Free Republic

Uday and Qusay killed to keep them silent on lack of WMD? Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift suggested on the McLaughlin Group over the weekend that the in killing Uday and Qusay Hussein, “two intelligence assets who could potentially lead us to the weapons of mass destruction,” the Bush administration “surrendered a major opportunity to uncover” those weapons “unless,” she added nefariously, “they don’t believe those weapons are there.” Later, she equated President Bush’s State of the Union line about Iraq “seeking” uranium in Africa with the tape erasure in the Nixon White House: “The 16 words are taking on the aura...

Rick Santorum stirred up a hornet’s nest with his remarks on homosexuality. But the GOP—and the White House—still love him. Whenever a politician talks about men on dogs, it’s a mistake. Whatever the context, it’s trouble. But Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum didn’t seem to notice, not even when the reporter said she didn’t come to interview him about bestiality. “It’s sort of freaking me out,” she said. THERE’S A FINE LINE between stupidity and bigotry, and Santorum managed both in a flight of prejudice in which he equated homosexual sex with incest, polygamy, bigamy and adultery. He was commenting on...

Reagan Redux Bush wants to starve social programs to pay for massive tax cuts. At least the Gipper was candid about it.April 11 — This is the first war where the rich have been called upon to do less. The rest of America will pay the surcharge for Iraq when services are cut and benefits reduced to make room for the next wave of Bush tax cuts.A HANDFUL OF stalwart Senate moderates dubbed “Daschle Republicans” by The Wall Street Journal will help Democrats hold the tax cuts to half of what President Bush wants, but half is still more than...

  March 28 —  Watching the official military briefings is like living in a parallel universe. It’s the same news but with a different spin.         TO HEAR THE generals, the war is on schedule. There are no surprises. A film clip shows coalition forces handing candy to Iraqi children. Change the channel to get the perspective of reporters on the ground and the images are quite different. Fighting vehicles stuck in the mud; angry Iraqis thrusting their fists at the invaders; humanitarian aid stalled because of guerilla fighting.         Nearly every prediction about...

March 21 — Only hours after President Bush sent his calling card into the heart of Baghdad, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (or his body double) appeared on television as if to taunt Bush that he missed. So began the latest chapter in the Bush family enterprise to track down and kill the man who has been their nemesis for more than a decade.< snip >Daschle is again in the crossfire for criticizing Bush’s failure to resolve the impasse over Iraq with diplomacy. The White House slapped down Daschle and implied he was unpatriotic. “France has a better chance of getting...

    A Lurch Left for the Democrats   The White House loves the thought of liberal Nancy Pelosi as House majority leader. But at least she has a point of view       NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE       Nov. 8 —  President Bush manipulated the prospect of war with Iraq to the point of urging the American people to vote Republican so he would have “allies” in Washington, a loaded term in the current context.   [ ... ]The White House is salivating at the prospect of Pelosi as leader. Republicans see her as the perfect...

<p>When Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan in 1979, [Jimmy] Carter couldn't believe the Soviet foreign minister would sit across from him in the Oval Office and lie about his country's intentions. Carter declined to intervene militarily while various news commentators ridiculed him for his naiveté in trusting the Russians. He pulled American athletes out of the Olympic games scheduled the following year in Moscow, and he angered farmers by barring American grain sales to the Soviet Union. But he didn't do anything that didn't come under the broad heading of diplomacy. A decade later, the Soviets left Afghanistan, their army decimated and defeated, and the cold war ended without a missile being fired.</p>

President Bush wasn’t the only one whose approval ratings soared after 9-11. Voters frightened by the prospect of more terrorist attacks turned to government with a renewed faith in its ability to respond. Congress was a major beneficiary.AS LAWMAKERS RETURN home for the August recess, they’ll be reminding voters of their accomplishments. With the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate facing re-election, does this Congress deserve high marks?In the number of bills passed and signed into law, they compiled an impressive record: a major tax cut, an education bill that allied Bush with liberal icon Ted...

June 21 —  Where is Louis Freeh? Happily gone from government, the former FBI director is making a bundle of money as a senior vice chairman of the MBNA credit card corporation and enjoying life as a suburban father with his wife and six sons.NEVER FOND of the media, Freeh has refused to get drawn into the ongoing controversy over the FBI’s performance in the period before September 11. As a private citizen, he is free to turn down requests from reporters for interviews. The surprising part is that he has also managed to avoid being hauled before Congress. Two...

The Roman Catholic Church, my church, is being lied about, subjected to the obscene rantings of modern-day common scolds, and made a victim of some of the most overt examples of just plain bigotry I have seen in my long life. During colonial times in New England, certain shrewish women notorious for their constant and unremitting harping about everybody and everything were accused of being "common scolds." Those harpies found guilty of the offense were sometimes tied to a chair attached to long poles and dunked like doughnuts in the nearest body of water until they were choking and...

The Catholic Church is under fire in the American press unlike any time I can ever remember. To be sure, much of it is self-inflicted; what is being reported as "news" is, sadly, news that demands coverage. That is something Catholics must accept. But Catholics do not have to accept what follows, the what-this-story-means analysis. Many in the press are using recent Church scandals as fodder for attacks on Catholicism in general, Pope John Paul II in particular, and that is also scandalous. Newsweek's Eleanor Clift has penned a piece on the magazine's Web site that demonstrates just how impossibly...

Conservative Judge Charles Pickering’s nomination was defeated but while the GOP lost this battle, they may have won the PR warMarch 15 — Conservatives have had limited success moving the country to the right through legislation. School vouchers are stalled; abortion remains legal; and Bush’s faith-based legislation has been trimmed back to little more than a tax break for filers who don’t otherwise itemize their returns. The future of these issues lies with the courts, and stacking the courts with likeminded social conservatives is the best hope to achieve the goals of the conservative movement.THAT’S WHY the GOP’s right wing...