Free Republic

This is one in a series examining where the leading contenders vying for the Republican and Democratic parties' presidential nominations stand on the major issues. The series will run through early January when the state party caucuses and primaries begin. If presidential candidates were evaluated solely on the strength of their resumes or the quality of their character, it is likely that John McCain would be leading this year's pack of presidential hopefuls. He is the only major candidate to have served in the military and one of the few candidates in recent history with firsthand experience of the horrors...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Friday that if he wins the party's nomination he will beat Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton "like a drum." Asked if there were any Republicans he hoped to beat in the same fashion, the Arizona senator laughed and said, "I hope all of them." "As your nominee, as a Republican nominee, I will be very respectful of Sen. Clinton. But I will beat her and I will beat her like a drum," he told about 100 supporters outside a small restaurant. "There are fundamental differences between us in philosophy." McCain told reporters after the...

BOSTON – Despite the best attempts by a large contingent of local and national media gathered at Logan Airport here, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, co-chairman of the 9/11 commission, declined today to criticize Rudy Giuliani directly. But the mere fact that he officially endorsed Senator John McCain was criticism enough. Mr. Kean said in a brief interview afterward that Mr. Giuliani had sought his endorsement several months ago. But at that point, Mr. Kean said he indicated that he was not going to be backing anyone, which he said he believed at the time. It had been 20...

"Say it ain't so, Joe." This was the cry of those fans who were rocked by the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Today baseball fans recoil from the headlines that tell us of players who have bulked up their bodies and their stats by their use of steroids. However, there lurks beneath the surface a more hideous case to cause outrage: profiling. Major league baseball scouts are sweeping the diamonds of San Pedro de Macoris and Bani in the Dominican Republic. This goes on while athletes from Belgrade, Beijing and the entire nation of Burundi frolic about without any baseball...

PATRICK BYRNE, a 42-year-old bear of a man who bristles with ideas that have made him rich and restless, has an idea that can provide a new desktop computer for every student in America without costing taxpayers a new nickel. Or it could provide 300,000 new $40,000-a-year teachers without any increase in taxes. His idea — call it The 65 Percent Solution — is politically delicious because it unites parents, taxpayers and teachers while, he hopes, sowing dissension in the ranks of the teachers unions, which he considers the principal institutional impediment to improving primary and secondary education. The idea,...

Police said it was more like a plot for a movie than real life when a taxi cab driver was forced to be the getaway car for a man who allegedly robbed a bank in Salt Lake City. The hunt ended Wednesday, hours later and 30 miles north in Ogden, after the suspect bailed out of the Yellow Cab and was arrested by waiting police. Yellow Dab driver Ali Ahmed originally didn't know the customer in his cab was wanted, but that changed when Ahmed got a cell phone call from a police detective. ``I was very scared,'' Ahmed later...

November 2, 2004 was a glorious day. It was the day the moral majority found its voice. In the end, it was not about politics. It was not about war. It was about values. Why now?

GEORGE W. BUSH received more votes in Tuesday’s election than any Presidential contender in the history of the United States, and I would like to believe Michael Moore was partly responsible.

Nice production.

Defenders of Freedom Defenders of Freedom, that’s what we are! No battlefield too dangerous, no region too far. We’ll march thru the desert with sand in our boots, To search out a tyrant, take aim and shoot. We’ll crawl thru the jungle, hide out in the woods, Sleep in a foxhole, Go for days without food. We’ll fire our weapons, drop bombs if we must, Unless evil surrenders, it’s Baghdad or bust! From the tortured and downtrodden we hear the call; We’ll hammer away till dictatorships fall, We want the needy to know that they’re not alone, Even tho’ some...