Free Republic

On Saturday, HBO will air it's much promoted new film Confirmation, a dramatic and biased account of Justice Clarence Thomas' 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings. As many recall, law professor Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment in an effort to derail the hearings and made a career out of making a number of dubious claims. HBO of course, is happy to promote them. HBO and the producers claim the film is an accurate and well researched portrayal of history. Many who were there strongly disagree: A group of former politicians and their aides are bracing themselves for a new HBO...

On Jan. 8, 1962, President John F. Kennedy wrote a letter celebrating the work of James Cardinal Gibbons, who died in 1921. Kennedy, who rarely discussed his Catholicism, did so while describing the Cardinal: "He nobly expresses the essential traditions of my church in the United States ... the deep sympathy for the plight of the working man and of minorities, the steady concern for the betterment of society and mankind." Thus, it was somewhat startling to see JFK's daughter, Caroline Kennedy, invoke her father's name and describe herself as a "Catholic woman" while espousing a passionate defense of abortion...

In a speech resembling a TV re-run (the liberal website The Daily Beast called it "dull"), President Obama accepted his party's nomination for a second term. In doing so, he made the most ludicrous claim of this campaign, indeed, of his presidency: "You didn't elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth." With this president, truth telling remains an unfulfilled promise. Telling Democrats what they want to hear was what the Charlotte convention was all about. Perhaps the only truth-teller at the convention was Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of...

Julian Castro, Mayor of San Antonio, had the honored position of giving the keynote speech at the Democratic Convention. The 37-year-old had a lot of pressure as he was being compared to Barack Obama giving his speech in 2004. Fortunately his grandmother was not there because she would have taken him over her knee and given him a good thrashing. Castro spoke of his grandmother often during the speech, speaking of her coming to America from Mexico as an orphan. She persevered despite never even finishing grade school. She worked as a maid, a cook, and a babysitter, Castro told...

Maybe Democrats have some slick salesmen, like Bill Clinton and our current president, who can sell you swampland and have you convinced that you’ve bought choice beachfront property. But the omission of any mention of God and recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital from the Democratic Party platform, which were in it in 2008, and then the almost failed attempt to add them after the fact, showed the clear truth about the 2012 Democratic Party. It took three boisterous floor votes to add these principles to the platform and listening to the ayes and nays in the third vote, it...

Tampa, Fla., was like the Republican National Convention delegation -- older, more experienced, less excitable. Tampa has hosted the Super Bowl; the city had lots of space and nothing to prove. There was a been there/done that feel to the entire affair. Tampa Bay is used to welcoming visitors and has plenty of nice hotels to host them. You say a hurricane is coming? No worries. They laid out some sandbags, closed up for a night and started up a day later. No need to rush a convention. People don't come to Florida to be in a hurry. Charlotte, N.C.,...

Well, the DNC just wrapped, folks, and it looks like the Prince of Darkness has finally found his political party: the God-booing Democrats! Booing God? Who the heck boos God? I’ll tell you who: Satan, his principalities and powers, devil worshippers and DNC delegates, that’s who. Look, I get Democrats raising hell over a picture of George W. Bush, or Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s hairdo, or a video of Rosie speed drinking gallon jugs of chocolate milk … but God? Really? Hey, media: You can say what you will about Republicans and their foibles, but you’ll never have audio or video...

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel took time off from the busy job standing idle while an alarming number of shootings plague his city to come and party for the week. Were he to have an R after his name, the media would’ve crucified him. But he doesn’t, so let the good times roll. Lilly Ledbetter, self-appointed champion of equal pay for women, took to the stage to extoll the virtues of the Obama administration … which pays women in the White House significantly less than male employees. The irony went both unnoticed by the crowd and unmentioned by the media. Nancy...

Was Villaraigosa living in an alternate universe at the DNC, too?  When the Democrats held a voice vote to modify the platform, undoing the omission of God and Jerusalem, chaos among the delegates ensued. It was clear to anyone watching that a 2/3 majority was not reached, even after three votes were held. After the first vote the chairman began to say,  “In the opinion of the…” then he realized ‘hey, wait a minute, that wasn’t a majority’ and proceeded to finish his sentence, “let me do that again.” He did. The same thing happened and he just stood there,...

Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama and his supporters have been dogged by criticism of his position on Israel. From the very outset of his tenure in office, critics and supporters alike have not been able to shake the sense that Obama is deeply hostile to the Jewish state. Obama and his supporters have responded to every criticism of his treatment of Israel by pulling out a list. Every time his record on Israel is criticized, Obama and his supporters pull out a list of the things he has done for Israel. Just this week, in an op-ed in The New...

"First shot, straight through, that's how you perform under pressure," Barack Obama said in 2008. They played the quote with a video clip of Obama making a basket at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday. Obama knew how to make it look easy, even though it wasn't. When he spoke at the past two Democratic conventions, he was a challenger. "I'm no longer just a candidate," Obama declared. "I'm the president." On the political front, Obama has some impressive victories. "Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq. We did," Obama said. "I promised to refocus the...

According to a new poll by The Hill newspaper in Washington, D.C., 54 percent of likely voters believe President Obama does not deserve another term based on his economic record. With rising gas prices once again punishing working Americans and with fear in the air over unemployment, there is a very good chance that Obama will join Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush as a one-term president. And if Obama goes down, so does the liberal movement in America, which has made great strides over the past three and a half years. Consider the following developments: --Gay marriage is now...

By now you certainly know that the Democrats have been suffering from a self-inflicted injury since their convention began in Charlotte on Tuesday. For the first time in many presidential election years, the word God was omitted from their platform. The platform also failed to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Both of these breaks from Democrat Party tradition were reportedly ordered by Obama. Then … another self-inflicted injury. According to reports, Obama ordered that God and Jerusalem be put back into the platform. That should be easy enough … just introduce an amendment and have the convention delegates...

Mercifully, the political conventions have ended. The political press will keep buzzing over whether Clint Eastwood's unconventional speech helped or hurt Mitt Romney and whether the snafu over Israel and God in the Democratic platform will do any lasting damage to President Obama. Republican reporters will think former President Clinton talked too long, and Democrats will note that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie talked more about himself than about Romney. But they are missing the point. The campaign is about what's happening in America, not what the politicians are saying. At the beginning of 2012, it was easy to note...

Were you shocked when at least 50 percent of the delegates to the Democratic Convention appeared to vote "nay" on recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and reinserting God into the platform? Admittedly, it was high drama -- a truly unscripted moment that laid bare the raw hostility toward Israel that has gradually achieved mainstream status within the Democratic Party. But a surprise? Not really. A Gallup poll released earlier this year showed that 78 percent of Republicans supported Israel over the Palestinians, whereas only 53 percent of Democrats agreed. For the past 12 years, Democratic support for Israel has been...

Charlotte, N.C. -- Going by the conventional rules of American politics, the Democratic Convention this week was an unmitigated disaster. And, going by the same rules, GOP convention was a disaster, too. So, either the rules of American politics have fundamentally changed, or at least one of the parties is taking an enormous gamble. Since the Nixon years, the GOP has enjoyed a marked advantage over the Democrats at the presidential level. Cultural issues -- race, religion, abortion, patriotism -- have worked to the Republicans' advantage. Until Barack Obama's election in 2008, no Democrat has won the presidency without aggressively...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Hide your children. This is what the progressive left's idea of women's empowerment looks like: For the past two weeks, radical feminists from the group Code Pink have paraded across the fruited plain in giant female reproductive organ costumes. The goal is "respect" for women's bodies and women's abortion rights. It's part of the coordinated campaign to fight the right's purported "war on women." The Vagina Puppets' Democratic Party sympathizers, from professional birth control freeloader Sandra Fluke to first lady Michelle Obama, dog-whistled the same messages of "choice" and "freedom" from the convention stage. "We are ......

CHARLOTTE, NC - Day one of the Democratic National Convention was a tale of two events.  Throughout the early evening session -- prior to the major primetime hour -- the proceedings featured angry attacks on Mitt Romney and Republicans, an unshakeable fixation on trivial, minor issues (other than jobs and the economy), and a disquieting, heavy emphasis on abortion and divisive social issues.  Especially unpleasant were the patriotism-questioning shout-fest from former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland ("If Mitt Romney were Santa, he'd fire the Reindeer and outsource the elves!") and the pro-abortion screed from the president of NARAL, a hardcore pro-abortion...