Free Republic

In recent years, political polling has recorded undeniable gains for the pro-life movement. What used to be a 2 to 1 advantage for the term “pro-choice” over “pro-life,” has now shrunk to basically 50-50. But even in the early years of polling on the abortion, when intensity as a voting issue was gauged, the pro-life side generally enjoyed a 3-5 to 1 edge. The exceptions to this rule have always been A: major cities and college towns which tend to have more young and single people, and B: areas with large Jewish populations. In 20 years of working with candidates,...

William Safire, who died today, was a breakthrough figure—the first professional Republican ideologue of his time to become a mainstream fixture in journalism. Indeed, when he was hired by the New York Times to write a column after his tenure as a speechwriter and intimate of the president in the Nixon White House, the shock and horror with which his new position was viewed in the Times newsroom and in the journalistic corridors of Washington were unprecedented in their ferocity. Safire himself said that people would barely look him in the eye in his place of employ for years. He...

Sam Tanenhaus has just published a short book entitled The Death of Conservatism. Tanenhaus, who is the editor of both the New York Times Book Review and the paper’s Week in Review section, is a very intelligent man and a very good -writer; the author of a splendid biography of -Whittaker Chambers, he has been working on a similar volume about William F. Buckley Jr. for a decade or more. His new work, which is an outgrowth of an article he published earlier this year in the New Republic, assumes a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone as it engages in a rhetorical autopsy...

I'm hoping buyer's remorse on Obama will finally cause a Jewish shift to the right. One of the most extraordinary features of Barack Obama's victory over John McCain was his capture of 78% of the Jewish vote. To be sure, there was nothing extraordinary about the number itself. Since 1928, the average Jewish vote for the Democrat in presidential elections has been an amazing 75%—far higher than that of any other ethno-religious group. Yet there were reasons to think that it would be different in 2008. The main one was Israel. Despite some slippage in concern for Israel among American...

Norman Podhoretz's extraordinary new book --"Why Are Jews Liberals?" - is a reflection on the question he says he has been asked more often than any other: why do so many Jews cling to the Left and vote in such extraordinary percentages for the Democratic Party? The book offers an historical and cultural analysis, addressing in the first half how the Jews became liberals and in the second half why they still are. Podhoretz concludes with a chapter devoted to "what I believe really explains why American Jews are still committed to liberalism" -- and it is an answer that...

Podhoretz asks: Why are Jews liberals? Buzz up!17 votes Send Email IM .Share Delicious Digg Facebook Fark Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Twitter Yahoo! Bookmarks .Print .. AP – FILE - In this June 23, 2004 file photo, Norman Podhoretz is shown after receiving the Presidential Medal … .By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Hillel Italie, Ap National Writer – Wed Sep 2, 7:02 am ET NEW YORK – Norman Podhoretz, the neo-conservative and former Commentary editor, is a stocky, confident man whose book-filled Upper East Side apartment features a bronzed wall image of Teddy Roosevelt with a bold-faced statement from...

Walter Cronkite has died at the age of 92, and it’s a mark of how the world has changed since his heyday that not a person under the age of 25 will have any idea who he was—and not a person under the age of 25 has probably ever watched the program that made him, for a time, the most trusted man in America and the most august personage in the news business.

Barack Obama began the first week of June with a series of interviews on the eve of his journey to Cairo to deliver his address to the “Muslim world.” In all of them, he spoke of the Israeli-Palestinian situation and the central importance of resolving it as part of his aim of beginning anew with the Arab and Muslim nations that have grown so disenchanted with the United States.

Of all the lines of argument concerning Sarah Palin’s resignation as governor of Alaska, surely there is none more disingenuous than the “she abandoned her post” line proffered today by Donny Deutsch on MSNBC and yesterday by Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post (whose article was entitled “Big Girls Don’t Quit,” another example of the bizarre double standard according to which it is acceptable to deride a 45 year-old Republican grandmother by calling her a “girl”).

JERUSALEM -- A new poll shows only 6 percent of Israeli Jews see President Barack Obama's administration as pro-Israel, while 50 percent see it as pro-Palestinian. That is a dramatic change from the previous U.S. administration of George W. Bush, which 88 percent termed "pro-Israel" and just 2 percent labeled pro-Palestinian. Many Israelis reject Obama's call for a total settlement freeze and have come to see him as overly sympathetic to Palestinian claims.

The idea expressed in the headline is not at all outlandish. There is a body of conventional opinion that suggests the only real way for the president to make a deal with Iran is if the hardliner remains in charge after the election, because the supposed “reformist” would have to stay away from the United States to prove his hard-line bona fides. This view is most plainly expressed in a piece in the new issue of Newsweek. Written the day before the balloting, the piece by correspondent Babak Dehghanpisheh offers this telling observation:

This blog has had many differences with Joe Klein of Time magazine, whom I once considered a very friendly acquaintance before he accused me and those who argued for an aggressive policy in Iraq and with Iran of being war criminals and began spouting anti-Semitic conspiracy nonsense that, were his name Christiansen instead of Klein, would have seen him booted from the payroll of Time magazine faster than you could say Rickstengel. Now he has done something low and indefensible even for him. In an interview with Politico, Klein ascribes what he views as the deficiencies in Charles Krauthammer’s worldview...

This is what our president said following a diatribe against the United States by Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega: "I'm grateful that President Ortega didn't blame me for things that happened when I was three months old." How unfortunate that Obama did not himself blame President Ortega for things that happened when Obama himself was 21, 22, 23, 24 years old, when Ortega was Communist dictator of Nicaragua. Like the systematic abuse of the Miskito Indians. Like the harassment of the nation's archbishop, Miguel y Bravo, who had provided key support for the crushing of the Samoza regime in 1979. Like the...

EXCERPT Though neocons formed a kind of Praetorian Guard around John McCain during his campaign, their truculent approach to foreign affairs sabotaged rather than strengthened McCain’s appeal. The best that Sarah Palin, a foreign-policy neocon on training wheels, could do was to offer platitudes about standing by Israel. It seems safe to say, then, that the neocon credo is ready to be put out to pasture. Or is it? One problem with this line of argument is that it’s been heard before—sometimes from the neoconservatives themselves. In 1988, after George H.W. Bush replaced Ronald Reagan, neocon lioness Midge Decter fretted,...

An ocean of ink, India and printer’s and virtual, has been spilled in celebration of a black man’s ascension to the presidency of the United States. We have read, and read again, about the historic nature of Barack Obama’s triumph, the new voters he helped bring to the polls, the young people he has inspired, and the participation on November 4 of the largest number of voters in American history. We have been told that, owing to the decisive nature of Obama’s victory and the enhanced power of his party in both houses of Congress, a new political era has...

This is why it might happen. Not saying it will. 1) One poll has undecided voters at 14 percent on the last weekend, which means most of them probably really aren’t undecided, that they are either going to stay home or vote preponderantly for McCain and pull McCain across the finish line. 2) Most pollsters are claiming the electorate this year is six to nine points more Democratic than it is Republican. That would be an unprecedented shift from four years ago, when the electorate was evenly divided, 37-37, Republican and Democratic, and a huge shift from two years ago,...

The plot could not be more nefarious. In 2008, Barack Obama decides to go ring doorbells in Toledo, Ohio. A decade earlier, anticipating just such an event, the notorious S&L swindler Charles Keating instructs his son-in-law to move his son-in-law’s cousin, a man named Samuel, into the path of Barack Obama’s eventual walking tour. He further instructs Samuel to a) pretend he is a plumber even though he doesn’t have a license and b) to call himself “Joe” rather than “Sam,” since “Joe the Plumber” sounds better in a nationally televised debate than “Sam the Plumber.” Then, when Obama shows...

There’s no denying Barack Obama’s gifts, at least when it comes to a classic Democratic constituency teetering away from him — America’s Jews, who, as I noted yesterday, are showing signs of giving John McCain the largest share of their vote since Ronald Reagan in 1980. In a brilliant effort to shore up his support and stanch the bleeding, Obama held a conference call this morning with 900 rabbis to wish them a Happy New Year. The High Holy Days of the Jewish faith begin on the evening of the 29th of September with Rosh Hashanah, the first day of...

The Siena poll, one of the two key polls of New York state voters, has come out with its monthly snapshot of the presidential race in the Empire State. And it’s stunning. It is remarkable, though not eye-opening, that John McCain is now only 5 points behind Barack Obama, 46-41 – not shocking because polls have narrowed to similar margins in New Jersey. (It should be noted, however, that according to a Rasmussen poll released yesterday, Obama is leading in New York by 55-42.) No, the shocking detail has to do with a wild, 35-point swing toward McCain among Jewish...

8/17/00New York Post By John Podhoretz EXCERPT Joe Lieberman, the vice-presidential nominee, who has spent 10 days fleeing from his own convictions, last night (giving his VP speech) fled from the eloquence of his speech on the Senate floor two years ago denouncing Bill Clinton's immorality. Hanging around Al Gore seems to have reduced Lieberman to baby-boomer solipsism: In this speech, as in so many of his speeches these last 10 days, he treated his elevation not as the assumption of a solemn responsibility but like he won the Lotto. Excuse me, but what does all this sentimental Oscar-acceptance-speech junk...

Imagine this. Upon hearing of the pregnancy of Sarah Palin’s daughter, John McCain chooses someone else off his short list for vice president, like Tim Pawlenty. Over the course of the week that followed, word leaks out that McCain had closely considered Palin — known at this point only as a maverick Republican woman who took on the Establishment — but went another way because of the pregnancy of her teenage daughter.

The twist-yourself-in-knots-to-oppose-Palin-on-grounds-of-inexperience exercise being indulged in by those otherwise ecstatic about Barack Obama and indifferent to his lack of experience is truly astounding to behold. It is leading them into some fascinating mistakes. Judgment, comportment, the largeness that seems necessary to hold high office without questionable baggage - these are the qualities that matter. The effort to pre-determine her unfitness is not only a losing proposition; there is something fundamentally foolish, about it. Even un-American, in the sense that it suggests rule by wonk rather than popular fiat. Ask Bill Clinton, who tried his best to make the case against...

The most emotionally resonant case for Barack Obama is that he will bring something fresh to American politics — that his relatively young age, relatively limited experience, and relatively short time in Washington constitute a plus rather than a minus because they mean he is untainted by the messes of the last decade or so. By contrast with John McCain, who has been in public office for a quarter-century and in Washington for several years before that, Obama is a new face. Fine. But by the time November rolls around, will Obama seem like a new face? He will have...

With John McCain's vice presidential pick only a few weeks away and the race between him and Barack Obama far closer than either of them probably thought it would be at this point, the possibility of McCain choosing Joseph I. Lieberman as his running mate suddenly seems both credible and plausible in a way it didn't a few months ago. It appears, from the consistency of McCain's numbers in the polling data, that he has shored up the Republican base . . . . So McCain no longer has to close the sale with conservatives, which is a good thing...

It has become axiomatic among liberals and on the Left that Democrats are somehow just too nice to win presidential races — that they get slimed and don’t slime back, that they get attacked and don’t counterattack, etc. They believe in ideas, you see, in calm persuasion, not in demagoguery, and therefore do not deign to stage a mud-wrestling match in the fever swamps. It was said of Michael Dukakis, it was said of Al Gore, and it was said of John Kerry. They were all just too high-minded to allow themselves not to be “swift-boated.” This has become such...

The November election is, and remains, Barack Obama’s to lose. Usually, candidates whose victories are entirely in their own hands make it through. It is clear Obama’s path to victory is through the teleprompter. Let him give a big speech and he drives it like Tiger Woods hitting a fairway, as he did Sunday with his stunning sermon about the importance of fathers. But let him sit for an interview with a well-prepared reporter who isn’t interested in shilling for him and Obama makes mistake after mistake. This is what happened the other day with ABC’s Jake Tapper, who got...

"Frankly, I can be wrong, but I do not think that America can carry to the presidency a candidate as on the left as Barack Obama." Norman Podhoretz, May 14, 2008 Check the link for the complete interview on Iraq, Iran, the WoT, neoconservatism and US presidential elections.

If you look a few posts below, you will find the text of President Bush’s powerful and moving speech to the Knesset today. In the course of it, he says something very general: Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this...

Norman Podhoretz, as you will recall, was a staunch supporter of GW Bush, and is staying the course, and was in support of Sharon's Disengagement. He now replies to his critics of both these positions, in his Commentary article, Israel and the Palestinians:Has Bush Reneged?. Anyone interested in the peace process from its beginning in Madrid should read this very informative article. He begins, On June 24, 2002, George W. Bush, having already become the first American President to come out openly and officially for the establishment of a Palestinian state, attached two stern conditions to that new policy. The...

Among the findings: * Only 34 percent of McCain voters, 42 percent of Clinton voters, and 52 percent of Obama voters correctly identified their candidate as favoring eventual citizenship for illegal immigrants who meet certain requirements. * Of McCain voters, 35 percent mistakenly thought he favored enforcement that would cause illegals to return home, another 10 percent thought he wanted mass deportations, and 21 percent didn’t know his position.

There are several stories today about John McCain’s possible vice-presidential picks. This is absurd for many reasons. Here are a few: 1) It is a 95 percent certainty that McCain will not announce his pick until, at the earliest, a few days before the convention. There is no upside whatever to an early announcement. If it provokes excitement, the excitement will dissipate, leaving the campaign with nothing. If there are any problems, it will be the only subject of discussion surrounding McCain for weeks and weeks and weeks, with the worrisome subtext — Look, here is McCain’s first major decision,...

Hillary Clinton is not stupid. She knows perfectly well that she’s not going to catch up with Barack Obama when it comes to delegates or the overall popular vote in the primaries, and that her lead with superdelegates is not at all secure. She’s staying in the race to see what happens — to lengthen it so that there is a chance Obama will implode for some reason or combination of reasons, leaving her to pick up the pieces.When Hillary and her people talk about Obama’s lack of experience, they are not just talking about foreign policy and Washington voting....

The thing is, Eliot Spitzer is a crook. I’m not referring to the current prostitution scandal. I’m not referring to the scandal last year involving his senior aides and the leaking of confidential police information to the Albany Times Union. I’m not referring to the threatening phone call he made to the august John Whitehead, retired head of Goldman Sachs, who had the temerity to question a case Spitzer was building against an old friend of Whitehead’s. I’m referring to his conduct dating back to 1994, when he designed a complex scheme involving loans and real estate and collateralized apartments to evade...

Michelle Obama today said that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction.” Really proud of her country for the first time? Michelle Obama is 44 years old. She has been an adult since 1982. Can it really be there has not been a moment during that time when she felt proud of her country? Forget matters like the victory in the Cold War;...

Can it really be there has not been a moment during that time when she felt proud of her country?

Up until a fairly short time ago, scarcely anyone dissented from the assessment offered with “high confidence” by the National Intelligence Estimate [NIE] of 2005 that Iran was “determined to develop nuclear weapons.”

The past three months have seen an odd turn in the presidential primary process in both parties — a turn away from the key issues confronting the United States and toward emotional and social vapor. The success of the surge in Iraq, coupled with the bizarre “we’re safe” reading of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, drained some of the passion from the anti-war fervor in the Democratic primary electorate and from the hawkish fervor of the Republican primary electorate. In their place came the Christian identity-politics rise of Mike Huckabee on the Republican side and the “we need a...

A new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), entitled “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,” has just dealt a serious blow to the argument some of us have been making that Iran is intent on building nuclear weapons and that neither diplomacy nor sanctions can prevent it from succeeding. Thus, this latest NIE “judges with high confidence that in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program”; it “judges with high confidence that the halt was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work”; it “assesses with moderate confidence that Tehran had...

Rudy Giuliani has made a "promise" not to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear capability, even if it requires U.S. military action. Though the U.S. Army is scrimping to meet recruitment goals, Rudy has pledged to add at least 10 new combat brigades. Speaking to an Atlantic Bridge conference in London, Rudy called for NATO expansion to include Japan, India, Australia, Singapore and Israel. Has Rudy thought this through? Why would Japan and Australia, each of which already has a U.S. commitment to come to its defense, commit to go to war with a nuclear-armed Russia if it invaded Estonia?...

We must bomb Iran, says US Republican guru By Toby Harnden in New York Last Updated: 7:28pm BST 26/10/2007 A senior foreign policy adviser to the Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani has urged that Iran be bombed using cruise missiles and "bunker busters" to set back Teheran’s nuclear programme by at least five years. Iran threatens 'decisive strike' if US attacks Analysis: Iran and US in political flux US elections coverage in full The tough message at a time of crisis between the United States and Iraq was delivered by Norman Podhoretz, one of the founders of neoconservatism, who has also...

Uptown Lefties Live Down To Their Reputation IT takes guts to be a conservative in Manhattan. Norman Podhoretz entered the lion's den when he read from his bestseller "World War IV" at Barnes & Noble on Broadway at 82nd Street on Thurs day night. The Upper West Siders were polite enough during the reading, but started "caus ing a ruckus" during the Q&A, especially after Podhoretz opined, "It may be necessary to bomb Iran." Reports a witness: "A front- row audience member became so irate that a staff member had to go over to quiet him. Then a lady stood...

October 10, 2007 -- FRED Thompson had a senior moment at an unfortunate moment - during the very first words he spoke as a presidential debater. Only a minute or so into his opening answer of yesterday's Republican debate - Thompson's first debate since formally entering the race in September - he just stopped speaking. Froze. Blinked in confusion. Seemed to have lost his train of thought. It was a discomfiting pause. And if it had come during prime time during a general-election season, it would have spelled the end of Thompson's candidacy and ensured a Democratic landslide.

One of the founding fathers of neoconservatism has privately urged President Bush to bomb Iran rather than allow it to acquire nucler weapons. Norman Podhoretz, who has joined Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign as a senior foreign policy adviser, held an unpublicized meeting with Bush last spring. "I urged Bush to take action against the Iranian nuclear facilities and explained why I thought there was no alternative," said Podhoretz. "I laid out the worst case scenario - bombing Iran - versus the worst consequences of of allowing Iranians to get the bomb." He also told Bush, "You have the awesome responsibility...

WEDNESDAY brought two key developments in the 2008 race for the White House. Together, they make it increasingly likely we're finally going to see that Hillary-vs.-Rudy match-up we were denied in New York's 2000 Senate race. First, Democratic candidates for president appeared in a debate in New Hampshire - and Sen. Hillary Clinton's rivals failed to act in any way to slow or derail the bullet train that is her bid for the party's nomination next year. Yes, it's possible that Hillary won't be the Democratic nominee. It's also possible that "Good Luck Chuck" will win the Academy Award for...

Neocon 'godfather' Norman Podhoretz tells Bush: bomb Iran Sarah Baxter, Washington ONE of the founding fathers of neoconservatism has privately urged President George W Bush to bomb Iran rather than allow it to acquire nuclear weapons. Norman Podhoretz, an intellectual guru of the neoconservative movement who has joined Rudolph Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign as a senior foreign policy adviser, held an unpublicised meeting with Bush late last spring at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. The encounter reveals the enduring influence of the neoconservatives at the highest reaches of the White House, despite some high-profile casualties in the past...

<p>December 7, 2001 -- THE Senate Judiciary Committee convened yesterday so that chairman Patrick Leahy and his Democratic colleagues could rip into Attorney General John Ashcroft and, by extension, the entire Bush administration for their handling of the domestic-terrorism investigation and the plan for military tribunals.</p>

It is not unreasonable to see the race for the Republican Party's presidential nomination eventually boiling down to the two men currently atop the GOP polls, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. But if this happens, it will be a race between something more than just the men. It will be a battle between two distinctly different political philosophies. In Sunday's New York Daily News, the paper's Senior Correspondent David Saltonstall has authored a very revealing piece, Neocon hawks go all-out for Giuliani: They are officially known as Rudy Giuliani's senior foreign policy advisory board, but they also could be dubbed...

They are officially known as Rudy Giuliani's senior foreign policy advisory board, but they also could be dubbed something else: Neocons For Rudy. As in neoconservatives, the Republican faction that many see as among the most potent forces of Bush-era Washington - a well-funded, sharply analytical bunch that provided the ideological basis for invading Iraq and is now training its cross hairs on Iran. ---snip--- Giuliani's neocon roster includes Norman Podhoretz, a founding father of the movement; Charles Hill, a former foreign policy official for President Ronald Reagan and early backer of invading Iraq; Martin Kramer, an expert on Islam...

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on us that took place on this very day six years ago, several younger commentators proclaimed the birth of an entirely new era in American history. What Dec. 7, 1941, had done to the old isolationism, they announced, Sept. 11, 2001, had done to the Vietnam syndrome. It was politically dead, and the cultural fallout of that war--all the damaging changes wrought by the 1960s and '70s--would now follow it into the grave. I could easily understand why they thought so. After all, never in their lives had they witnessed so powerful an...

Some set the matter aside as being nothing more than verbal play for the benefit of word-men. What term properly designates what we are doing, and what we are enduring, in many parts of the world, the symbolic center of which is the Twin Towers site in Manhattan? Sometimes the words chosen can mean the justification of an additional measure of military power. Always they calibrate the public mood and the public perception of what is going on. I am informed that French pacifists, ensconced in the French Academy in 1939 and determined to understate Nazi military exercises (even...