Free Republic

HANOI - The lake into which John McCain parachuted after his Navy plane was shot down is now surrounded by chic restaurants, cellphone stores and motorcycle dealerships. The prison camp where he confessed to being a "black criminal" has been turned into a multiplex cinema showing garish American movies. A five-star hotel occupies the site of the "Hanoi Hilton" jail, where he spent more than three years. The surface-to-air missile sites that once circled Hanoi have been replaced by sprawling industrial parks churning out sneakers and television sets for the U.S. market. Hanoi and Vietnam have changed dramatically since the...

9:21 p.m. John McCain kicked the evening off with a wild exaggeration by describing the allied invasion of Normandy as "the greatest invasion" in history. Such historical comparisons are always dangerous. In scale, the D-Day landings were far exceeded by Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, in June 1941, and the Soviet invasion of Germany at the end of World War II.

Here is the LEAD PARAGRAPH from a Washington Post article published July 17, 2008:"Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case's D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters." See FR post, "On the Outside Now": http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2085965/postsTODAY, the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" (HA!)column by Michael Dobbs, entitled "Obama's Fannie Mae 'Connection'" makes an attempt for the world's record in backpedaling with...

"A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There's a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year. If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it's not surprising that would happen." --Barack Obama, Palm Beach fundraiser, May 22, 2008. The presumptive Democratic nominee for president needs to be more careful in his use of statistics. If he is going to blame Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh for "ginning up" hate crimes against Hispanics, he needs solid data to back up his allegation. The hate crimes statistics that he...

The Senate has unanimously declared John McCain a natural-born citizen, eligible to be president of the United States. That is the good news for the presumptive Republican nominee, who was born nearly 72 years ago in a military hospital in the Panama Canal Zone, then under U.S. jurisdiction. The bad news is that the nonbinding Senate resolution passed Wednesday night is simply an opinion that has little bearing on an arcane constitutional debate that has preoccupied legal scholars for many weeks.

Addressing civil rights activists in Selma, Ala., a year ago, Sen. Barack Obama traced his "very existence" to the generosity of the Kennedy family, which he said paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and thus meet his Kansan mother. The Camelot connection has become part of the mythology surrounding Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. After Caroline Kennedy endorsed his candidacy in January, Newsweek commentator Jonathan Alter reported that she had been struck by the extraordinary way in which "history replays itself" and by how "two generations of two families -- separated...

Addressing civil rights activists in Selma, Ala., a year ago, Sen. Barack Obama traced his "very existence" to the generosity of the Kennedy family, which he said paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and thus meet his Kansan mother. The Camelot connection has become part of the mythology surrounding Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. After Caroline Kennedy endorsed his candidacy in January, Newsweek commentator Jonathan Alter reported that she had been struck by the extraordinary way in which "history replays itself" and by how "two generations of two families -- separated...

I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." --Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008. Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Clinton, could not go because they were "too dangerous." When her account was challenged by one...

The Washington Post is aligning its Fact Checker with Rich Noyes of NewsBusters. On Saturday's front page, the Inside box reads: "Four Pinocchios! Hillary Clinton has talked of coming under sniper fire during a 1996 trip to Bosnia. Our Fact Checker shoots that tale down." In the Michael Dobbs "Fact Checker" feature, four Pinocchios means not just fact-shading or exaggerating, but "Real whoppers." (It wasn't prominently featured on the washingtonpost.com home page.) Dobbs wrote on Saturday that "Clinton's tale of landing at the Tuzla airport "under sniper fire" simply is not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, complete...

The speed with which it all happened seemed like a scene from the Bible -- a natural phenomenon unlike anything I had experienced before. As the waters rose at an incredible rate, I half expected to catch sight of Noah's Ark.

The day after the House voted to halt all aid to rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras John D. Negroponte urged the president's national security adviser and the CIA director to hang tough. The thrust of the envoy's "back channel" July 1983 message to the men running the contra war against Nicaragua was contained in a single cryptic sentence: "Hondurans believe special project is as important as ever." "Special project" was code for the secret arming of contra rebels from bases in Honduras -- a cause championed by Negroponte, then a rising diplomatic...

The largest earthquake in the past 40 years and the resulting deaths of thousands from 33-foot tidal waves are being compared by an American reporter to descriptions of disaster from Holy Scripture. "The speed with which it all happened seemed like a scene from the Bible – a natural phenomenon unlike anything I had experienced before," said Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs, who was swimming off a Sri Lankan island when the disaster struck this morning. "As the waters rose at an incredible rate, I half expected to catch sight of Noah's Ark. Instead of the Ark, I grabbed hold...

WELIGAMA, Sri Lanka, Dec. 26 -- Disaster struck with no warning out of a faultlessly clear blue sky. I was taking my morning swim around the island that my brother Geoffrey, a businessman, had bought on a whim a decade ago and turned into a tropical paradise 200 yards from one of the world's most beautiful beaches. People look at debris in Madras, India, one of several areas hit by a massive tidal waves that slammed into several countries in Southeast Asia on Sunday. (AP) I was a quarter way around the island when I heard my brother shouting at...

It was December 1968, and the United States was in turmoil. The number of U.S. troops in Vietnam had reached a peak of half a million. Antiwar protests were paralyzing American campuses after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. In Vietnam, a gangly U.S. Navy lieutenant named John F. Kerry steered his Swift boat up a river in the Mekong Delta, deep into enemy territory, witnessing firsthand a war he would soon conclude was no longer winnable. More than 8,000 miles away, in Valdosta, Ga., another son of privilege, George W. Bush, took off in...

In the early-morning hours of Sept. 8, Dan Rather was preparing to fly to Washington for a crucial interview in the Old Executive Office Building, but torrential rain kept him in New York. White House communications director Dan Bartlett had agreed to talk to "60 Minutes," but only on condition that the CBS program provide copies of what were being billed as newly unearthed memos indicating that President Bush had received preferential treatment in the National Guard. The papers were hand-delivered at 7:45 a.m. CBS correspondent John Roberts, filling in for Rather, sat down with Bartlett at 11:15.

In e-mails to a discussion group for Texas Democrats in recent months, Burkett laid out a rationale for using "down and dirty" tactics against Bush. Burkett said he had passed on his ideas to the Democratic National Committee but that the DNC seemed "afraid to do what I suggest." In another message, dated Sept. 4, Burkett hinted he might have had advance knowledge of some details contained in an explosive segment on CBS News' "60 Minutes" one week later. In addition to an interview with former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes claiming he helped Bush get into the Guard, CBS...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

The former Texas National Guard officer suspected of providing CBS News with possibly forged records on President Bush's military service called on Democratic activists to wage "war" against Republican "dirty tricks" in a series of Internet postings in which he also used phrases similar to several employed in the disputed documents. Retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, who earlier said he overheard Bush aides conspiring with the commander of the Texas National Guard to "sanitize" the president's military records, has refused to comment on reports that he could be CBS's confidential source. In e-mails yesterday to The Washington Post, he said...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

In a related development, White House press secretary Scott McClellan hinted that more documents regarding Bush's National Guard service may soon be released. Asked whether officials in the White House have seen unreleased documents, McClellan called that "a very real possibility." Other officials with knowledge of the situation said more documents had indeed been uncovered and would be released in the coming days.

Documents allegedly written by a deceased officer that raised questions about President Bush's service with the Texas Air National Guard bore markings showing they had been faxed to CBS News from a Kinko's copy shop in Abilene, Tex., according to another former Guard officer who was shown the records by the network. The markings provide one piece of evidence suggesting a source for the documents, whose authenticity has been hotly disputed since CBS aired them in a "60 Minutes" broadcast Sept. 8. The network has declined to name the person who provided them, saying the source was confidential, or to...

Documents allegedly written by a deceased officer that raised questions about President Bush's service with the Texas Air National Guard bore markings showing they had been faxed to CBS News from a Kinko's copy shop in Abilene, Tex., according to another former Guard officer who was shown the records by the network. The markings provide one piece of evidence suggesting a source for the documents, whose authenticity has been hotly disputed since CBS aired them in a "60 Minutes" broadcast Sept. 8. The network has declined to name the person who provided them, saying the source was confidential, or to...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

Fulda, Minn.: Your investigation is being cited by the Kerry campaign and its supporters as an umambiguous refutation of the claims made by the Swift Boat Veterans. Do you agree with that position? Michael Dobbs: I assume you are talking about the earlier articles I wrote, not the one I wrote this weekend about Kerry's post-war record. In my previous reporting, I focused on one particular incident, on March 13, 1969, as a result of which Kerry won a Bronze Star. I feel that my reporting refutes some claims of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but not all. I...

This is a long article, but it's full of news I never thought I'd see printed in the Washington Post. It's devastating. It depicts Kerry as duplicitous and calculating. Snip:According to FBI records first released to Nicosia, Kerry sometimes expressed fairly radical points of view. For example, he described North Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh as "the George Washington of Vietnam." He also noted with some bitterness that out "of 234 congressmen's sons eligible for service in Vietnam, only 24 went there, and only one of them was wounded." The FBI kept careful tabs on the protesters through a...

After Decades, Renewed War on Old Conflict By Michael Dobbs Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, August 28, 2004; Page A01 After a coin toss to decide which decorated Vietnam War veteran would speak first, talk show host Dick Cavett invited his guests to debate the issue that had divided America. The tall, long-haired veteran with the big jaw denounced the war as immoral. His clean-cut rival spoke of patriotism and sacrifice. More than three decades after their 1971 debate, John F. Kerry and John E. O'Neill are back at it. This time around, however, Kerry is running for president, and...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

Michael Dobbs was answering submitted questions online today at the Post. Dobbs is Mr. Sidestepper himself, and appears to be nothing more than an apologist for the Kerry camp.

The Washington Post, in a late day addition to their Sunday issue already posted online, reports that a Swift boat veteran who declined to join the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has stated that there was enemy fire coming from the river banks during the incident where John Kerry rescued Jim Rassman.But yesterday, The Post independently contacted a participant who has not spoken out so far in favor of either camp who remembers coming under enemy fire. "There was a lot of firing going on, and it came from both sides of the river," said Wayne D. Langhofer, who...

When John F. Kerry rescued James Rassmann from the Bay Hap River in the jungles of Vietnam in March 1969, neither man could possibly have imagined that the episode would become a much-disputed focus of an American presidential campaign 35 years later. For Kerry, then a green and gangly Navy lieutenant junior grade and now the Democratic challenger to a wartime Republican president, that tale of heroism under fire has become integral to his campaign. A centerpiece of public rallies, videos and a new campaign advertisement last week, it has helped distinguish the candidate from his Democratic primary rivals and...

Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete And Flawed Clashes Roil Kerry Campaign By Michael Dobbs Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page A01 When John F. Kerry rescued James Rassmann from the Bay Hap River in the jungles of Vietnam in March 1969, neither man could possibly have imagined that the episode would become a much-disputed focus of an American presidential campaign 35 years later. For Kerry, then a green and gangly Navy lieutenant junior grade and now the Democratic challenger to a wartime Republican president, that tale of heroism under fire has become integral to his campaign. A centerpiece...

I am outraged by Michael Dobbs' attack on Larry Thurlow and his Bronze Star award. The reason the citation mentions "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" is because it is based on the "spot report" that John Kerry submitted. Any and all awards presented for actions on 13 March 1969 would be similar, if not verbatim, regarding enemy gunfire, because the only information submitted to the chain of command was falsified by Kerry. Mr. Dobbs also grossly mischaracterizes my statements, and probably those of Richard Pees as well, when he states that we "do not remember coming under 'enemy...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth—a group claiming that Kerry has been untruthful about his swift boat service, and to which Pees, Chenoweth and Thurlow belong—called again on Kerry to allow the Navy to independently release all of his military records by signing Standard Form 180, which he has thus far refused to do. A complete examination of his records, they said, could prove who wrote the report on which this commendation was based. It could also verify or falsify some of the Swift Boat Veterans' other claims that Kerry has been dishonest about his service.....

According to O'Neill, Dobbs was asked yesterday to interview the vets while they were gathered at the Washinton Marriott. He did not do it, even though a hit piece on them would come out on them the next day.

August 19, 2004 -- Posted Swift Veteran statements in response to today's Washington Post article by Michael Dobbs, Records Counter a Critic of Kerry. Dobbs attempts to make a case that there was enemy small-arms fire during the Rassmann incident for which John Kerry obtained a Bronze Star, based on the writeup for Larry Thurlow's own Bronze Star. But who wrote the action report for the event? And why no bullet holes in any of the boats? Statement By Swift Boat Veterans for Truth member Larry Thurlow Statement By Swift Boat Veterans for Truth member Van Odell Statement By Swift...

Below is the e-mail address for the writer in todays Washington Post who tried to screw over the Swift Vet Thurlow using his records. dobbsm@washpost.com

CNSNews.com) - A member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has alleged that John Kerry's own report 35 years ago was the basis for the military records that the Washington Post used in an article Thursday seeking to discredit the veteran, Larry Thurlow. At issue is whether Thurlow, Kerry and others were subjected to hostile gunfire on Vietnam's Bay Hap River on March 13, 1969, as military records obtained by the Washington Post indicate. Thurlow currently asserts that there was no gunfire, a contradiction of the military records cited in the Washington Post article. The Post was not able to...

Last week, Crushkerry.com broke a major story about the Democrat National Committee’s distribution of so-called “Brown Books,” unofficial hatchet-job biographies about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. According to a source at the DNC, the “Brown Books” contain damaging military records, medical and psychiatric records, credit records, divorce records and more. You know … all the things we’re entitled to know about John Kerry, but he won’t tell us. In our story we predicted a campaign of character assassination would commence at around the same time the book Unfit for Command would be released in an orchestrated attempt to discredit...

Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events. In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day. But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to...

To the West In America’s vast heart an ember’s kept And sometimes we may slumber to its burning. Yet times have come to wake for what has slept, To remember myths and truths... and souls returning. In Washington’s moist skies of mourning grey Salutes have thundered to a good report-- As clouds have wept for him who’s passed away-- For good endures, though all our time is short. All Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Princes May hold their reigns awhile, but all will bend To Providence, Who will seek evidences, That each was just, and humble in the end. Now...

What do you do when your seventh grader tells you that he has to dress up like a Bedouin nomad to get an A in his Islamic Studies class? If you are Alicia Rodriguez, you just say no."From the beginning, you and your classmates will become Muslims," the simulation directions that went with the course promised. "During your journey, you will travel in caravans, enact generosity and hospitality, engage in trade, dress up as a desert nomad or Bedouin, eat authentic food from the Islamic world, build Islamic structures, produce poetry, create works of art, and race to be the...

PARIS A growing sense of France's decline as a force in Europe has developed here. The idea's novelty is not the issue itself. Rather it is that for the first time in a half century that the notion of a rapid descent in France's influence is receiving wide acknowledgment within the French establishment. At its most hurtful and remarkable, and yet perhaps its most honest, there is the start of acceptance by segments of the French intellectual community that French leadership, as it is constituted now, is not something Europe wants - or France merits. Several current books, three on...

Tread lightly - the bottom has fallen out of J. Lo's world! As the July 30 opening of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's ill-starred movie ``Gigli'' approaches, studio sources aren't denying what is already apparent to any eagle-eyed pop vulture: J. Lo's famous bootylicious bottom is much smaller in movie posters than in what passes (even in Hollywood) for real life! In keeping with the film's newest incarnation as a romantic comedy instead of an action flick, publicity photos for ``Gigli'' feature Lopez and her fiancee co-star embracing while staring dreamily into one another's eyes. A Hollywood insider who has...

NEW YORK - Tom Cruise said he learned to overcome his learning disability through Scientology. "When I was about 7, I had been labeled dyslexic," he told People magazine for its July 21 issue. "I'd try to concentrate on what I was reading, then I'd get to the end of the page and have very little memory of anything I'd read. I would go blank, feel anxious, nervous, bored, frustrated, dumb." After "Top Gun" came out in 1986, Cruise became a Scientologist and discovered the "Study Technology" the religion's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, developed in the 1960s. "I realized I...

Muslim Woman Fights To Keep On Veil For License Photo Posted: 12:34 p.m. EDT May 27, 2003 Updated: 2:51 p.m. EDT May 27, 2003 ORLANDO, Fla. -- Florida's refusal to issue a driver's license to a Muslim woman unless she is photographed without her veil violates her religious rights, an ACLU attorney argued in court Tuesday. The requirement by the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles is a burden on Saltaana Freeman, a 35-year-old convert to Islam whose religious beliefs require her to keep her head and face covered out of modesty, said Howard Marks, an attorney...

Former congressman Jay Dickey wasn't happy with the coverage he was getting from an Arkansas newspaper in the race to reclaim his old House seat. More...

Rodimer needs to level with his flock Just before Easter, Paterson's Roman Catholic bishop gave his flock some instructions on what to do about sexual abuse by priests. Report it to the cops, said Bishop Frank Rodimer.The bishop's letter stands in sad, ironic contrast to the fix he now finds himself in. Rodimer needs to tell us what he knows about a priest-friend who sexually abused a boy. Otherwise, the bishop looks like he's hiding something.This story begins three decades ago. Two priests rented a beach house at the Jersey shore. Rodimer and his friend, the Rev. Peter Osinski, enjoyed...

On Sunday, the nation will celebrate an increasingly archaic holiday -- Father's Day. The culture has decreed that fathers are irrelevant. Men get the message. Forget global warming. There's a daddy drought that's blighting the social landscape. The National Fatherhood Initiative has compiled some startling statistics. In America today, 34 percent of all children are living in households without their biological fathers. More than a quarter of American children are raised in fatherless homes. About 40 percent of the kids who are growing up in what the group calls "father-absent homes" haven't seen the old man in the past...