged down. This came as a surprise to regular readers of the Times who remembered that the Times thought we were bogged down the moment the war began. The day after the first bombs were dropped on Baghdad, the New York Times ran a front-page article describing the mood of the nation thus: "Some faced it with tears, others with...

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was looking a little glum Tuesday night. Last week Kerry gave a speech saying: "Mr. President, do not rush to war!" Rush to war? We've been talking about this war for a year. It's been three months since Kerry duly recorded his vote in favor of forcibly removing Saddam Hussein. In 1991, Kerry voted against the Gulf War, saying the country was "not yet ready for what it will witness and bear if we go to war." Having been taunted for that vote and that prediction ever since, this time Kerry made sure to vote...

What unites the Democrats? A cartoonish view of Republicans. FINALLY THE DEMOCRATS have found their hot issue: The Confederate heart of George Bush, and of Bill Frist, who by virtue of their membership in the Republican party have indicated their desire to live in a slaveholding past. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi--to name just three prominent Democrats--have delivered themselves of the judgment that Republicans and those who vote for them are all closet racists. The demise of Trent Lott was only a smokescreen to hide this dark secret. The liberal interest groups are piling on, and the liberal...

America has gotten over Florida, but he hasn't. HAVING A FAMILY that rears you for greatness can be a mixed blessing at best. Now and then a George W. Bush or a John Kennedy will exceed expectations, but often the outcome is grim. John Adams and his wife Abigail desperately wanted their three sons to be famous lawyers--and president. One of them made it (John Quincy Adams) but the other two broke under the strain and became alcoholic, one dying young and estranged from his family. John Quincy Adams then wanted his three sons to become famous lawyers, and president....

Inasmuch as liberals are demanding that Americans ritualistically proclaim, "Islam is a religion of peace," Muslims might do their part by not killing people all the time. Recently, the Religion of Peace suffered a PR setback when Muslims in Nigeria welcomed the Miss World beauty pageant by slaughtering Christians in the street and burning churches to the ground. At last count, more than 200 people were dead, hundreds more were injured and thousands were left without homes. Also, the Nigerian contestant's chances of winning "Miss Congeniality" were dashed. Leaping at the one chance they had to attract positive press to...

BRISTOL -- Room 157 had the look and feel of a championship bout. The fans sat in cheering sections based on their favorite fighter. The diehards came looking for autographs. Others came to provide moral support. This fight last night, on the Roger Williams University campus, was all about politics. Party politics. It pitted one of the nation's most controversial and aggressive conservatives against the lone Democrat on the Barrington Town Council. Ann Coulter -- a lawyer, author and popular TV talk-show commentator, who has made a career of attacking liberals with a venom that repulses some and inspires others...

Great Gray Lady in spat with saloon hussy by Ann Coulter Before we begin, how happy is Dick Gephardt that he never has to take another four-hour phone call from Barbra Streisand? I did not realize how devastating the midterm elections were to liberals until seeing the Great Gray Lady reduced to starting a catfight with Fox News Channel. It has come to this. The New York Times was in high dudgeon this week upon discovering that Fox News chairman Roger Ailes sent a letter to the Bush White House nine days after Sept. 11. As the corpses of thousands...

There is an old argument between the so-called "realistic" school of foreign affairs and the "idealistic" school. To oversimplify, realists play down the importance of values while emphasising the balance of power as the key to stability and peace. Idealists emphasise the primacy of values and the character of societies as crucial to a state's behaviour toward other nations.While this may make for interesting academic debate, in real life, power and values are inextricably linked. Great powers can influence millions of lives and change history. And the values of great powers matter. If the Soviet Union had won the Cold...

New global warming threat: Hot air on Iraq Ann Coulter Democrats don't think it's too close to an election to be switching Senate candidates in New Jersey, but its definitely too close for a vote on Iraq. All summer, Democrats were huffily demanding that Bush come to Congress for approval before taking any action against Iraq. So Bush comes to Congress for approval, and now the Democrats are indignant he's come to Congress for their approval. This is no time to vote on a vital issue of national importance! It's an election year. Sen. Bob Byrd, D-KKK, tut-tutted the need...

He means what he says Not for the first time we have a President of the United States who enjoys an extraordinary and sustained level of support from the American public but is misunderstood and mistrusted on our side of the Atlantic. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan was often derided in British and European opinion as being no more than a B-movie actor who was not up to the job intellectually. Even when he turned out to be an immensely successful president who pursued his goals on taxation, defence and international relations with great clarity and success a huge proportion...

Being underestimated is George W. Bush's secret political weapon. WHEN IT ALL boiled over that day in September--with a red-faced Tom Daschle denouncing the president from the Senate floor--George W. Bush had already given the Democrats two very bad years. Two years of predictions that never quite happened. Two years of gotchas that never came through. Two years of hopes dashed. Two Septembers ago, let us remember, candidate Bush appeared dead in the water. He misspoke, went off message, blew his big lead. In the debates, surely, Al Gore would finish him. Not quite. Bush won the debates. Then Bush...

Why we hate them I've been too busy fretting about "why they hate us" to follow the Democrats' latest objections to the war on terrorism. So it was nice to have Al Gore lay out their full traitorous case this week. To show we really mean business, Gore said we should not get sidetracked by a madman developing weapons of mass destruction who longs for our annihilation. Rather, Gore thinks the U.S. military should spend the next 20 years sifting through rubble in Tora Bora until they produce Osama bin Laden's DNA. "I do not believe that we should allow...