Free Republic

Answer: the people. First of all, the new Rasmussen survey finds 42 percent favoring the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats -- down a bit from a week ago. 54 percent of the public is opposed. 23 percent of all voters strongly support the plan, with 44 percent strongly opposed. Second, there are elections tomorrow. In Virginia and New Jersey, the Democratic candidates for governor will run 15 to 20 points behind Obama’s showing a year ago (in 2008 Obama won Virginia by six, New Jersey by 16). This is a pretty stunning one-year swing in...

Here is video of Bill Kristol on FOX News saying that it is "pathetic" that the White House thinks it is an "excruciating" decision whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. Kristol said "General McChrystal and General Petraeus think this is necessary, this should not be a difficult call." (Watch Video)

Here is video of the Fox News Sunday Panel (begins at 1:25 mark) discussing the resignation of Obama "Green Jobs" Czar Van Jones today. The beginning of the video is a news report on Jones' resignation. Bill Kristol commented that the Mainstream Media did not cover the Jones Controversy. He gave kudos to the great blog Gateway Pundit in particular for their role in exposing Jones (2:27 mark of video). Stephen Hayes said the key question is how did Jones get hired by the White House. Juan Williams said Van Jones was simply a way to attack President Obama, and...

Here is video of conservative political analyst Bill Kristol saying Gov. Sarah Palin may be "crazy like a fox" in her decision to resign as Governor of Alaska. Kristol said the decision is unconventional, and a a "huge gamble," but it just may turn out to be a stroke of genius. Kristol made the comments just after Palin made a speech announcing her decision, yesterday, July 3, 2009. . . . . (Watch Video)

Dick Cheney is reminding Republicans that they need to defend themselves when attacked. When President Obama released the Justice Department interrogation memos a month ago, Cheney denounced him for doing so. He explained why it was inappropriate and unwise to release such documents. But he did more. He didn't just defend himself and the administration in which he served. He fought back, and encouraged others to do so. So while some Hill Republicans were fretting about getting a positive message out and others were launching substance-free listening tours, while GOP operatives were wringing their hands about whether Republicans could recover...

Talk about strange bedfellows. The neocon godfather, who started a new policy group, loves Obama’s plan for Afghanistan. He tells The Daily Beast why Obama is a Democrat he can get behind. For those of you scoring at home, here’s who doesn’t like President Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy: John Murtha and Bill Ayers. Here’s who does: John McCain and Bill Kristol. One place where President Obama has followed through on his post-partisan promise is foreign policy. With centrist national security Cabinet picks, he built on the success of the surge in Iraq and managed to depolarize the most divisive debate...

As members of the GOP bemoan the inauguration of President Obama, far-sighted right-wingers are looking to the future with their own brand of hope. For the latter, the overwhelming victory of National Journal's most liberal senator of 2007 is a definitive repudiation of the pseudo-conservative principles championed by Messieurs Bush and McCain. Indeed, the results of this past election and President George W. Bush's 22 percent approval rating give testament to their ability to reach across party lines: by receiving bipartisan disdain. Now while liberals would bash anyone who doesn't call all their plays from the writings of the Frankfurt...

After Matt Damon called Bill Kristol an idiot in his interview with Miami Herald. Andrew Breitbart offered Matt Damon $100,000 to debate Matt Damon, which Bill Kristol accepted. Apparently, Matt Damon is a liberal activist--big surprise--but he approves of torture? I'm confused too!

All good things must come to an end. Jan. 20, 2009, marked the end of a conservative era. Since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, conservatives of various sorts, and conservatisms of various stripes, have generally been in the ascendancy. And a good thing, too! Conservatives have been right more often than not — and more often than liberals — about most of the important issues of the day: about Communism and jihadism, crime and welfare, education and the family. Conservative policies have on the whole worked — insofar as any set of policies can be said to “work” in the...

Sounds nutty, I know, but Ambinder breaks news that The One’s dining with “conservative opinion leaders” in Maryland, evidently at George Will’s house. Among the attendees: Bill Kristol, David Brooks, and … anyone else? Coincidentally, I got an e-mail from a reader shortly after noon noting that Limbaugh had a surprise guest host today who spent the beginning of the show dropping hints that Rush had been called away to urgent business in D.C. and that it might have to do with something he said yesterday about giving Obama advice. I ignored it — but now they’re dropping hints on...

The Republican Governors Conference Press Guidelines promised that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would “take approximately 20 minutes of questions” at today’s morning press conference. Instead, this press conference, attended by 150 local and national media and taped by 26 video cameras, disintegrated into a fiasco when Texas Governor Rick Perry shut it down after only five minutes and four questions. Eight other governors assembled on the stage, all men, seemed visibly uncomfortable with the “Palin at center stage” format. When Perry stepped in front of Palin at the podium to announce it was over just as it was getting started,...

RUSH: Bill Kristol, writing today an op-ed in the New York Times, says it's time for McCain to fire his campaign. He says that what McCain needs to do is get rid of the whole campaign and start over these last three weeks and make the case for "a broadly centrist conservatism." Now, you know, Bill Kristol and I know each other and I've been a friend of Bill Kristol for a number of years. Bill Kristol, however, was one of the early supporters of Senator McCain back in the 2000 presidential race; and, of course, I was not. Moving...

Now It's Up to the House Republicans Sarah Palin did her job. Now the House Republicans have to pass the bailout. by William Kristol 10/03/2008 1:20:00 AM After a dreadful three weeks for the McCain-Palin ticket, Sarah Palin came through--big time--Thursday night. She stopped the McCain campaign's slide and set up a rebound...if. If House Republicans follow through Friday by passing the bailout bill. The McCain-Palin ticket's slide over the past three weeks hasn't been primarily due to various McCain-Palin campaign missteps--though there have been plenty of those. It's happened as a result of the meltdown of the financial markets....

<p>WASHINGTON (AFP) — Former Republican secretary of state Colin Powell denied Wednesday that he was to appear at the upcoming Democratic convention, in what would have been a coup for White House runner Barack Obama...</p>

Newsflash: look for Chris Matthews to endorse John McCain any time now. After all, the Hardball host apparently believes that only veterans have the right to call for military action. How else can you read Matthews's mocking mention of Bill Kristol today? Here's the entirety of the Hardball host's discussion, on this evening's show, of Kristol's NY Times column of today. CHRIS MATTHEWS: Is Republican Bill Kristol showing the Republican strategy for the next few months? Here's what he writes in today's New York Times as one of their regular columnists. Quote, "we see the liberal media failing to give...

I haven’t read much Karl Marx since the early 1980s, when I taught political philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, it didn’t take me long this weekend to find my copy of “The Marx-Engels Reader,” edited by Robert C. Tucker — a book that was assigned in thousands of college courses in the 1970s and 80s, and that now must lie, unopened and un-remarked upon, on an awful lot of rec-room bookshelves. My occasion for spending a little time once again with the old Communist was Barack Obama’s now-famous comment at an April 6 San Francisco fund-raiser. Obama was...

The Shape of the Race to Come By WILLIAM KRISTOL April 7, 2008 I’ve spent a fair amount of time the last couple of weeks with conservatives of all ages and leanings. Call it my very own listening tour. It began with a series of conversations with a group of Weekly Standard subscribers. Then, last week, I had lunch with the only three conservatives in Cambridge, Mass.; participated in an event in New York with the leadership of Vets for Freedom; mixed and mingled with Republicans before a speech in Michigan; and, on Friday, attended a reception for friends of...

One set of facts, two diametrically different NYT op-eds addressing it this morning. The fact: that Barack Obama is backpedaling as fast as he can away from the hateful anti-American rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright. The op-eds: Bill Kristol's, offering a dose of sobering realism about Obama's feet that if not of clay, then are certainly those of a garden-variety politician. And then there's Roger Cohen's, the Obama fan who, in a bit of breathtaking revisionism, would explain away Barack's moonwalk on the theory the candidate has simply "grown beyond" the mettlesome minister. And Cohen's just fine with that. Compare and...

Perhaps the most obvious way McCain could upend the normal dynamics of this year’s election would be a bold vice presidential choice. He could pick a hawkish and principled Democrat like Joe Lieberman. He could reach beyond the usual bevy of elected officials by tapping either David Petraeus or Raymond Odierno — the two generals who together, in an amazing demonstration of leadership and competence, turned the war in Iraq around last year. He could persuade the most impressive conservative in American public life, Clarence Thomas, to join the ticket. There are other unorthodox possibilities.

Hothead McCain by ROBERT DREYFUSS If you've followed Senator John McCain at all, you've heard about his tendency to, well, explode. He's erupted at numerous Senate colleagues, including many Republicans, at the slightest provocation. "The thought of his being President sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper, and he worries me," wrote Republican Senator Thad Cochran, shortly before endorsing McCain. You've heard about his penchant for bellicose rhetoric, whether appropriating a Beach Boys song in threatening to bomb Iran or telling Russian President Vladimir Putin that he doesn't care what...

In my high school yearbook (Collegiate School, class of 1970), there’s a photo of me wearing a political button. (Everyone did in those days. I wasn’t that much dorkier than everyone else.) The button said, “Don’t let THEM immanentize the Eschaton.” There you see an example of the influence of Bill Buckley, who died last week at age 82. For it was Buckley who had promulgated this slogan, as an amusing distillation of the thinking of the very difficult historian of political philosophy Eric Voegelin. I’d of course not read Voegelin then (there’s a lot of him I still haven’t...

Brit Hume has some blunt advice for conservative Republicans: lay off McCain if you don't want a Dem president. At the very end of today's Fox News Sunday panel segment, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol was first to make a point along similar lines. BILL KRISTOL: I'm more conservative than John McCain but I think it would be a mistake for him to just make himself into an orthodox conservative in this election. The reason he is a stronger candidate than a lot of other Republicans would be is that he is a little bit heterodox. He's got his own...

I like to call myself a moderate conservative. What this means to me is that I try not to let my ideology keep me from changing course when its prudent or let it keep me from making logical decisions. It also means I believe that extremists from the right are as disruptive of the democratic process as are extremists from the left. The reason for this introduction is that I have changed my mind. Previously I supported Fred Thompson for president and said that I could support Romney or Giuliani if nominated, but I would sit on my hands for...

BILL KRISTOL: Look the only people for Hillary Clinton are the Democratic establishment and white women… it would be crazy for the Democratic party to follow the establishment that’s led them to defeat year after year… White Women are a problem - but, you know… we all live with that… [Hume, Williams, Wallace, Liaison crack up] JUAN WILLIAMS: not me… HUME: For the record, I like white women.

The voters had a temper tantrum last week . . . Parenting and governing don't have to be dirty words: the nation can't be run by an angry two-year-old. -- Peter Jennings, November 14, 2004, commenting on the Republican landslide. [C]onservatives . . . can choose to stand aside from history while having a temper tantrum. But they should consider that the American people might then choose not to invite them back into a position of responsibility for quite a while to come. -- William Kristol, February 4, 2008, on conservative aversion to McCain. It's one thing to be bawled...

IN 1972, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, was looking for a conservative columnist for his left-leaning Op-Ed page. At a charity dinner, he wound up sitting next to William Safire, the Nixon White House speechwriter who coined Spiro Agnew’s famous denunciation of the press as “nattering nabobs of negativism.” They soon had a deal. But, as described in “The Trust,” the authoritative history of the family that has controlled The Times for more than a century, Sulzberger neglected to involve John Oakes, his cousin and the editor of the editorial page, in the decision. Oakes...

The New York Times decided to bring another conservative commentator aboard their flailing op-ed pages, still recovering from their years-long cloister of TimesSelect. They chose Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, whose run at Time Magazine recently came to an end. Did liberals celebrate the balancing of opinion at the Gray Lady? Not exactly, as The Politico points out: The New York Times’ hiring of Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol to write for its op-ed page caused a frenzy in the liberal blogosphere Friday night, with threats of canceling subscriptions and claims that the Gray Lady had been hijacked by...

(Political Animal) KRISTOL CLEAR....Recently cast off from Time magazine, presumably for writing shallow, predictable tripe, William Kristol is getting a promotion of sorts. The Huffington Post has learned that, in a move bound to create controversy, the New York Times is set to announce that Bill Kristol will become a weekly columnist in 2008. Kristol, a prominent neo-conservative who recently departed Time magazine in what was reported as a "mutual" decision, has close ties to the White House and is a well-known proponent of the war in Iraq. Kristol also is a regular contributor to Fox News' Special Report with...

Last night, for the first time this election cycle, I watched a Democratic presidential debate. It was appalling. But it was also, in a way, encouraging. Before last night, I thought it was 50-50 that the Republican nominee would win in November 2008. Now I think it's 2 to 1. And if the Democrat is anyone but Hillary, it's 4 to 1. Here, judging from the debate, is what the 2008 Democratic nominee is likely to be for. Abroad: ensuring defeat in Iraq and permitting a nuclear Iran. At home: more illegal immigration, higher taxes, more government control of health...

Congratulations to The Weak-ly Standard. The "conservative" magazine did a wonderful job promoting Democrat senatorial candidates Jim Webb, Harold Ford Jr., and Jon Tester in it's last two issues immediately preceding Tuesday's election. The Standard wrote a long tribute to Webb, calling him a "blood and soil conservative". Despite Harold Ford Jr.'s very low ACU lifetime congressional voting record of 19, the Standard tried to portray him as being similar to his conservative opponent Bob Corker on the issues. Apparently, the magazine was enamored of the notion of having little Harold in the U.S. Senate. But, most outrageously, the last...

by Mark Finkelstein July 22, 2006 - 07:47 Even for a Boston Globe columnist, Robert Kuttner's effort this morning has to go down in the annals of Bush-hatred at its most rabid. Consider these excerpts, annotated with my comments: 'The latest violence in the Middle East demonstrates the bankruptcy of the Bush administration's grand design for the region.' Stay with me - Bob's just clearing his throat. 'The quagmire has demonstrated the humiliating limits of US military power.' Crocodile tears? 'Saddam turned out to be telling the truth about nuclear weapons and Bush turned out to be lying,' Make your...

On a recent edition of the nationally-televised TV show “Fox News Sunday” (4/2/06), neoconservative warmonger William Kristol, Editor of the “Weekly Standard” magazine, admitting that he is “soft on illegal immigration,” said: “I’m a liberal on immigration. I mean, I think the Bush approach is right.” Regarding the millions of illegal immigrants who have violated the law and invaded our country, he added: “What damage have they done that’s so great in 20 years?….What’s happened that’s so terrible in the last 20 years? Is the crime rate up in the United States in the last 20 years?….And they’ve been contributing...

Okay. Let's not talk about substance--since the pro-immigration forces have in fact been winning that debate easily. Let's talk about ballot boxes John McCain, lead sponsor of a bill that resembles the Senate Judiciary Committee bill, has a pretty impressive electoral record in Arizona, a competitive state. George W. Bush, a pro-immigration Republican, has won two presidential elections--as did another pro-immigration Republican, Ronald Reagan. The American people are worried about immigration. In a Pew Survey released last week, 52 percent of Americans saw immigration as a burden, while 41 percent said it strengthened the country; 53 percent support sending illegals...

I had the good fortune, to participate in my second rally in support of Free Speech in front of the Danish Embassy, in less than a week. This one, organized by writer Christopher Hitchens, was all pro-freedom, with none of the hate-filled rhetoric that spewed forth from the mouth of New Black Panther Party leader Malik Zulu Shabazz, at last week’s Anti-Free Speech Rally. Those who arrived early today (the event was from 1-2pm) were treated with the offer of a free Danish pasty. Many of us who received one, choose to hoist these aloft, along with the signs and...

SAMMENHOLD: FOR DENMARK By Michelle Malkin   ·   February 24, 2006 02:46 PM Instapundit has photos of the pro-Denmark gathering at the Danish Embassy convened by journalist Christopher Hitchens this afternoon. Looks like there was a great turnout. Lovely photo spread over at Vital Perspective. Blogger Greg Tinti was also there with camera and reports: The mood of the event was unbelievably positive and all the signs and banners were nothing but respectful. People came to express their solidarity with Denmark and support free speech and that's exactly what they did. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and met some great people too....

Before I start. I am a conservative and have been once since I was a little kid in 1960. I haven’t changed. So, here goes. Poor Harriet! Doesn’t it just make you angry? It sure does me. The idiot conservative elite made a stand just to prove they could. These bunch of hypocrites who go on and on about appointees not getting the right to be voted up or down are now so proud of themselves for doing the same thing. What a group they are: Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Crystal and the rest of...

It isn't just about abortion. To William Kristol, one of the nation's most influential conservatives, the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court breaks a bedrock campaign promise President Bush made to the Republican right about "the future of American jurisprudence." If the Senate confirms the White House counsel and longtime Bush adviser to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Kristol said Wednesday, "Bush would end up not having moved the court to the right at all," despite having appointed both Miers and newly sworn Chief Justice John Roberts. Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and a prominent conservative commentator...

Battle Of The Titanimous Egos: El "Rushbo To Judgment" Rush Limbaugh Vs. George W. Bush, President Of The United States. (They both tell us to "Trust me," so who should we trust? This match will decide who has the most gravitas) In this corner, weighing somewhat more than President Bush, Rush Limbaugh. In the opposite corner, President George W. Bush, Reigning Champion, weighing in at somewhat less than El Rushbo, and incidentally, has less than 15% body fat. Round One: El Rushbo suffers a blow to his ego, and is sent to the corner where his trainer, Donald Trump, will...

IT'S BEEN A BAD WEEK for the Bush administration--but, in a way, a not-so-bad week for American conservatism. George W. Bush's nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court was at best an error, at worst a disaster. There is no need now to elaborate on Bush's error. He has put up an unknown and undistinguished figure for an opening that conservatives worked for a generation to see filled with a jurist of high distinction. There is a gaping disproportion between the stakes associated with this vacancy and the stature of the person nominated to fill it....

Dear Laura Ingraham (AKA Helen of Troy): Shutup And Talk Just as your book Shut Up And Sing disqualifies actors and singers from exhibiting their political preferences because of their lack of expertise, I am asking you to call off the dogs on Harriet Miers. I am not merely a mind numbed loyalist to President Bush; I am only asking that you do criticize Harriet Miers, but not as obsessively - 7/24 - as you have. IOW How about another subject, Laura? You cannot see that you are becoming the elitist that you accuse everyone else of being. Who are...

"If the president meant Harriet Miers seriously, I have to assume Bush wants to go back to Crawford and let Dick Cheney run the country." "Start an Impeach Bush Committee" These statements didn't come from the "liberal mainstream media" or the "wacky left." They didn't come from Dick Durbin or Ted Kennedy. No, it wasn't Barbara Streisand or Sean Penn. The above statements came from conservative icon, Ann Coulter. Many conservatives, myself included, are hesitant about the president's recent Supreme Court pick. However, that concern does not have to translate into divisiveness and mudslinging. The other night, at the Sean...

Philipsburg, St. Maarten YESTERDAY wound up being a good day to be indoors. We spent the entire day at sea, making our way from the Bahamas to St. Maarten, where we arrived this morning. The water had finally flattened out, but the skies were overcast and we had intermittent rain showers. So we were happy to be in the Vista Lounge with our three panel discussions. First was a series on the New Media vs. the Old Media. After lunch Mike Murphy took the stage and regaled the cruisers with tales from Arnoldland, Hollywood, and his many campaign trails. To...

Purging the Neocons January 6, 2004 Did you know that the word neoconservative — often shortened to neocon — is an ethnic slur? Neither did I, but some, er, conservative pundits have set me straight. David Brooks of the New York Times says of “the people labeled neocons” that “con is short for ‘conservative’ and neo is short for ‘Jewish.’” So when other people call these people “neocons,” you see, they’re really calling them Jews, which for some reason is anti-Semitic. This must come as a surprise to Irving Kristol, who long ago cheerfully, indeed proudly, accepted the term. Though...

A controversial White House memo outlining plans for a post-war Iraq that was drafted well before the 9/11 attacks had its origins in the Clinton administration, former Bush 41 White House official Bill Kristol said Sunday. In an interview set for broadcast Sunday night, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill tells CBS's "60 Minutes" that "from the very beginning, there was a conviction [in the Bush White House] that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go." Of White House deliberations on the decision to invade Iraq, O'Neill claims, "It was all about finding a way to...

A senior Democratic Party strategist has private confided that party leaders are "terrified" at the increasingly likely prospect that presidential front-runner Howard Dean will win the nomination. "I had lunch with a senior Democratic strategist this week," Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol told "Fox News Sunday," "They are terrified of Dean." Kristol predicted that the Democratic Party establishment will rally behind the "anyone-but-Dean candidate," but he added, "I don't think they can stop Dean." The rivalry between Dean and presidential hopeful Dick Gephardt is reminiscent of what happened to the Democratic Party in 1972, he noted, when Hubert Humphrey and...

Is Bush a Ronald Reagan or a Richard Nixon? Neocons and Big Government by Bruce Bartlett Posted Aug 21, 2003 For some months, we have been hearing a lot about how neoconservatism underpins the Bush administration's foreign policy, especially the war in Iraq. Now, some neoconservatives are saying that their philosophy underpins the administration's domestic and economic policy, as well. The evidence for this contention is strong, a fact that will undoubtedly exacerbate tensions between President Bush and traditional conservatives. To understand what this debate is all about, one needs to know what neoconservatism is and where it came from....

AS THIS MAGAZINE goes to press, a controversy swirls about the head of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. He is alleged to have "revealed," in an interview with writer Sam Tanenhaus for the Manhattan celebrity/fashion glossy Vanity Fair, that the Bush administration's asserted casus belli for war against Saddam Hussein--the dictator's weapons-of-mass-destruction program--was little more than a propaganda device, a piece of self-conscious and insincere political manipulation. Lazy reporters have been following the lead of the press release Vanity Fair publicists circulated about their "scoop." It begins as follows: Contradicting the Bush administration, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz tells...

The man backed by many in the Bush administration to head Baghdad's postwar government said Sunday that documents uncovered over the weekend show that Saddam Hussein tried to recruit U.S. citizens to undermine the Bush adminsitration's war effort in Iraq. "We have captured a great many files of Saddam's services and there is astounding information about the extent of their networks and their efforts to recruit foreign nationals - including Americans - to work in the Mukabahrat [Iraqi intelligence service]," said Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress. "I think that this is something that must be pursued,"...

Heads up!! It's on now!

Ron Smith's "Something to Say" CommentaryWeekdays at 6:50AM | rsmith@wbal.com | Ron Smith Show Page Neo-Cons: Hey, It's Not Our IdeaMarch 19, 2003    Ron Smith's Something to Say (March 19, 2003) With the curtain about to go up on our war against Iraq, an interesting phenomenon is taking place. The much-discussed neo-con brigade of war hawks is apparently hedging its bets a bit. On the Charlie Rose Show last evening on PBS, the entire hour was devoted to an interview with Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, widely acknowledged to be the chief political strategist amongst the neo-cons. His message was...