Free Republic

Nearly 16 years ago in these very pages, I wrote that "'one-size-fits all' rules for business ignore the reality of the market place." Today I'm watching some broad rules evolve on individual decisions that are even worse. Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior. Much paternalist scrutiny has recently centered on personal economics, including calls to regulate subprime mortgages. Health-care paternalism creates another problem that's rarely mentioned... I've come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy...

When the Democratic Party moves too far left for George McGovern, you know they’re in trouble. The former Senator and presidential aspirant writes about the dangers of economic paternalism in a free society, specifically about the impulse among both Democrats and Republicans to protect adults from the consequences of their own free choices. Expect a lot less choice in the future, McGovern warns, if the nanny-state succeeds: Since leaving office I’ve written about public policy from a new perspective: outside looking in. I’ve come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a...

...The voice at the end of the line was that of an old friend from Senator George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, who had since become the godfather, at least to some, of the Democratic Party. “ ‘We’ve been with you all these years,’ ” former President Bill Clinton said, according to Mr. Herrera. “ ‘Now the time has come for you to be with us.’ ” Mr. Herrera, who had up to that point been undecided in the Democratic race, promptly pledged his support to the Clintons. “The don never asks for a second favor when the first one has...

’72 McGovern Team Rallies for One of Its Own: Clinton By JULIE BOSMAN AUSTIN, Tex. — Frank Herrera, a prominent lawyer in Texas, was sitting at home two Saturdays ago when he received a telephone call. The voice at the end of the line was that of an old friend from Senator George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, who had since become the godfather, at least to some, of the Democratic Party. “ ‘We’ve been with you all these years,’ ” former President Bill Clinton said, according to Mr. Herrera. “ ‘Now the time has come for you to be with...

1972 All Over Again By Jennifer Rubin Published 2/25/2008 12:08:35 AM Forget all the pundit chatter about post-partisanship, maverick candidates, and New Media driven campaigns. The 2008 presidential race is shaping up to be a nice old-fashioned race between a conservative and a liberal, indeed an ultra-liberal who makes the conservative seems more conservative with each passing day. On the Democratic side, Barack Obama is pulling away to victory. In perhaps her final contribution to Republican solidarity Hillary Clinton called Obama's bluff and did the GOP a great service. By ridiculing his empty rhetoric and messianic style of politics, Clinton...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Strategists for Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign believe it is imperative to identify her high-flying opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, with the "McGovern wing" of the Democratic Party -- but they want to keep their candidate's fingerprints off the attack. During the two weeks remaining before the important Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4, Clinton insiders want to spread the message that Obama represents the radical left-wing politics of George McGovern's 1972 candidacy, which won only one state. But they don't know how to accomplish this. When Clinton herself has launched past attacks on Obama, it has...

Demagoguery: At 85, George McGovern, whose far-left candidacy for president in 1972 brought in less than 38% of the popular vote, has accused President Bush of murder. Then as today, desperation brings out the ugly in liberal Democrats.In an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post, the former senator whose effort to replace Richard Nixon in the White House was once summed up as "the three A's — acid, amnesty and abortion," charges George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney with genocide. "The dominant commitment of . . . the Bush-Cheney regime," McGovern writes, "has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against...

As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president. After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me. Today I have made a different choice. Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – George McGovern, the Democratic Party's 1972 nominee for president, is calling on Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. And in an editorial in Sunday's Washington Post, McGovern writes the case for impeaching the current president is "far stronger" than the case made against former President Richard Nixon — the man who soundly defeated McGovern in the general election match up."Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses," McGovern writes. "They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after...

As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president. After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me. Today I have made a different choice. Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The...

(CBS) The former Democratic nominee for president who ran against a president later driven from office under threat of impeachment, today said that impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney is "the rightful course for an American patriot." George McGovern, a former South Dakota Senator who ran on the Democratic ticket in 1972 as an anti-war advocate, wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post that, while he steered clear of calling for the impeachment of Richard Nixon in the '70s - fearing it would appear as "an expression of personal vengeance" against his opponent who...

''I knew that Sen. McGovern had a lot of friends around the country and world, but I was a little surprised,'' museum director Donald Simmons was quoted as saying in The Daily Republic newspaper.

...He recalled receiving a phone call in 1972 from his campaign manager, someone named Gary Hart, saying he'd come upon a bright, young man in Arkansas named Bill Clinton who had a hardworking friend named Hillary Rodham and they both were going to work Texas for McGovern. "There's nothing in politics," said McGovern, "that requires more courage than trying to sell George McGovern in Texas." The crowd roared. McGovern praised the entire current field of Democratic candidates and said he hoped to live long enough to see an African American president. But, he added, "We have an old rule of...

For Democrats of a certain age, there is no figure more haunting than George McGovern, who ran for president pleading, "Come home, America," but instead was sent home himself with just 38 percent of the vote. Among those who worry that the lessons of 1972 may still spell trouble for Democrats in 2008 is none other than … George McGovern. He is 84 now, is as opposed to the Iraq war as he was to the one in Vietnam -- and is paying close attention to the race for president. "I'm not sure that an anti-war Democrat can win," McGovern...

Vice President's Remarks to the Heritage Foundation Ritz-Carlton Chicago Chicago, Illinois 10:42 A.M. CDT THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's quite a welcome. Well, thank you very much. Ed, I appreciate the introduction, and the opportunity to come speak with all of you today. You've chosen one of America's truly great cities for your meeting. I'm delighted to be in Chicago once again, to have the opportunity to speak about some important issues facing the country. I used to come to Chicago a lot, because our oldest daughter and her husband lived here while she went to law school at the University...

“Do we sit on the sidelines and watch a population slaughtered, or do we marshal military force and put an end to it?” -- Senator George McGovern, August 21, 1978 The “it” McGovern wanted US troops to put an end to was the killing of millions of Cambodians in the late 1970s by the communist Pol Pot dictatorship. Three and a half years after congressional Democrats made that slaughter possible by cutting off all US aid to anti-communist forces with their so-called December, 1974 “Foreign Assistance Act”, their leader McGovern had made a complete reversal and was suddenly calling for...

It would be pleasing to write about an anti-American war Senator who finally saw the light. But McGovern was not actually flip-flopping. He was consistently representing the interests of what he described in an August 25, 1978 speech on the Senate floor as, “Ho Chi Minh’s popularly-based revolution for independence in Vietnam.”

Relatives of the Sept. 11 victims ripped into Condoleezza Rice yesterday after she insisted the Bush administration had no clue the U.S. would be attacked. "Shame," Terry McGovern, a New Yorker whose mother was killed, yelled at the national security adviser during Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission. Other relatives ridiculed Rice's assertion that she had no idea that Osama Bin Laden's men would hijack planes and crash them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. "How could she not know that?" asked Kristen Breitweiser, who lost her husband in the attacks. She noted that several similar threats were made,...

Before we put Plame "leak" story to bed once and for all, I want to reiterate out what I first posited almost two years ago, which now seems to be more true than ever. It was almost certainly Mr. Joseph C. Wilson IV who "outed" his wife as a CIA officer. And he probably did this in early May 2003 at after meeting with top level Democrats and around the time he began to work for the John Kerry for President campaign.Let's run through the chronology.January 28, 2003: President George W. Bush gave his State of the Union speech.February 6,...

Retired U.S. Sen. Thomas F. Eagleton -- a towering figure in national and state politics for half a century and the person for whom the federal courthouse downtown is named -- died late Sunday morning. He was 77. He had been ill for several months with various health problems. He died at St. Mary's Health Center in Richmond Heights.