Free Republic

Harry Truman reached out from the grave last week and exposed the media’s double standard when it comes to judging Democrats and Republicans. A librarian at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, discovered a 1947 diary of Truman’s that had been sitting unopened on a shelf for some four decades. The book contained the following edifying remarks: “The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or...

Talking dirty to the American people An estimated 22 per cent of Americans get their daily news from Talk Radio - bizarre, bigoted and often startlingly misinformed diatribes from radio show hosts hired for their ability to shock first and foremost. TV journalist Sheila MacVicar visited a few and was appropriately shocked. Talk Radio is a peculiarly American phenomenon featuring much rhetoric and not a lot of substance; high volume noise often combined with the absence of facts. As a journalist living in Europe, working for an international news organisation, it is a phenomenon that I have experienced only as...