Free Republic

Although Ed Koch has not held elected office for nearly two decades, the feisty former mayor of New York City remains a powerful force in American politics and in the American Jewish community. Reporters still ask for his comments on the latest news developments, and candidates for office still seek his endorsement. Now Koch has a new book out – and it contains a stunning revelation that may ignite a second round of his now-famous clash with James Baker. Round One of Koch vs. Baker exploded across headlines around the world in March 1992, when Koch revealed, in his New...

We're well into the Christmas season, and if the spirit of the Christ child is under assault we have an abundance of air and wind, a lot of it vile and foul. One of the study commissions at the United Nations, perhaps stacked with vegetarians overdosing on tofu and bean sprouts, concludes that the flatulence of cows is more damaging to the environment than automobiles. Poor Bossy, contentedly chewing her cud and minding her own business, now exposed as just another scapegoat (scapecow?) to blame for global warming. But it's not just cows. Some of our most distinguished statespersons are...

THE SUPERANNUATED membership of the Iraq Study Group shepherded by former secretary of state James Baker conjures a line from the film The Sixth Sense: "I see dead people." Two centuries ago, Europeans dreaming of reform and freedom must have felt just as crestfallen as they watched their continent's ghoulish elder statesmen gather for the Congress of Vienna. Both assemblies symbolize a victory for the ancien régime, the bloody-minded refusal to accept that the world has changed profoundly and will continue to change.If the Baker commission is the K-Mart version of the Congress of Vienna, its influence may prove no...

WASHINGTON — A commission formed to assess the Iraq war and recommend a new course has ruled out the prospect of victory for America, according to draft policy options shared with The New York Sun by commission officials. Currently, the 10-member commission — headed by a secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker — is considering two option papers, "Stability First" and "Redeploy and Contain," both of which rule out any prospect of making Iraq a stable democracy in the near term.

From Federal Review: SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JAMES A. BAKER III The Washingtonian's gossip column is reporting that Washington insiders think that Donald Rumsfeld will be replaced in midsummer by former White House Chief of Staff, Treasury Secretary and Secretary of State James Baker. This strikes me as a smart move (if you must throw Rummy over) that would be help Bush politically, and may have positive results for our relations in the middle east. The press seems impressed with Jim Baker (though they'd probably mention the 2000 Florida mess in every story about his nomination), the news might come near...

WASHINGTON - It may take four or five months to take shape, but a new scenario could be unfolding, a shifting balance of power within the Bush administration, a reconfiguration in the interests of realism - and aimed at a Bush re-election victory: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz will have heard the siren song of academia and returned to teach in ivy-covered halls somewhere; His deputy, Under Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith, will have decided he can't really afford to put his young kids through school on a government salary, and that it's time to return to a lucrative law...

Sandra Day O’Connor, Part Deux by Thomas A. Droleskey January 15, 2001 “The Court, the Court, the Court.” That mantra was invoked by all manner of well-meaning people during the late presidential campaign. “We can’t waste our vote on Buchanan. We have to vote for George W. Bush. He’s going to reshape the Supreme Court with his appointments. The Court, the Court, the Court.” I was viewed as something of a nine-headed troglodyte for simply reciting the simple truth that as governor of Texas the man who is now president-elect appointed four pro-aborts to the Texas Supreme Court, each of...