Free Republic

Newsweek's retraction of its false Quran-down-the-toilet story still leaves at least 16 dead and at least that many unanswered questions. Here are a few: -- Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff says no one "foresaw that a reference to the desecration of the Koran was going to create the kind of response that it did." Newsweek assistant managing editor Evan Thomas says Muslim reaction "came as something of a surprise" to the magazine's editors. But no one familiar with Islam was surprised: Ardent Muslims treat copies of the Quran reverently and never place it on the floor; desecrating the Quran in Afghanistan,...

Who's the major figure behind the election and re-election of George W. Bush? On one level, the visionary Karl Rove. At a deeper level, a theologian most Americans have never heard of: Francis Schaeffer, who 50 years ago this month founded an evangelistic haven in Switzerland, L'Abri. Over the next quarter-century, Schaeffer changed the lives of many disaffected young people who stopped at L'Abri and found an intellectual pastor who dealt with their hardest questions. He summarized his answers in notable books like "The God Who is There" and "Escape from Reason," and then turned to political matters in his...

If you can only read one book on the immigration issue, read Mexifornia (Encounter Books, 2003), which author Victor Davis Hanson accurately describes as "part melancholy remembrance of a world gone by, part detached analysis by a historian who knows well the treacherous sirens of romance and nostalgia, and part advocacy by a teacher who always wanted his students to be second to none." Those students are mostly immigrants or children of immigrants from Mexico, and Professor Hanson—a fifth-generation Californian who runs a family farm—teaches them about ancient history and civilization at California State University-Fresno. He is also the author...

Passover and Easter are upon us, and so is a book with a fascinating title and audacious subtitle: David Klinghoffer's "Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History" (Doubleday, 2005). On the title's crucial theological point: Klinghoffer, an orthodox Jew, rightly takes to task the "well-meaning Christian" seeking to improve Jewish-Christian relations by saying that Jesus' teaching was very close to that of the rabbis of the time. He also jumps past "New Perspective on Paul" theologians who do not find "substantial points of disagreement between Jesus and his contemporaries." Both groups err, the author notes, by...

Despite success in the U.S. elections last year and Iraq's success in its recent elections, many conservatives as we enter spring are walking around with wintry faces. Perhaps that's because the left still dominates the realms that create cultural messages—media and academia—and because last week judicial imperialism reared its head once again, this time in the person of a California Superior Court judge who ruled that gay couples have a right to marriage licenses. Hadley P. Arkes is one of the nation's leading observers of how the interplay of law, media, and presidential leadership can change a culture. A political...

George W. Bush and James Dobson are both gutsy guys willing to take on terrorists or those who terrorize American culture. That's why they have enemies among establishment mediacrats who work to take down anyone who stands up. Since press opponents will twist anything they say if given the opportunity, both have to be extraordinarily careful whenever they make public statements. They can't let anyone over-promise: President Bush has been lambasted because a PR aide stuck a "Mission Accomplished" banner behind him in 2003 when the tougher Iraq war was not ending, but beginning. They can't let down. The bashed...

INTERVIEW: Psychiatrist and Princeton law professor traces the advances of the gay-rights agenda in science and the law to a common source: political intimidation | by Marvin Olasky PRINCETON, N.J.—A big contributor to the gay movement's political success is the portrayal of homosexuality as an orientation over which individuals have no control. Jeffrey Satinover, author of Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Baker Books, 1996) and other books, has practiced psychiatry since 1986 and come to a different understanding, which he explained at a recent conference of the Witherspoon Institute here. Dr. Satinover is a graduate of M.I.T. (Humanities and...

A journalistic scandal involving payment of thousands of dollars has received massive attention in the mainstream media. One concerning the exchange of 30 pieces of silver has not, so far. In January and early February, four American journalists came under fire to various degrees, as indicated by the number of Lexis-Nexis mentions during the month beginning Jan. 8: Armstrong Williams, 1,133; Maggie Gallagher, 238; Michael McManus, 43; Eason Jordan, 12. Let's start with conservative columnist Williams, who found himself in trouble after news reports revealed he quietly took $241,000 from the U.S. Department of Education to promote its policies on...

ANTIOCH and EPHESUS, Turkey -- When we associate the origins of Christian faith with shepherds in the field, keeping watch over their flocks at night, it's easy to distance ourselves from history's key event. But a visit to these ancient cities makes it clear that Christianity grew up in an affluent urban society not entirely unlike our own. Antioch was the city where, as the Book of Acts notes, "the disciples were first called Christians." It was also the third largest city of the Roman Empire, after Rome and Alexandria, with a population that topped out probably at half a...

This fall four new studies of professors' political attitudes showed a large tilt to the left: • Daniel Klein, an economics professor and researcher at Santa Clara University and Stockholm University, surveyed more than 1,000 professors around the United States and found Democrats outnumbering Republicans at least 7-1 in the humanities and social sciences, with departments such as anthropology and sociology coming in at about 30-1. • In a separate study of voter registration records, Mr. Klein found professors at Stanford and the University of California-Berkeley tilted Democratic 9-1. Among younger professors at those two universities the imbalance was even...

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Republicans are winning elections, but the long-term problem of the left dominance within academia remains. Consider, for example, the influence of Princeton professor Peter Singer.  Many readers may be saying, "Peter who?" -- but The New York Times, explaining how his views trickle down through media and academia to the general populace, noted that "No other living philosopher has had this kind of influence." The New England Journal of Medicine said he has had "more success in effecting changes in acceptable behavior" than any philosopher since Bertrand Russell. The New Yorker called him the "most influential" philosopher...

"They paved paradise / And put up a parking lot With a pink hotel, a boutique / And a swinging hot spot Don't it always seem to go / That you don't know what you've got / Till it's gone / They paved paradise / And put up a parking lot." —Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi George W. Bush's years in the White House have been far from Edenic. External blows like the 9/11 attacks and internal problems (particularly confusion about education and poverty-fighting) have sunk some of the optimism of Jan. 20, 2001. But if Christian conservatives stay home...

In 1973, nine men in robes did what centuries of prelates could not or would not do: They united millions of Protestants and Roman Catholics. The Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision made leaders of both groups realize that, without putting aside theological differences, they could unite against a common enemy: abortion. Another common opponent, John Kerry, is performing a similar function this year. In 1960, as Catholic scholar George Weigel writes in the Sept. 27 America, "millions of Catholics voted for John F. Kennedy for little reason other than that he was a Catholic." In 1980 millions of Catholics...

Marvin Olasky: What John Kerry and his media allies should understand     by Marvin Olasky The Family, Kitty Kelley's Bush-bashing book published on Sept. 14, seems on its way to best-sellerdom despite some of the most implausible accusations since Dan Rather announced that poor forgeries of National Guard documents were the real thing.Here's a typical KK charge: W did cocaine at Yale in the mid-'60s. Hey, I studied (more or less) there in the late '60s and marijuana was the thing among folks Bush didn't like. Liquor was quicker among those he hung with. Cocaine didn't come in for...

"The Family," Kitty Kelley's Bush-bashing book published on Sept. 14, seems on its way to best-sellerdom despite some of the most implausible accusations since CBS thought a poor forgery of a National Guard record was the real thing. Here's a typical KK implausibility: W did cocaine at Yale in the mid-'60s. Hey, I studied (more or less) there in the late '60s, and pot was the thing among folks Bush didn't like. Liquor was quicker among those he hung with. Cocaine didn't come in for another decade. So let's forget Kelley's gossipy book and turn to Kerry's floundering campaign. Why...

Neither Kerry nor Bush nor I wanted to fight in Vietnam, and we all did what we could in our situations: Naval Reserves (Kerry), Texas Air National Guard (Bush), draft lottery No. 278 (me), which meant immunity from having to serve. In his circumstances, Kerry's choice was smart: Navy or Coast Guard folks were much less likely to see combat service than their counterparts in the Army or Air Force, and the safest Navy spot may have been that of a Naval Reserve officer

BORN AGAIN VS.PERFECT Marvin Olasky August 26, 2004 John Kerry graduated from Yale in 1966. George Bush graduated in 1968. I graduated from said institution in 1971. With the Kerry campaign in full panic mode about the swift boat charges, maybe I can provide some perspective on the environment that has led to the current confusion. Yale became more strongly antiwar during those five years, but Kerry reflected the campus mood even in 1966 when, as chairman of the Political Union (Yale's most prestigious political debating society), he used his commencement address to criticize America's involvement in Vietnam. Neither Kerry...

John Kerry graduated from Yale in 1966. George Bush graduated in 1968. I graduated from said institution in 1971. With the Kerry campaign in full panic mode about the swift boat charges, maybe I can provide some perspective on the environment that has led to the current confusion. Yale became more strongly antiwar during those five years, but Kerry reflected the campus mood even in 1966 when, as chairman of the Political Union (Yale's most prestigious political debating society), he used his commencement address to criticize America's involvement in Vietnam. Neither Kerry nor Bush nor I wanted to fight in...

THE WHITE HOUSE -- Battered but not beaten, President Bush met with several journalists here on Wednesday and said terrorists "want to sow fear so that we'll withdraw. I will not yield to them, to their blackmail, to their murders ..." The "I" was not an anomaly. George W. Bush, taught to identify that one-letter word with ego, infrequently used it in small groups while governor of Texas and during 2001. After 40 months in the Oval Office, though, he is sure about his presidential role and willing to assert it. "The job of the president is to help cultures...