Free Republic

Sunday, September 30, 2007 It's hard to tell what's more depressing. Is it the fact that MoveOn.org puts a full-page ad in The New York Times essentially calling a distinguished U.S. general a traitor? Or is it the fact that Democrats like Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Earl Blumenauer cannot rise above the muck to condemn this vile attack on a uniformed officer? After all, it's one thing for a left-wing outfit like MoveOn.org to accuse Gen. David Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House" in assessing the success of the surge in Iraq. It's one thing...

Thursday, September 27, 2007 Someday, I fear, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Monday appearance at Columbia University will be more than a quickly forgotten item in our 24-hour news cycle. Someday, I fear, history may mark his visit the way it now marks a long-ago debate on another campus. The year was 1933, and the Oxford Union debated one of its most famous motions: "This House will under no circumstances fight for King and Country." Weary and cynical, the Oxford Union passed the motion, 275-153. Winston Churchill railed against "this ever shameful motion." And Adolf Hitler? Some say it helped prompt...

Thursday, September 13, 2007 Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker spent Monday and Tuesday briefing Congress on developments in Iraq since the start of the surge. The hearings took place over two long days before four congressional committees. Members had the chance to ask questions, real and rhetorical, and to instruct Petraeus and Crocker on how things are going. Lots of questions and non-questions. Lots of answers -- often to the same questions asked over and over. Because most Americans have actual lives and cannot spend their days taking in multiple hearings -- or don't have the stomach to...

Thursday, August 23, 2007 Last time I wrote on the Iraq war I used the term "defeatocrats," and some readers and an editor at the almost-highest levels of The Oregonian thought this was name-calling. That certainly wasn't my intent. I was simply describing those Americans who have decided that Gen. David Petraeus' troop surge and counterinsurgency strategy cannot or will not -- or should not -- work. They're intellectually or politically invested in defeat in Iraq. I employed "defeatocrat" as a synonym for defeatist, and I now regret it. I used lower-case "defeatocrat" rather than upper-case "Defeatocrat." But "defeatocrat" is...

Sunday, July 29, 2007 FBI agents and other federal, state and local law enforcement officials gathered this past week to mark the end of Robert Jordan's 27-year career in the FBI. Since 2003, he's been the special agent in charge of the FBI's Portland office. It's not an easy job in the best circumstances, and post-9/11 Portland is not the best of circumstances. By almost all accounts, however, Jordan handled the post with exceptional skill, commitment and success. But that certainly wasn't the view of one individual whose parting shot at Jordan received far more notice than Jordan's retirement-lunch testimonials....

Thursday, July 26, 2007 The "third world war is raging in Iraq," President Bush said in a South Carolina speech this week. "The war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever." As the military surge advances in Baghdad, the president has commenced a public-relations campaign to challenge Capitol Hill defeatocrats who've already decided that Gen. David Petraeus' troop surge and counter-insurgency strategy won't work. Tuesday's speech was only the start of the White House's "surge of information," but the rhetoric above wasn't Bush's. He was simply quoting Osama...

Sunday, July 22, 2007 Behold, "In God We Trust." Note first the white crosses along the black edge of the artist's work. Turn next to the two crossed military assault rifles. Inevitably the eye is drawn to the red, white and blue, star-spangled likeness of a skull above. A semblance of the American flag inside a semblance of a skull, but there's still more. The red-and-white stripes and what resembles the blue-on-white field of stars runs vertically, suggesting something's askew in the artist's nation under God, but again there's more. Instead of stars there are white dollar signs. The skull's...

Thursday, July 19, 2007 Where do we find these men? And women. Never mind the conditions our soldiers slept through, or fought through, Tuesday night in Baghdad or Diyala or any of Iraq's other hells. Where do we find senators who are willing to sleep on cots made up by attentive staffers? Where do we find senators who are ready to toil through Capitol Hill's air-conditioned night in "Casual Friday" togs, eating nothing but takeout pizza? Where do we find men and women who accept no substitute for victory in their effort to mandate U.S. defeat in Iraq? In Senate...

GuantanamoSunday, July 15, 2007 One of the first things you learn talking to Oregonian Cameron Crawford is that men held at Guantanamo are not "prisoners" or "prisoners of war." The Guantanamo Detention Operations' deputy commander says they're "detainees" and "enemy combatants." It's easy to see why. There's a huge difference between "enemy combatants" and "prisoners of war," and "detainees" and "prisoners" under international law. It's a distinction the Bush administration has insisted on since shortly after 9/11. Detainees don't have the same protections as prisoners of war who are protected under the laws of war. The United States has no...

Thursday, July 12, 2007 You cannot make this stuff up. All the troops for Gen. David Petraeus' surge have been in place for only a few short weeks . . . almost everyone admits the upshot of U.S. failure will be bloody and far-reaching . . . Petraeus is set to provide an early progress report in mid-September . . . even The New York Times and the BBC are reporting tangible signs of military progress on the ground . . . and a new clutch of panicked Republicans join anti-war, anti-Bush Democrats in saying we need a new strategy....

Sunday, July 01, 2007 The school districts told American children they could not attend certain public schools because of the color of their skin. Those are the essentials at the core of the Seattle and Louisville race cases the U.S. Supreme Court decided last week. Those school districts were not discriminating on the basis of race in order to remedy the effects of past segregation. The Supreme Court allows such racial sorting if it's narrowly tailored and the only desegregation option. But Seattle never had segregated public schools, and Louisville came out from under a court-ordered desegregation decree in 2000....

Sunday, June 24, 2007 It will make your blood boil. Read the search-warrant affidavit that federal law-enforcement officials presented to U.S. Magistrate John Jelderks before the Fresh Del Monte raid. Your blood will boil. Not for one reason, and clearly not for the reason of the raid itself or the likely deportation of the illegal workers. But for many reasons. Fresh Del Monte is shaping up to be a case study of our broken system. Our border- and workplace enforcement has done manifold damage -- to the rule of law, to U.S. citizens and, yes, to illegal workers themselves. The...

Thursday, June 14, 2007 "I am angered by this morning's arrest by federal officers of approximately 150 Portland residents who were working at a local produce company." Oh, poor Tom Potter. Portland's mayor is angry. Federal law enforcement officials were out doing their jobs -- actually rounding up people who were working here illegally and using Social Security numbers belonging to others, actually arresting people who allegedly helped Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. hire the illegal workers, and otherwise enforcing U.S. immigration laws -- and Mayor Potter is angry. Too bad. You might think Potter has enough to do these...

Sunday, June 10, 2007 Peter J. Robertson had no idea what he was walking into Tuesday morning. The vice chairman of Chevron Corp's board of directors was visiting The Oregonian's editorial board, and I had just filled up at the gas station. Like many Oregonians, I was not a happy. I had just spent $3.29 for a gallon of gas. Admittedly, my TNG Milano 49 only needed a gallon for a week of commuting, but this cheapskate didn't join Scooter Nation to watch Big Oil gobble up my gas savings. I wanted answers, and I wanted them now. More to...

Thursday, June 07, 2007 Here's one thing I love about Fred Thompson's evolving candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination: Tuesday night CNN sponsored a two-hour GOP presidential debate. The three major candidates -- Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney -- were in New Hampshire with the whole gaggle of second-tier blokes. (Don't make me name them.) Giuliani was strong on the terror war and the tax-and-spend issues. McCain was strong on the war and even on the sad-sack immigration bill that most Republicans oppose. And Romney was strong on everything. Nothing earthshaking except that lightning struck as Giuliani tried...

Sunday, June 03, 2007 Here's what we know happened on Northwest Flight 327 back on June 29, 2004: Thirteen Middle Eastern men -- 12 from Syria, one a permanent U.S. resident from Lebanon -- had one-way tickets for the weekday nonstop from Detroit to Los Angeles. The men, a musical group and their U.S. promoter, took seats all over the plane. Takeoff was delayed when one man with a limp refused to move from an emergency row, pretending he did not understand English. In flight, one or two of the men walked the aisle, seeming to count passengers. One rushed...

Thursday, May 31, 2007 WASHINGTON, D.C. I t's hard to say who's more admirable in this tale of common sense and bipartisanship -- Rep. John Peterson or Rep. Neil Abercrombie. The conservative Pennsylvania Republican who made a compelling argument on a critical national issue or the liberal Hawaii Democrat who didn't get caught up in cliches and saw the wisdom of his argument. A few years back, Peterson was making the case for ending the congressional ban on natural gas exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf. Congress has passed the ban each year since 1981, and he was working in...

Thursday, May 24, 2007 I can get wound up about lots of things, but the immigration issue is, alas, not one. It's not that I don't care. I do. Or that I don't have firm views on the subject. I have plenty. I just don't come to the topic with hot blood and fire. No, the presence of tens of millions of illegal immigrants doesn't drive me to distraction. I'm not opposed to normalizing most of them after, and only after we've taken steps -- security fences, ID cards, guest-worker programs, enhanced enforcement at our borders and job sites --...

Thursday, May 10, 2007 U. S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia visited Portland last month, giving an incandescent keynote speech on the religion clauses and constitutional jurisprudence at the University of Portland and landing a strapping wild salmon on the Clackamas River. Both speech and fish generated press notices -- tellingly, the pathetic "controversy" over the fish photo gained more attention than his thoughts on judging. But I didn't want his visit to pass by without highlighting something he said -- something that might qualify as "words to live by." At both the kick-off for the Garaventa Center's conference on...

Sunday, May 06, 2007 Oregon's war over gay marriage ended this week, not with a bang but a whimper. The Senate passed not a bill establishing homosexual marriage or civil unions but one establishing domestic partnerships -- a legal contract giving gay and lesbian couples some of the benefits of marriage. The bang came in 2004. Oregon voters rejected homosexual marriage and passed a constitutional amendment making plain that "marriage" here is between one man and one woman. The vote wasn't even close, despite the fierce opposition of the state's smart set. A full 57 percent voted to etch the...