Free Republic

He is alive! Norman Podhoretz is alive, and he agreed to an interview with The Wall Street Journal's very perceptive Barton Swaim this weekend. He says that many of his peers are now deceased but not him, and he certainly did not sound deceased. Bill Buckley and Irving Kristol have given up the ghost, and American political commentary is the poorer for their passing, but Norman is still with us, and at 91 -- almost 92 -- he is full of fire. He went on for almost a full page of the Journal, and I agreed with every word. In...

Behind the Headlines by Justin RaimondoAntiwar.com April 8, 2002 WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA POSTREL?Post-9/11: Who speaks for libertarianism – the Old Right or the Neocon Clones? A note from the author: I apologize, in advance, for the sheer length of this column, but since it addresses the sell-out of basic libertarian principles by people and institutions who purport to speak in its name, I thought it important to address these questions thoroughly, with extensive quotations from those I name. Too bad, in attacking Antiwar.com, these pathetic losers didn't do the same – but then what can one expect from craven...

The Media Research Center Annual Gala and Media DisHonors Awards Cal Thomas, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Neal Boortz, Zell Miller, Midge Decter, T. Boone Pickens and Janet Parshall highlighted the presentations and acceptances of MRC's "2005 Dishonors Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters of 2004," which were presented on Thursday night, April 21, before an audience of more than 950 -- our largest crowd ever -- packed into the Grand Ballroom of the J.W. Marriott in Washington, D.C. Following the presentation of the Dishonors Awards videos in five categories, a look at the Best of the Worst of...

FOR the decade since its founding by the neoconservative thinker Irving Kristol, The National Interest has been a central forum for the most influential conservative foreign policy thinkers of all stripes to hash out their differences. It launched ideas that entered the public policy vernacular, like "the end of history," "the West and the rest," and "geo-economics," and for the last six months it has played host to a closely watched intramural conservative debate over the wisdom of the war in Iraq. Now, however, a philosophical disagreement within its editorial board has put its future in turmoil. On Friday, 10...

<p>'War is hell," said Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, and he was the man to know, having led troops in a war that took four years and killed roughly 618,000 American men. If war is hell, warfare as currently conducted against mostly unseen bands of enemies in civilian dress hiding among bona fide civilians - and not even faintly comparable to the Civil War or other American wars of recent memory - is its own special kind of nightmare. Added to this nightmare is the knowledge that if we cannot extirpate them in their foreign hiding places, we will have to deal with them on our own shores.</p>

WAR IS hell,” said Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, and he was the man to know, having led troops in a war that took four years and killed roughly 618,000 American men. If war is hell, warfare as currently conducted against mostly unseen bands of enemies in civilian dress hiding among bona fide civilians — and not even faintly comparable to the Civil War or other American wars of recent memory — is its own special kind of nightmare. Added to this nightmare is the knowledge that if we cannot extirpate them in their foreign hiding places, we will have to...

Which American? by Claes G. Rynby Claes G. Ryn The just-concluded 40th anniversary meeting of the Philadelphia Society, held in Chicago, featured a panel on US foreign policy. Midge Decter, the controversial new president of the society, praised the United States as embodying universally applicable principles, and endorsed the aggressive foreign policy that is the hallmark of the Bush administration. On the same panel, Claes Ryn, the 2001–2002 president of the Society and the author of the recently released America the Virtuous, criticized this kind of universalism as "neo-Jacobin" and as incompatible with traditional American views on government, not...

<p>This year's recipients of the National Medal for the Humanities, who will be honored today by President Bush at a White House reception, are a distinguished lot.</p> <p>But we're particularly pleased to note the inclusion of author-essayist Midge Decter among those getting the nation's highest acknowledgment of the contributions of scholars and writers.</p>

"Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait," by Midge Decter. Hardcover, 240 pages. Published by Regan Books. Author, editor Midge Decter sits on the board of the Center for Security Policy and enjoys the input of highly placed sources for her essays and reviews in distinguished periodicals such as Harper’s, but it is her long acquaintance with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that provides the rich texture to “Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait.” Given unprecedented access to Rumsfeld, his family, friends and colleagues, Decter provides the reader a look behind the scenes at the man who, after President Bush, has emerged as the most...