Free Republic

Fire Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg] Understandbly, the White House is trying very hard to get out in front of the would-be Christmas bomber story. The head of the Department of Homeland Security isn't helping. I watched her on three shows and each time she was more annoying, maddening and absurd than the pevious appearance. It is her basic position that the "system worked" because the bureaucrats responded properly after the attack. That the attack was "foiled" by a bad detonator and some civilian passengers is proof, she claims, that her agency is doing everything right. That is just about the dumbest...

On Monday, Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, formally announced that her agency now considers carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant, subject to government regulation. The "finding" comes two years after the Supreme Court ruled that CO2 falls under the EPA's jurisdiction. A day later, an unnamed White House official told Fox's Major Garrett that the message for Congress is clear: "If you don't pass this (cap-and-trade) legislation ... the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area. ... And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it's...

By now you might have heard something about the scandal rocking the climate change industry, though you can be forgiven if you haven't, since it hasn't gotten nearly the coverage it should. Computer hackers broke into the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England and downloaded thousands of e-mails and other documents. The CRU is one of the world's leading global warming data hubs, providing much of the number-crunching to global policymakers on climate change. And, boy, can they crunch numbers. In a long string of embarrassing e-mail exchanges, CRU scientists discuss with friendly outside colleagues,...

I think I've had my fill of moral hypocrisy. We routinely hear stories of evangelical ministers who "mentor" hookers at $500 an hour, "family values" politicians who like the cut of a congressional page's jib, or senators who love to press the flesh, one bathroom stall at a time. And, given the times, we increasingly hear stories about progressive politicians and columnists who -- gasp! -- have bigger carbon footprints than they want the rest of us to have: CO2 emissions for me and not for thee! For shame. The press loves stories of moral hypocrisy. Catching a finger-wagging politician...

'm writing about this for my USA Today column, but the Frank Rich hissy fit is a perfect example of the real story of the election. The story is not that the GOP is self-destructing, it is that the conventional wisdom is being shown to be ludicrous. For some time now Frank Rich, Sam Tanenhaus and countless others (including David Frum) have been arguing that the GOP is a rump party and the only way for it to survive is for it to embrace me-too Republicanism of one flavor or another. The story of all three major races (VA, NJ,...

"When John McCain said we could just 'muddle through' in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights," Barack Obama thundered as he accepted the Democratic nomination for president in Denver last year. "John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell. But he won't even go to the cave where he lives." It was a shabby bit of...

If you think American politics have gotten nastier, crueler, and more symbolic over the last 20 years, blame Ted Kennedy.

The fight over health care took the most interesting turn last week. President Obama briefly switched from wonkish frippery about bending cost curves to speaking of faith. Reaching out to progressive faith leaders in two massive conference calls, Obama insisted that God was on his side. Expanding health care fulfills a "core moral and ethical obligation that we look out for one another ... that I am my brother's keeper, my sister's keeper." This would be an easy opportunity to call attention, once again, to the double standards applied to Obama. When President George W. Bush invoked God as his...

Here is video of Jonah Goldberg saying the Veteran's Administration's use of a booklet that urges veterans to consider "whether life is worth living" is similar to the Germans during World War II believing they had the right to "value whether life is worthy of life." The booklet is for use with veterans and urges them to consider whether they are a "financial burden on their family" and asks if they have a hard time getting over the blues. Fox News' Chris Wallace challenged the Assistant Sec. of Veteran's Affairs about the booklet yesterday. . . . . (Watch Video)

Since a bunch of readers want to know where I come down on the great debate of the day, let me start by saying that Rich Lowry is not only a handsome man, but a wise and powerful one. As are all of the editors and others who make my work so enjoyable around here (of course, the womenfolk are lovely, as opposed to handsome). But I guess I'm more in the McCarthy & Steyn camp. As a matter of the finer points of policy discussion, I think the death-panel label is awfully blunt and inexact. But in the arena...

The Democratic party is panicking, lashing out like a cornered animal, all because its effort to take over the health-care industry is coming apart like so much wet toilet paper. Nancy Pelosi, who will get her own bound volume in the annals of asininity, has outdone herself. When asked by a reporter whether the protests at various town-hall meetings represented legitimate grassroots opposition or were manufactured “AstroTurf” stunts, she replied, “I think they’re AstroTurf. You be the judge. They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.” Now this is a pas de trois of...

I think Jamie Kirchik has the politics pretty much exactly right. Eugene Robinson, Joe Conason and E.J. Dionne, in addition to all the politicians and bloggers Jamie mentions, have been pumping the birther story in order to tar Republicans as extremists at precisely the moment their own agenda is being rejected by the American people for it's own extremism. Even the folks at Mother Jones think this is a plausible explanation of the administration's behavior: If the White House thinks the birther movement is hurting the Republican party, they might refrain from doing anything that could cause the GOP to...

Dear Governor Palin, You’re blowing it. We haven’t met, but you might remember I was one of the first columnists to tout you for John McCain’s running mate. I cheered you mightily when Senator McCain selected you, and I still believe that you were the smartest choice he could have made given the obstacles before him. I’m also assuming you want to run for president some day. There’s a reason why the Left and much of the media establishment hated you from day one. Some hated you out of the fear that you might stop Barack Obama’s unfolding coronation. Others...

What did you do when capitalism died, Daddy? I won't be surprised to hear that question from my daughter by the time she gets out of college, or should I say the State Mandatory Voluntarism Training Facility. When liberals hear conservatives decry the death of capitalism, they titter and roll their eyes. "Oh, you paranoid right-wingers! You see Bolsheviks around every corner." But such exasperation is the exhalation of concentrated ignorance. The absence of free markets isn't necessarily Bolshevism, or even socialism. Capitalism's death can come in many forms, by many different hands. After all, not all of Julius Caesar's...

No link allowed, story here .

It’s a lovely thing when the conventional wisdom proves to be so spectacularly wrong. The entire Democratic party, not to mention the media establishment, simply took as a given that suave, charming, effulgent, numinous president Barack Obama would mop the floor with grumpy, truculent, sardonic former vice-president Dick Cheney. And yet, on almost every issue he has championed since he left office, Cheney has won the debate or at least put the White House on the defensive. From the closing of Gitmo and the placement of terrorists in domestic prisons, to the release of the torture memos and the aborted...

Some days you have to ask yourself, my God, what if these people were Republicans? Democrats took back Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008 in no small part because of their ability to bang their spoons on their high chairs about what they called the Republican "culture of corruption." Their choreographed outrage was coordinated with the precision of a North Korean missile launch pageant. And, to be fair, they had a point. The GOP did have its legitimate embarrassments. California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and lobbyist Jack Abramoff were fair game, and so was Rep. Mark Foley, the...

The most remarkable, or certainly the least remarked on, aspect of Barack Obama's first 100 days has been the infectious arrogance of his presidency. There's no denying that this is liberalism's greatest opportunity for wish fulfillment since at least 1964. But to listen to Democrats, the only check on their ambition is the limits of their imaginations. "The world has changed," Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York proclaimed on MSNBC. "The old Reagan philosophy that served them well politically from 1980 to about 2004 and 2006 is over. But the hard right, which still believes ... [in] traditional values...

In 1993, Bill Clinton joked, "Gosh, I miss the Cold War." And, he explained, somberly: "We had an intellectually coherent thing. The American people knew what the rules were." Such Cold War nostalgia vexed many conservatives. It seemed to us that the Cold War consensus had broken down with the Vietnam War. Clinton himself didn't much like that Cold War endeavor, which is one reason he worked so assiduously to avoid serving in it. A young John Kerry did serve, but he also threw away his medals and denounced his fellow servicemen as war criminals. Jimmy Carter, meanwhile, had proclaimed...

One of the most important events of our lifetimes may have just transpired. A federal agency has decided that it has the power to regulate everything, including the air you breathe. Nominally, the Environmental Protection Agency's announcement last Friday only applies to new-car emissions. But pretty much everyone agrees that the ruling opens the door to regulating, well, everything. According to the EPA, greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide -- the gas you exhale -- as well as methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. It is literally impossible to imagine a significant economic or human activity that does not...

Despite all the criticisms of the Fox News Channel broadcasted on MSNBC for promoting tea party coverage, one thing hasn't been pointed out - how the NBC networks, including CNBC and MSNBC are given a pass for their shameless promotion of their Green Week and Green is Universal network events. Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large for National Review and author of "Liberal Fascism," appeared on Fox News Channel's April 18 "Fox News Watch" and commented on FNC's promotion of the tea parties, but the double standard of MSNBC's criticism of Fox News. "I think that there's a perfectly legitimate criticism against Fox...

Amidst all of the hooplah, I've heard a lot of complaints from liberals. Here are the most frequent complaints and my responses. 1. All of this tyranny talk is overheated and idiotic.Well, some of it surely is. But look. According to that reason video I posted below, Americans work an average of 103 days a year just to pay their taxes. If you had to work 365 days a year to pay your taxes, that would be a kind of slavery or indentured servitude, because all of your productive labor would be going to the government. You would have no...

Well, that was simple. Shoot the pirates, problem solved. OK, not the problem of piracy per se. But the problem of these specific pirates off the coast of Somalia: taken care of. And, if more pirates were shot, there would be fewer pirates. Unlike, say, jihadist terrorists, pirates are in it for the money. Raise the cost of being a pirate -- in denominations of pirate blood -- and you'll lower the supply of pirates. That's how governments -- good and bad -- have dealt with piracy for thousands of years. President Obama didn't personally order the SEALs to take...

Obama in his press conference: In this context, my administration will offer General Motors adequate working capital over the next 60 days. During this time, my team will be working closely with GM to produce a better business plan. They must ask themselves: have they consolidated enough unprofitable brands? Have they cleaned up their balance sheets or are they still saddled with so much debt that they can't make future investments? And above all, have they created a credible model for how to not only survive, but succeed in this competitive global market? Maybe because I keep seeing all this...

In the 1950s, liberals insisted that right-wingers were paranoid because they feared a Soviet takeover. Today, pro-Obama intellectuals are desperate to make the case that 21st-century nutcases believe Obama is leading a French takeover. You would think liberals would be congratulating the Right for not going overboard. For example, in a major address to the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Charles Murray said of Obama’s effort to emulate the European model: “There’s nothing sinister about that.” Obama and his advisors “share an intellectually respectable view that Europe’s regulatory and social welfare systems are more progressive than America’s and advocate reforms that...

Imagine a child falls down a well. Now imagine I offer to lend the parents my ladder to save her, but only if they promise to paint my house. Would you applaud me for not letting a crisis go to waste? Or would you think I'm a jerk? I ask because I'm trying to come to terms with Rule No. 1 of the Obama administration. "Rule 1: Never allow a crisis to go to waste," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told the New York Times right after the election. "They are opportunities to do big things." Over the...

Politicians and journalists are petrified of seeming hostile toward members of the “coalition of the oppressed.”‘Speak truth to power,” a phrase of Quaker origins adopted by campus radicals, Hollywood gadflies, and establishment journalists, has become shorthand for bravely criticizing government, big corporations, and other stereotypical villains. But where’s the bravery? I don’t know many journalists who are afraid of the government, and most make their living from big corporations. Sure, liberals — which most journalists are — are afraid of what conservatives will do in power and vice-versa. But they aren’t very afraid of what government will do to them,...

OK, things aren't going well. Good people are losing their jobs. Every day the deficit is looking more and more like the Great Pit of Carkoon, which, as we all remember, was that giant hole with a ravenous monster inside it that ate Boba Fett in "Return of the Jedi." "In its belly," quoth C-3PO, "you will find a new definition of pain and suffering as you are slowly digested over a thousand years." In this case, pain and suffering will inevitably take the form of inflation of Zimbabwean proportions and proctologically intrusive taxes that will make every April 15th...

Stimulus Shows Obama’s Inability To Deliver The stimulus bill has failed. Barack Obama has failed. The Trojan Horse of Hope and Change crashed into the guardrail of reality, revealing an army of ideologues and activists inside. Now, before I continue, let me say that Barack Obama will still be popular, he will still get things done and he will declare victory after signing a stimulus bill. But Mr. Obama’s moment is gone, and politics is about nothing if not moments. The stimulus bill was a bridge too far, an overplayed hand, 10 pounds of manure in a 5-pound bag. The...

"Go back to the oven! You need a big oven, that's what you need!" This is what one young woman thought passed for acceptable discourse during an anti-Israel rally last week in, of all places, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Other chants were similarly unlovely. You can watch it on YouTube if you like. But why bother? The Fort Lauderdale outburst is just one window on the upside-down world of Israel hatred. Across the Islamic world, and in too many points West, it is still considered a penetrating and poignant insight to call Zionists the "new Nazis." For instance, in Sunday's Gulf...

"Militarism during the first third of the 20th Century was seen as the best means of organising society. Since then, liberals have been searching for a moral equivalent of war that would inspire citizens to drop their personal ambitions and, in President Woodrow Wilson's words, 'marry their interests to the state'."

His controversial book Liberal Fascism has already divided his own country. Now, as American political columnist JONAH GOLDBERG's bestseller is published in Britain, he explains why he believes that - contrary to conventional wisdom - fascism and left-wing philosophy are inextricably linked ... Hallelujah! The Bush nightmare is over. The dark night of American fascism is giving way to the dawn of hope, the Age of Obama. The forces of truth will once again prevail and the crypto-Nazis will be banished to their caves. That pretty much captures a large segment of current liberal conventional wisdom

December 31, 2008, 0:00 a.m. Samuel Huntington’s True VisionThe fruits of tolerance need roots in the soil of culture and identity. By Jonah Goldberg This time of year, newspapers and magazines swell with retrospectives on the year that was, predictions for the year to come, and cogitations on meaningless trends and contrived fads. Against this backdrop, there’s an added poignancy to the death of Samuel P. Huntington, who died Christmas Eve at the age of 81. A decent, profound, and profoundly consequential man, the Harvard professor was one of the lions of 20th century social science. He spotted trends...

For people who think there’s no cultural divide in this country, consider the treatment of two women much in the news in 2008.

BY now you've probably heard: The GOP is becoming too regional, too white, too old to compete nationally. Democrats look like the cast of "Rent," while Republicans look like diehard fans of "Matlock" and "Murder, She Wrote." Fine. The GOP needs to win over more Hispanics, young people, suburban women. That sounds plausible. But what does "win over" mean? To listen to many pundits, it means Republicans must become Democrats. The GOP has become too socially conservative, and if it wants to win the support of mainstream voters, it will need to become more socially liberal. If only the party...

From the Washington Wire: You know it’s a big day on the McCain campaign when Mark Salter is smiling. The senior aide to John McCain, known for his gruff demeanor, was practically giddy this morning on the campaign plane. He was cracking jokes with reporters and describing an optimistic atmosphere surrounding McCain.

THERE ARE THREE OF THESE "OBAMA 2012" ARTICLES AT THE NY POST. NO. 1 WAS OBAMA 2012: HIS TRIUMPHS ABROAD POSTED BY mathprofNO. TWO IS POSTED HERE OBAMA 2012: A TERM OF FI$CAL PAIN (TWO OF THREE) "It's hard to believe that just four years ago, some were talking about Barack Obama as a national savior, a secular redeemer, a "light worker." Even more shocking, President Obama lost the nomination of his own party to none other than Hillary Clinton. How did we get here?" -SNIP-"The first mistake many cite was actually made before Obama was even elected: the selection...

Jonah Goldberg: What struck me the most about the debate – and it probably helped having quintessential Obamaphiles in the room – was how Biden’s “gravitas” is derived almost entirely from the fact that he can lie with absolute passion and conviction. He just plain made stuff up tonight. I read a long list tonight in my debate with Beinart here at Wash U, we can visit the details tomorrow. Just a few: Flatly asserting that Obama never said he’d meet with Achmenijad; that absolute nonsense about spending more in a month in Iraq than we’ve spent in Afghanistan (“let...

... That’s because Raines was transforming Fannie Mae from a boring but stable financial institution dedicated to making homes more affordable into a risky venture that abused its special status as a “Government Sponsored Enterprise” (GSE) for Raines’ personal profit. Fannie bought the bad loans and bundled them together with good ones. Wall Street was glad to buy up these mortgage securities because Fannie Mae was deemed a government-insured behemoth “too big to fail.” And others followed Fannie’s lead. The current financial crisis stems in large part from the fact that people who shouldn’t have been buying a home, or...

First, the ad is dishonest. McCain has been one of the Senate's leading authorities on telecom and the Internet. Besides, by this logic, Obama is even less qualified to be commander in chief because, unlike McCain, Obama has never fired a gun, flown a plane or led men during wartime. He is a candidate who has never had to sell himself to voters who weren't already sold. And it shows.

Whether or not Sarah Palin helps John McCain win the election, her greatest work may already be behind her. She’s exposed the feminist con job. Don’t take my word for it. Feminists have been screaming like stuck pigs 24/7 since Palin was announced as McCain’s running mate. (Are pig metaphors completely verboten now?) Feminist author Cintra Wilson writes in Salon (a house organ of the Angry Left) that the notion of Palin as vice president is “akin to ideological brain rape.” Presumably just before the nurse upped the dosage on her medication, Wilson continued, “Sarah Palin and her virtual burqa...

“What is wrong with these people?” was the nigh-upon-universal reaction among conservatives at the GOP convention last week. Liberal reporters inquired of conservative journalists, Republican delegates, right-leaning janitors, free-market short-order cooks, even the guys walking around in elephant suits: Will Sarah Palin drop out? What about the Eagleton Option? For those who don’t know, the Eagleton Option refers to Thomas Eagleton, George McGovern’s first VP pick in 1972, who was forced to withdraw because of allegations of mental illness. A hybrid of myth and deceit peddled by the chattering bandersnatches of the Democratic Party’s backup offices at MSNBC and other...

“What is wrong with these people?” was the nigh-upon-universal reaction among conservatives at the GOP convention this week. Liberal reporters inquired of conservative journalists, Republican delegates, right-leaning janitors, free-market short-order cooks, even the guys walking around in elephant suits: Will Sarah Palin drop out? What about the Eagleton Option? For those who don’t know, the Eagleton Option refers to Thomas Eagleton, George McGovern’s first VP pick in 1972, who was forced to withdraw because allegations of mental illness. A hybrid of myth and deceit peddled by the chattering bandersnatches of the Democratic Party’s backup communications offices at MSNBC and other...

Sarah Palin: the new life of the Grand Old Party John McCain's running mate has been met with enthusiasm -- and donations -- from the conservative wing of the Republican Party.ST. PAUL, MINN. — While Republican National Convention planners obsessed about the course of Hurricane Gustav, the only subject delegates and conservatives in general could discuss during the weekend's pre-convention activities (i.e. drinking) was the potential beam of sunshine, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. This is my sixth RNC, and I've never seen anything remotely like the excitement Palin has unleashed. Some compare it to the enthusiasm for Ronald Reagan in...

In large measure our wealth isn’t the product of capitalism, it is capitalism. It’s an old story. Loving parents provide a generous environment for their offspring. Kids are given not only ample food, clothing and shelter, but the emotional necessities as well: encouragement, discipline, self-reliance, the ability to work with others and on their own. And yet, in due course, the kids rebel. Some even say their parents never loved them, that they were unfair, indifferent, cruel. Often, such protests are sparked by parents’ refusal to be even more generous. I want a car, demands the child. Work for it,...

Those who put a high value on words may recoil at the title of Jonah Goldberg's new book, "Liberal Fascism." As a result, they may refuse to read it, which will be their loss -- and a major loss. Those who value substance over words, however, will find in this book a wealth of challenging insights, backed up by thorough research and brilliant analysis. This is the sort of book that challenges the fundamental assumptions of its time -- and which, for that reason, is likely to be shunned rather than criticized.

In his pre-campaign book, "The Audacity of Hope," Barack Obama proclaims, "I find comfort in the fact that the longer I'm in politics the less nourishing popularity becomes, that a striving for rank and fame seems to betray a poverty of ambition, and that I am answerable mainly to the steady gaze of my own conscience." Some might think this odd testimony from a young and inexperienced freshman senator on the cusp of seeking the highest rank, and the most famous position, in the world. It's a bit like a parish priest saying he's happy with his modest lot in...

July 11, 2008, 0:00 a.m. Black-Hole SpeechThe will-to-power masquerades as tolerance. By Jonah Goldberg At a recent meeting of city officials in Dallas County, Texas, a small racial brouhaha broke out. County commissioners were hashing out difficulties with the way the central collections office handles traffic tickets. Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield found himself guilty of talking while white. He observed that the bureaucracy “has become a black hole� for lost paperwork. Fellow Commissioner John Wiley Price took great offense, shouting, “Excuse me!� That office, the black commissioner explained, has become a “white hole.� Seizing on the outrage, Judge Thomas Jones...

Is Barack Obama the Messiah? Lots of people have pondered the possibility that Barack is our Divine Redeemer. Google the question "Is Barack Obama the Messiah?" and you'll get more than 35,000 hits. Enter just the words "Messiah" and "Obama" and you'll get nearly 10 times that. But there's more concrete evidence. Since Obama declared his candidacy, there have been remarkably few biblical plagues. And lions and lambs seem open to bilateral negotiations. Obama's apostles are hard to dismiss. Oprah simply calls him "The One," because "we need politicians who know how to be the truth." (Jesus says in John...

Sen. John McCain said this week he would not drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for the same reason he "would not drill in the Grand Canyon ... I believe this area should be kept pristine." Pristine means unspoiled, virginal, in an original state. One wonders how pristine the Grand Canyon can be if it has roughly 5 million visitors every year, rafting, hiking, picnicking and riding mules up one side and down the other. Campfires, RVs and motels that do not conjure the word "virginal" ring around large swaths of it. This isn't to say that the Grand...