Free Republic

I so wish I could support Barack Obama. It would be great -- truly magnificent -- to elect a black president of the United States. Watching the convention coverage on Monday night, I was moved by my friend Juan Williams' almost tearful reaction to Michelle Obama's address. He shook his head in amazement that an African-American woman was in the position she was. And it moved me to see how moved he was. I wish I could send Michelle Obama -- so attractive, so poised, so stylish -- a cyber hug. I'd wager that millions of other Americans, like me,...

Romney is so talented. But two very rich guy Republicans do present problems. Lieberman is a dear man, but would be a disaster. His support for the war in Iraq and for a muscular defense makes him seem moderate. But on everything else he is an orthodox liberal. He has voted against all our good judges, for taxes, and even for partial-birth abortion. That puts him to the left of Joe Biden! John Kyl would be a great pick – a hero to conservatives — except that he’s from Arizona. Sarah Palin is appealing but too inexperienced. Vitiates the argument...

March 21, 2008, 0:00 a.m. Grandma Got Run Over By a Campaign SpeechThe road to universal love is paved with cheap shots. By Mona Charen It’s a mistake to try to pigeonhole Barack Obama. He is too smart and too agile to succumb to easy categorization. But the candidate’s eloquence is often more of a curtain than a window to his soul — and one is left to wonder where his heart truly lies. As George Burns said of acting, “Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Discussing his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who asked...

Bradley Smith, former commissioner of the Federal Election Commission and the leading legal scholar on campaign finance issues, experienced the McCain treatment firsthand. Because Smith opposed limits on political speech, he was denounced as "corrupt" by the senator... The two did accidentally meet outside a hearing room in 2004 when they were both scheduled to testify before the Senate rules committee. At first, McCain grasped Smith's outstretched hand (Smith was in a wheelchair, recovering from surgery), but when he recognized his campaign finance opponent, he snatched his hand back, snarling, "I'm not going to shake your hand. You're a bully....

To the Editor I read Mona Charen’s column on Friday and I had to clear a few things up. Outside of the name-calling (“kook,” as I’m sure you remember, was the attack word of choice used by critics of Barry Goldwater), Charen was way off base. 1. Dr. Paul’s commitment to principle is second to none, so to attack him, Charen twists the understanding of what a presidential pardon really is. A pardon is a constitutional check by the executive branch on the judiciary to protect against cruel or unusual punishment. When considering a pardon, a president examines extenuating circumstances...

Oregon Gov. Theodore Kulongoski called a gaggle of his closest friends to a photo op Tuesday that few could pass up. As part of his "Food Stamp Challenge" week, the governor is attempting to live on a food budget of $21 per week, which is about the average benefit for an Oregon food stamp recipient, according to the governor's press release. Associated Press photos showed the governor pushing a shopping cart and ostentatiously relinquishing a noodle cup and two bananas at the checkout counter when his total topped $21. "Could you feed yourself for $3 a day?" demanded headline in...

The current Republican field is like a smorgasbord at Denny's -- lots of OK choices, but nothing to get the heart racing. That's why the potential candidacy of former Sen. Fred Thompson is creating a palpable stir. Rudy Giuliani ... really is quite liberal on cultural questions that matter deeply to conservatives -- life, gun control, and gay rights. Even if conservatives could live with such heterodoxy, say, by accepting the reassurance that Giuliani would appoint conservative judges, there is still the matter of his psychedelic personal life. To be divorced once is now, sadly, common. To be divorced twice...

Speaking on the Senate floor in favor of the supplemental funding bill for the war in Iraq (and salmon fishers, timber counties, woodland firefighting efforts and other projects), Sen. Barbara Boxer implored the president to sign the legislation. The bill would have required the start of American withdrawal from Iraq by July 1 if the Iraqis failed to make progress toward certain legislated "benchmarks," and by Oct. 1 even if they did make such progress. Her rationale was as follows: The war is lost. We've tried everything and failed. Therefore , it is time for diplomacy. Sen. Boxer speaks for...

It Wasn't About Libby At AllBy Mona CharenFriday, March 9, 2007 I've been catching flak for suggesting that "Scooter" Libby ought never to have been on trial at all. "Aha," say my critics, "we remember how outraged you were at Bill Clinton's 'perjury,' but now that the shoe is on the other foot, you're crying foul. Too bad!" (I've cleaned up some of the language.) If we're going to have a hypocrisy contest, I'd be glad to put into evidence the thousands of liberals who sputtered with indignation at Clarence Thomas's supposed sexual harassment of Anita Hill and at former...

Al Sharpton is apparently subdued by news that his ancestors were owned by ancestors of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert described him as "quiet" and "reflective" — states of mind that Herbert acknowledges are "unusual" for the reverend. That qualifies as the understatement of the decade. Sharpton indicates that the news of his ancestry brought the "complete dehumanization" of slavery home to him, and Herbert takes the opportunity to preach that "Slavery, like the past . . . is not dead. It's not even past. It's not something you can wish away." No, you...

Is Giuliani a conservative? He might just be Last week C-SPAN featured a discussion about Rudolph Giuliani that left me shaking my head. The gist of the guest's message was that Giuliani was a "Rockefeller Republican" who was suddenly transformed into a darling of conservatives after 9/11. Today, Fox News echoed the same theme. That's quite wrong. Social conservatives have trouble with Giuliani, but by no stretch of the imagination is he a Rockefeller (i.e. liberal) Republican. In fact, in many ways Giuliani is the most conservative of the top three candidates for the Republican nomination. He came by that...

A Farce and an OutrageBy Mona CharenFriday, February 2, 2007 "As I was walking up the stair/ I met a man who wasn't there./ He wasn't there again today./ I wish, I wish he'd stay away." -- Hughes Mearns Mearns captures the spirit of Washington, D.C. We are in the midst of a criminal trial concerning the leaking of CIA covert operative Valerie Plame's name to the press. The man on trial did not do the leaking. The man who did the leaking is not on trial. The woman who is the subject of the fictional leak was probably not...

State of the Union: DemoralizedBy Mona CharenFriday, January 26, 2007 The key paragraph in President Bush's State of the Union speech was this: This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we're in. Every one of us wishes this war were over and won. Yet it would not be like us to leave our promises unkept, our friends abandoned, and our own security at risk. Ladies and gentlemen: On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle. Let us find our resolve, and turn...

Letting the PC slip showBy Mona CharenFriday, October 13, 2006 You've probably never heard of Teachers College, but it has profoundly affected your life and is now affecting your children's lives. TC is the graduate school of education at Columbia University and laboratory of most of the "reforms" that have corroded K-12 education over the past 50 years. New math, whole language, open classrooms, outcome-based education -- you name the fad and it probably originated in Morningside Heights in New York. Teachers College is the most influential graduate education program in the country, and like so many leading schools, it...

My alma mater, Columbia University, has just invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak. Keeping up with the Joneses? Harvard (as well as the National Cathedral) hosted former Iranian president Ayatollah Khatami just a few weeks ago. Mr. Ahmadinejad himself chatted up a group at the Council on Foreign Relations following his speech to the UN General Assembly. Establishment America seems determined to seduce Ahmadinejad. The more bellicose toward America he becomes, the more they prostrate themselves at his feet. He's been courted for a sit-down by Mike Wallace, who back-pedaled on a tough question after Ahmadinejad threatened to terminate the interview....

President Bush has made errors, as all humans do, but one thing he has not been guilty of is bad faith. The same cannot be said of his critics. One thinks of those liberals and Democrats who accused President Bush of "lying" about weapons of mass destruction and about ties between al Qaeda and Iraq particularly now, because last week, after an unaccountable delay of three years, the administration declassified and released thousands of documents captured from Saddam's regime. They offer more proof of what we've already learned from other sources: that Hussein was in collusion with al Qaeda; that...

This is one of those moments when you want to grab liberals by the lapels and demand, "Well, what did you expect?" A group called the National Center for Men has filed a lawsuit they are calling "Roe v. Wade for Men." Here are the facts: A 25-year-old computer programmer named Matt Dubay of Saginaw, Mich., was ordered by a judge to pay $500 per month in child support for a daughter he fathered with his ex-girlfriend. His contention -- and that of the National Center for Men -- is that this requirement is unconstitutional because it violates the equal...

There are few less edifying sights than Terry McAuliffe in full battle cry. But alas there was no avoiding him after the Cheney hunting accident. There he was demanding to know why the vice president waited 22 hours before informing the press and shouting that if Al Gore had done something like this he'd be in Leavenworth by nightfall (a dubious if pleasing supposition). The White House press corps was even more insufferable. One reporter asked, "Is it proper for the vice president to offer his resignation or has he offered his resignation?" Another demanded, "Scott (McClellan), would this be...

A modest backlash against the culture Dec 9, 2005by Mona Charen The following is from a new blog: "Waiting to meet an old friend for lunch the other day, my eye fell on the young woman at the table across the aisle. She was attractive, nicely put together in a casual way: T-shirt, jeans, Eskimo-style boots, and a neat ponytail. The lady with her appeared to be her middle-aged mother. Ultimately, I noticed that her T-shirt had some strange writing on it, which is hard to do justice to, while being sensitive to the fact that ModestyZone has some...

True to their heritage in foreign policy, 40 out of 45 Democratic senators voted last week to demand a timetable for withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. As in every conflict since Vietnam, Democrats are hoping not to succeed but to skedaddle. Imagine if the Democrats held a majority in the Congress. The cut and run impulse -- can you call it anything else? -- would become law. Well, the Democrats protest, we cannot condone this war for another minute because we were deceived into supporting it in the first place. We'll return to that risible claim in a moment....