Free Republic

Around the time that President Clinton got into hot water with Monica Lewinsky in 1998, wife Hillary coined the phrase "vast right-wing conspiracy" to denote the supposed nefarious, political forces that were determined to bring her husband down and cause him to leave office. Personally I think Hillary was a bit off in her assessment of Clinton's enemies (personally I think Bill Clinton was his own worse enemy)but 13 years later I think we do have a vast right-wing conspiracy set up to derail the Presidential ambitions of Sarah Palin. In the past I focused more on the Left and...

I’ve noticed that George Will and Charles Krauthammer have taken time out of their many TV gigs to trash Sarah Palin. Other prominent conservatives seem to relish dissing the former Alaska governor. David Frum, Joe Scarborough, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, Chris Christie; don’t forget Kathleen Parker, who parleyed her Palin envy into a CNN talk show that no one watches. This is not an attack on these conservatives. I read them all and often find a lot of worth in what they opine. I don’t understand why they actively, often unprompted, go out of their way to bash Palin. I...

David Brooks seemed to be having a coherency challenged moment during his latest scheduled conversation with fellow New York Times columnist, Gail Collins. First Brooks excused what Connecticut senatorial candidate Richard Blumenthal falsely claimed about being a Vietnam combat veteran as an "accident": As for Blumenthal, my guess is he survives his little brush with mendacity. The Connecticut Democrat accidentally said he was a combat veteran, when in fact he never served in Vietnam. Could happen to anyone! A moment later, Brooks reversed course and admitted that Blumenthal lied but, eh, no big deal: The claim is dishonorable, but everybody...

Kathleen Parker has an interesting little shtick. Few noticed her when she was writing from a conservative point of view...until she started attacking conservatives about a year ago. Then she went whole hog and has made a lucrative new career of attacking conservatives...while still going through the motions of pretending to be conservative. Parker's latest column on the topic of townhall protests is but the latest in her role of pretend conservative. Here is how "conservative" Parker refers to those protesters: Generally considered a fringe group, the demonstrators have been described derisively by Democratic leaders. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed...

Sarah Palin's announcement of her resignation as governor of Alaska may be the end of her political career or, as some speculate, the real beginning. What seems clear is that Palin is not conservatism's new hope but its dead end. In recent days, this has been amply confirmed by the arguments of Palin defenders, focused less on her presumed merits than on her presumed injuries at her enemies' hands.Thus, Ross Douthat, the new conservative voice at the New York Times, hails Palin as Everywoman—living proof you can aspire to the White House without an Ivy League degree—and deplores her abuse...

Sarah Palin’s resignation and Mark Sanford’s downfall have renewed the media meme that the GOP is “leaderless,” therefore doomed. Google “Republican leaderless” and you get more than 38,000 results. The GOP has very real problems, but this one is mainly hype. In American politics, the -party that is out of power is naturally leaderless. The United States does not have a parliamentary system with one person heading the opposition. In our system of federalism, bicameralism, and separated powers, the party that does not hold the presidency has many voices. In search of drama, however, journalists depict this normal state of...

Reihan Salam, an influential young player in the effort to revive the Republican Party, writes this weekend that Sarah Palin's resignation is another sign of the fading culture wars: What does seem increasingly clear is that Palin's collapse represents the end of a certain kind of politics. If the culture war really is ending, culture warriors like Palin will fade from the scene. I can hear many mainstream Republicans sharing Salam's sigh of relief. I think they're fooling themselves. It's wishful thinking by the GOP's non-social conservatives, who want the party to double down on fiscal conservatism—especially now that Democratic...

Alaska's lipstick-wearing pit-bull is a "Little Shop of Horrors." That's how one longtime friend and campaign trail companion of John McCain, the vanquished 2008 GOP presidential nominee, described veep nominee Sarah Palin. In an expansive story in the August edition of Vanity Fair, a slew of senior members of McCain's campaign team told reporter Todd S. Purdum that they suffer a kind of survivor's guilt following the 2008 presidential election.

Listening to President Obama and former Vice President Cheney give their respective national security speeches Thursday put me in mind of John Gray, author of "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus." Different men, different planets. Or are they?

Republican leaders frantically seeking to rebrand their party might want to swing their attention from Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney to a feisty young Republican who has never been elected to anything: Meghan McCain. The 24-year-old daughter of U.S. Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential candidate, is a regular political blogger and most certainly not her mother Cindy's serene, St. John-suit-wearing stereotype of a Republican woman.

Jeb Bush, GOP: Time to leave Reagan behind Party leaders go on 'listening tour' with eyes on future By Joseph Curl (Contact) | Sunday, May 3, 2009 Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Saturday that it's time for the Republican Party to give up its "nostalgia" for the heyday of the Reagan era and look forward, even if it means stealing the winning strategy deployed by Democrats in the 2008 election.

Was is just me or did the entire GOP just throw in the towel last night? From the moment Obama walked into the chamber, until the last talking head went to sleep, it seemed like the Republican party just decided to give. Up I couldn't believe my eyes or ears. As Obama walked into the chamber I saw Republicans lunge towards the aisle, straining for to touch the leaders garment. It was a cross between Jesus entering Jerusalem and the Beatles hitting the tarmac in the US for the first time. As Obama spoke, the Republican rose in applause multiple...

The Grand Old Party has lost its way. It is in the wilderness with no leader and no true goal, and it is there because its authoritarian nature on social issues has led it there.

Time for a revolt? Yes, it is. It is actually long past due for one, and now is the time to start. "The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." Thomas Jefferson All over the country Republicans have been losing elections, from here in New York to the National elections. Why? Simple, they have lost their way and have strayed so far from their base no one wants to support them or vote...

Ms. Palin has emerged as a flash point for a split dividing talk-radio populists and conservative traditionalists from some of their former intellectual allies at National Review and the Heritage Foundation. “These are the people who are embarrassed by Sarah Palin,” Rush Limbaugh recently declared on his radio program, pointedly criticizing several columnists by name, “ ’cause she’s not an intellectual and she didn’t go to Harvard or have a college degree from approved universities and she drops her g’s from words like ‘morning’ and says ‘mornin’.” One of the columnists, David Frum, fired back on National Review’s Web site....

It looks like there might be some truth to those rumors former Mitt Romney supporters are already trying to clear Sarah Palin from the GOP presidential deck to make room for their man Mitt in 2012. Former Romney Spokesman Kevin Madden was particularly harsh on Palin in an interview on CNN. His criticism of Palin is especially noteworthy because we're only days from the election. In a spot with Campbell Brown Madden said Palin's wardrobe flap showed how "unseasoned" Palin is. BROWN: And, Kevin, even defending this whole controversy over the clothes, the RNC buying all the clothing, it keeps...

I've had enough, after watching Gerry Rivers of all people, an inveterate Obama fan, throw dirt on McCain/Palin, I think the list of traiterous Republicans otherwise known as Vichy Republicans should be assembled before the election.

Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president yesterday, citing Obama’s “deep sense of calm” and “first-class political temperament.” Weld, a Republican, said he has never endorsed a Democrat for president before, but in the last six weeks or so, it became “close to a no-brainer.” Obama has a history of bringing Democrats, Republicans and independents together and is the best choice at a time when America’s standing in the world is at a low point, he said. “It’s not often you get a guy with his combination of qualities, chief among which I would say is...

Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years. I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe — neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) — yelling "Stop!" I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain...

NEW YORK -- Scott McClellan, President Bush's former press secretary, says he is backing Barack Obama for president. McClellan made the endorsement during a taping of Comedian D.L. Hughley's new show that is premiering on CNN this weekend.