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One ballot for the Republican candidate for US Presidential nominee has favoured Newt Gingrich while a recount elsewhere gave Rick Santorum support so where does that put Mitt Romney's campaign as well as the candidate race as a whole? Transcript HEATHER EWART, PRESENTER: Just days ago Mitt Romney looked like he was on track to be the Republican presidential nominee. But his political fortunes have changed with a decisive win by the controversial former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the South Carolina primary at the weekend. The contest will now drag on for a lot longer than Mitt Romney and...

Newt Gingrich has told voters in South Carolina not to vote for Rick Santorum because Santorum can’t defeat either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama. In particular, Gingrich made an appeal to conservatives: “If you're a conservative, just look at the polls. I am the only candidate capable of stopping a moderate from winning the nomination.” Indeed, Gingrich claimed, “If you vote for Sen. Santorum, in effect you’re voting for Gov. Romney to be the nominee because he's not going to beat him. And the only way you can stop Gov. Romney for all practical purposes is to vote for Gingrich. That's...

The first time one of Ron Paul's supporters called me a Neocon I was insulted and hacked off which was exactly the response the name caller was looking for. However since then, the more times I have been called that the more enamored to it I have become. Yes....I admit it...I am a Neocon. Thank you for labeling me as such, all you napalm spreading Paul-ites who are the self-proclaimed "Defenders of the Faith", "Proclaimers of the Truth" and "The Founding Fathers Favorites". Your name calling has finally produced something meaningful. The American Heritage Dictionary's definition of neoconservativism is "an...

With a little more than two weeks to go before Republicans begin voting in presidential caucuses and primaries, the GOP faces the possibility of a muddled result in Iowa; a primary race that may take months of bitter campaigning to resolve; and a large number of Republican voters who remain unhappy with the current presidential field.  Some of those voters are still hoping another candidate might enter the race. That is why a new article from former Florida governor Jeb Bush is likely to attract attention from voters and political analysts alike.  In the Wall Street Journal, Bush has written...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that we do not know who the GOP presidential nominee will be: It could be Mitt Romney—though our warnings in this space a couple of weeks ago that his victory is by no means inevitable seem increasingly justified by the dynamics of the race. The nominee could be Newt Gingrich—whose rise in the polls has been spectacular, and whose skills and appeal are still widely underestimated by many elites, including conservative elites [....] It could be someone not yet in the race. If the Gingrich surge turns into a Newt bubble, and if...

Republican pundit Bill Kristol told the FOX News Sunday panelists today, “Let’s be honest, (Herman Cain) is not going to be the nominee. He was never going to be the nominee.” Kristol also said the charges against Clarence Thomas were different than the charges against Herman Cain.

On Fox News Sunday today, Bill Kristol threw cold water on Herman Cain‘s presidential candidacy, arguing that regardless of his popularity among conservative voters and whether or not his sexual harassment scandal will end up helping or hurting him, there was very little chance in the first place he was ever going to be the Republican nominee. Chris Wallace brought up Cain’s contentious exchange with a reporter last night over the allegations over his sexual harassment controversy, and asked the panel if there was a connection between what Cain is currently going through and what Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas...

Now, this piece in the New York Times illustrates the obstacles Tea Party lawmakers are up against. All these Republican freshmen in the House, for example, this article makes it plain how difficult their job is. There's even a section in this story on compromise, the bad kind of compromise, the kind of compromise that Republicans have been known for, get along with the Democrats, please the media, show that we're not the unreasonable Tea Party types. That's what's shaking down here. The Tea Party is under assault from the Democrats and the Republican elite, and now the battle has...

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, there's a big piece in the New York Times Magazine coming this weekend. It is entitled: "Does Anyone Have a Grip on the GOP?" The subhead: "The Republican Elite Tries to Take Its Party Back." This article prints like 24 pages. It is a major, major New York Times Magazine piece. It confirms everything that I have thought, everything I have speculated, everything I have said about the battle between the Republican elite and the Tea Party. I can't read the whole thing on the program; I don't intend to. I've got some highlights or quotes...

Step 1: The first rule of the establishment is: Do not admit you are part of the establishment! Step 2: Disarm them with praise Step 3: Moderate whoever they pick as the 2012 nominee. Step 4: Teach them about compromise. Step 5: Never forget reality

As the Republican presidential lineup takes shape, party elites are increasingly voicing a common theme: disappointment. “These are very weak frontrunners,” Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard said today on Fox News. Former Republican Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee declared frontrunner Texas Gov. Rick Perry “not prepared for the pressure of the presidential stage yet.” Perry entered this weekend’s Florida straw poll heavily favored and with a Texas-sized swagger, saying, “It’s great to be in the state that picks presidents. That’s what Florida does.” He left humiliated and humbled — a distant second to Herman Caine, the man...

ACU Announces Ann Coulter Will Join CPAC FL For Immediate Release: August 3, 2011Contact: Kristy Campbell, (703) 836-8602, KCampbell@conservative.org   ACU Announces Ann Coulter Will Join CPAC FLAll-star Panels to Feature Bill Kristol, Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed and Jim Talent ALEXANDRIA, VA – The American Conservative Union (ACU) today announced eight-time New York Times’ bestselling author Ann Coulter will be a headliner at CPAC FL – the organization’s first in an inaugural series of regional events expanding on the legacy of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Additionally, ACU announced several national conservative leaders will serve on CPAC FL panels, including the founder...

In case anyone missed it, Governor Palin gave an excellent interview on Fox News Sunday this morning. She gave crisp, clear answers to all questions posed to her by Chris Wallace. The topics ranged far and wide from Afghanistan and Libya to energy, the economy, taxes, the debt ceiling, the 2012 election, and Obama’s miserable presidency. Wallace, by no means a conservative, said after the interview that Governor Palin was “a serious candidate for president” and had given a “boffo performance” in the interview. However, after Governor Palin’s interview had concluded, the show quickly went off the tracks when the...

Sarah Palin has parted ways with the neoconservative foreign policy advisers who had been writing speeches and advising her on policy since she joined the McCain campaign. An aide to Palin, Tim Crawford, confirmed that Orion Strategies' Randy Scheunemann and Michael Goldfarb are no longer working for her PAC. They parted, both sides said on good terms. "Randy flat out said, 'We can't give you the time,'" Crawford said. (snip) Crawford said they've been replaced by Peter Schweizer, a writer and fellow at the Hoover Institution who blogs regularly at Andrew Breitbart's Big Peace. The personnel shift carries an ideological...

Here is Bill Kristol’s comment on the speech the President gave last night justifying his aggression in the name of humanitarian values against Libya (yah I know Moammar is a bad guy) but not say Iran or Syria, or for that matter the terrorist enclaves of Gaza and the West Bank which are not even sovereign states: “The president was unapologetic, freedom-agenda-embracing and didn’t shrink from defending the use of force [which is undoubtedly why he deferred to the kleptocracies of the UN, surrendered command over American troops to a Canadian general and basically washed his hands of responsibility for...

President Obama’s unapologetic, freedom-agenda-embracing, not-shrinking-from-the-use-of-force speech. I knew pretty early on during tonight’s speech that President Obama had rejoined—or joined—the historical American foreign policy mainstream. It was when he mentioned Charlotte (the city, not the spider): At this point, the United States and the world faced a choice. Gaddafi declared that he would show “no mercy” to his own people. He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment. In the past, we had seen him hang civilians in the streets, and kill over a thousand people in a single day. Now, we saw...

Today’s moronic quote of the day belongs to Weekly Standard (Weakly Standard?) editor Bill Kristol, and it wasn’t even close. Via CBS News (emphasis mine): “I have a high regard for Sarah Palin, but I will say I’ve been disappointed since she resigned as governor,” he said. “I thought she had a real chance to take the lead on a few policy issues, do a little more in terms of framing the policy agenda. I don’t think she’s done that." So, according to this beltway genius, she hasn’t taken the lead on ”policy issues” or helped with “framing the policy...

Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol was among Sarah Palin's earliest Washington admirers, and helped bring her to the national stage, but he said this week that while he still admires her, he questions her choices and doesn't think she should be the Republican nominee for president.

<p>We’d like to think that women in power would somehow be less pro-war, but in the Obama administration at least it appears that the bellicosity is worst among Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and Samantha Power. All three are liberal interventionists, and all three seem to believe that when the United States exercises military force it has some profound, moral, life-saving character to it. Far from it. Unless President Obama’s better instincts manage to reign in his warrior women – and happily, there’s a chance of that – the United States could find itself engaged in open war in Libya, and soon. The troika pushed Obama into accepting the demands of neoconservatives, such as the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, Joe Lieberman and John McCain, along with various other liberal interventionists outside the administration, such as John Kerry. The rode roughshod over the realists in the administration.</p>

The night they drove old Hosni down — and all the neo-cons were singing. Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol was the kapellmeister. Prior to the exit of Beast Mubarak, Kristol (in yet another of his Olympian pronouncements), thundered: “The United States must support the Egyptian awakening, and has a paramount moral and strategic interest in real democracy in Egypt and freedom for the Egyptian people. The question is how the U.S. government can do its best to help the awakening turn out well.”How do we know neo-cons aren’t really conservatives? Conservatives are realists. They confront reality without ideological blinders. They...

I know and fully understand how and why Glenn Beck has his detractors even on the Republican side of the aisle. I think he brings a lot of good stuff to the table and sees the world in a way that somebody needs to see it...I mean...how many Limbaugh clones do we really need anyway?Since the weekend the left has been "getting the popcorn" and preparing for what they expect to be a good show as their pundits are trying to stoke the flames of a Glenn Beck/Bill Kristol feud that started over this: But hysteria is not a sign...

<p>Bill Kristol, the influential Weekly Standard editor, is a famously opportunistic pundit. So it's very bad news for Sarah Palin that even Kristol appears to have given up on a Palin presidential campaign this year.</p> <p>Kristol went out of his way on MSNBC this morning to express disappointment with Palin, a striking shift for a man who has been Palin's most prominent champion in the press since he met her on a cruise in Alaska in 2007.</p>

Glenn Beck is "marginalizing" himself with conspiracy talk about Egypt's anti-Mubarak protests and evoking memories of the John Birch Society's Communist-conspiracy talk of the 1960's, leading conservative pundit William Kristol wrote over the weekend. The Fox News pundit hit back on his Monday radio show, saying that Kristol is abandoning conservatives and fails to fathom an unholy alliance between Islamic activists and socialists. "I don't even know if you understand what conservatives are anymore, Billy," Beck said. "People like Bill Kristol, I don't think they stand for anything anymore. All they stand for is power. They'll do anything to keep...

Bill Kristol is entitled to his optimism about democratic revolutions in the Islamic world. Perhaps the elections in Egypt will turn out better than those in Gaza where Hamas now rules a terrorist state; Iraq, which has instituted an Islamic Republic; Lebanon, where Hezbollah now rules a terrorist state; and Afghanistan, which is a kleptocracy wooing the terrorist theocracy in Iran. What he should not be doing as a conservative leader is demonizing Glenn Beck, who has done more to educate Americans about the unholy alliance between the secular left and the Islamic jihadists than anyone else. Kristol needs to ...

By Kristinn Taylor and Andrea Shea King Conservative and liberal intellectual titans took turns this weekend savaging radio and TV talk show host Glenn Beck for his reporting this past week on the alliance between the communist left and radical Islamists. Beck has credited our reporting at Big Government and Big Peace.Code Pink banner ad as it appeared on the website of The Muslim Brotherhood, January 2010. In attacking Beck, the trio of D.C./N.Y. elitists displayed a disturbing ignorance of our Nation's enemies and their tactics to undermine the West and its allies as well as infiltrate Western political establishments--including...

Fox News's Glenn Beck lashed out at Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol on his radio show this morning, accusing Kristol of betraying conservatism and missing the significance of what Beck sees as an alliance between Islamism and socialism. "I don't even know if you understand what conservatives are anymore, Billy," Beck said in his extended, sarcastic attack on Kristol. "People like Bill Kristol, I don't think they stand for anything any more. All they stand for is power. They'll do anything to keep their little fiefdom together, and they'll do anything to keep the Republican power entrenched." --snip-- Beck, in...

Our friend Charles Krauthammer began his column last week by asking, “Who doesn’t love a democratic revolution? Who is not moved by the renunciation of fear and the reclamation of dignity in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria?” Some on the right, that’s who. It’s understandable that conservatives should be wary of people taking to the streets—even when they are entitled to do so. It’s also reasonable for conservatives to warn of the unanticipated consequences of ostensibly hopeful developments. As Krauthammer puts it, “All revolutions are blissful in the first days. The romance could be forgiven if this were Paris...

Sarah Palin yesterday accused Julian Assange of a "treasonous" act, and urged the US to "use all necessary means" to hunt him down like an al-Qaeda terrorist. Sounds an awful lot like calling for Assange to be taken out, notes Peter Grier at the Christian Science Monitor. Palin is also pushing a link on her Facebook page to William Kristol's position that the CIA "neutralize" the WikiLeaks founder. Assange hasn't yet been charged with a crime linked to the leaks, notes Grier. In any case, the US can't charge him with "treason" because treason only occurs when a citizen turns...

Paging Rick Sanchez! The recently-canned CNNer could be perfectly placed to mediate the incipient feud between two media types who, as Sanchez might say, are "a lot like Jon Stewart" . . . Mark Halperin has called Bill Kristol's theory that Rahm Emanuel's run for mayor of Chicago is a pretext to get him out of the White House "misguided, insane and absurd." The Time editor and MSNBC analyst was reacting to a clip aired at the top of today's Morning Joe of Kristol expounding his notion. Halperin knew he was about to stir things up, rhetorically asking "is it...

J Street, the pro-peace process political action committee and lobby, already had a lot on the line in Pennsylvania’s hotly contested Senate race, where it has bet heavily on Democratic nominee Rep. Joe Sestak. But the ante was raised this week with the creation of a new group including Republican heavy hitters William Kristol and Gary Bauer that launched with hard-hitting television ads accusing Sestak of being hostile to Israel. Sestak, who beat Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary in May, is “a perfect example of an elected official running for higher office who uses these rote, throwaway phrases...

Ann Coulter's recent column "Bill Kristol Must Resign" may have officially kicked off the next great schism within the conservative movement. At issue is the war in Afghanistan -- and, more specifically, whether Republicans should support President Obama's approach to a conflict that has now lasted for Americans far longer than World War II. Mocking neoconservatives, Coulter wrote: "Bill Kristol [editor of The Weekly Standard] and Liz Cheney have demanded that [Michael] Steele resign as head of the RNC for saying Afghanistan is now Obama's war -- and a badly thought-out one at that. (Didn't liberals warn us that...

Here is video of Bill Kristol saying that the Massachusetts Senate race is evidence of a "popular revolt" against ObamaCare. (Video)Kristol said that he thinks Scott Brown will probably win "if he can hold off the Democrat assault over the weekend."

In his opening remarks on Fox News Sunday this morning, Bill Kristol set forth a stinging indictment of the Obama admin's handling of the war on terror. His two-minute monologue amounted to a devastating bill of particulars: * It was a mistake to treat Abul Mutallab as a criminal defendant rather than as an enemy combatant: "Mr. Brennan [Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser who appeared earlier] said to you that we're very worried that there're other Abdul Mutallabs out there. This Abdul Mutallab was out there for four months. He might know who the others are. He might know their names....

Here is video of the Fox News Sunday Panel briefly discussing President Obama's "bow" to the Emperor of Japan. Bill Kristol said Sarah Palin "would not have bowed - She would not have even curtsied." Seriously, Kristol said he met the Emperor along with Vice-President Quayle during the George H.W. Bush Administration, and he said neither of them bowed, and that the U.S. Embassy did not tell them it was protocol to bow. . . . (VIDEO)

Here is video of the "Fox News Sunday" panel discussing the decision to try the 9/11 terrorists in NY. Bill Kristol said that the trial will be "a disgusting circus" and that "were going to have another O.J. Simpson trial in New York." Juan Williams said the trial will be "a restatement of American values" and called 9/11 a "crime." Liz Cheney responded saying "it is completely inappropriate and dangerous to keep calling it a crime, it wasn't a crime, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not a criminal, he is an enemy combatant of the United States, this was a terrorist...

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...