Free Republic

In the middle of directing the difficult task of transferring the historically important records of the Obama administration into the National Archives, the archivist in charge, David Ferriero, ran into a serious problem: A lot of key records are missing. A first-rate librarian, Ferriero has been driving a much-needed digital overhaul and expansion of the National Archives over the nine years of his appointment. This will greatly improve the ability of digital search locally and remotely, as well as accessing the files themselves.

As the Kate Zernike front page Memorial Day weekend New York Times story indicates, a number of Kerry supporters were disappointed that Kerry had not vigorously defended himself against the charges of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 Presidential campaign. According to Zernike some "are compiling a dossier that they say will expose every one of the Swift boat group's charges as a lie and put to rest any question about Mr. Kerry's valor in combat." That might not only be a difficult task but it could backfire badly. As Vanity Fair's acerbic columnist Michael Wolff said...

Kate Zernike's story on the front page of the Memorial Day Sunday New York Times, "Kerry Pressing Swift Boat Case Long After Loss," is an unfortunate reminder of the Times's embarrassingly poor coverage of Kerry in the face of the Swift Boat Veterans' for Truth charges in the 2004 election. Now as then, the Times acts as if the issues involved were between Kerry's latest representations of his record and the "unsubstantiated" charges of the Swift Boat group. The Times used the term "unsubstantiated" more than twenty times during its election coverage and continues to make no discernable effort to...

On a pleasant hillside in the Vacaville-Elmira cemetery in California, there is a grave that still has no gravestone almost two years after a brave young soldier was buried there. According to his mother, he was born on Memorial Day and died at age 24 on April 4, 2004, fighting with the First Cavalry Division in a militia- and terrorist-infested district of Baghdad named Sadr City. He was not an unknown soldier. In fact, thanks to his mother's constant use of his name in media appearances, he may be the best-known soldier of the Iraqi war. He's Casey Austin Sheehan,...

The Republican Party is uneasy as it shambles toward the crucial 2006 congressional elections. Many of its supporters claim to feel demoralized, if not seduced and abandoned, by the conservative president they thought they elected in 2004. With President Bush's Nixonian economic policies and unwillingness to curtail federal spending, and the Republican faithful as confused as everyone else about the Iraq War, this is a good time to gain some political perspective from two veteran architects of the Reagan Revolution. In the midst of another difficult political predicament, Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, once said he had finally found...

There is a great furor over whether the opinions of a number of retired high-ranking officers should tip the balance in the ongoing debate over the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But the question really isn't whether Rumsfeld should resign. He has already resigned several times and had President Bush tear up his letters of resignation. He clearly is taking responsibility for his actions on a continuing basis. But now that a galaxy of flag officers are raining down on Rumsfeld demanding his resignation, no one seems to have bothered to ask which, if any, of these generals had...

As Lake Ponchatrain's waters began to drown his city, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin had the colossal nerve to shout indignantly "Get off your asses, and let's do something" -- and then continued doing nothing himself, but add to the deluge by bursting into tears. Having been prodded on Saturday into ordering an evacuation by President Bush and the head of the Hurricane Center and then delaying it for seventeen crucial hours until well into Sunday, Mayor Nagin is directly responsible for the AP picture of over 200 unused New Orleans buses marooned in four feet of water that...

Questions Remain About Kerry's Military Records But will the press answer them? The Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times published in-depth accounts this week but, according to Lipscomb, the form that produced the documents may have asked for "anything and everything" or "nothing much at all." By Thomas Lipscomb (June 11, 2005) -- The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times initially refused to confirm or deny that they had a copy, or had even seen a copy, of the Standard Form 180 (SF-180) by which Sen. John Kerry’s “complete” military records were released over the past several days. This...

A front page story in the Boston Globe claimed that: "Senator John F. Kerry, ending at least two years of refusal, has waived privacy restrictions and authorized the release of his full military and medical records." In another Globe story Kerry had promised "The truth in its entirety will come out." But did it? Kerry's election hopes faltered last summer and fall as accusations of fraudulent and incomplete military records were aired. The fact that Kerry repeatedly refused to sign a single-page military form called the Standard Form 180, that would have released all his military records to the public,...

As distrust of the press grows, news articles are relentlessly scrutinized for bias, but almost no one is focusing on stories that are simply ignored. For instance, a May 18 report in the Afghan newspaper Kabul Weekly said the riots that killed 17 people were not about disrespect for the Koran in American detainment camps--they were a show of force by the Taliban and another fundamentalist group, Hezb-e Eslami. "These demonstrations were organized by the Taliban and their supporters, and only some naive people joined the protesters," the newspaper said. The BBC picked up the story on May 22, but...

The Dog That Didn't Bark The Press and Linda Foley: Why has there been so little mention in the mainstream media of the Newspaper Guild president's recent charge that journalists are "being targeted for real" in Iraq by the U.S. military? By Thomas Lipscomb (May 26, 2005) -- Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley made a public statement on May 13 that journalists are “being targeted for real in places like Iraq.” She has been trying to slide out of it ever since. Pressed by E&P’s Joe Strupp, Foley offered a clarification on who specifically was doing the targeting: “I was...

The spectacular fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 had Americans glued to their television sets. Millions watched as long lines snaked up stairs at the American Embassy waiting to be rescued by the U.S. military. It had been barely 10 years since the first U.S. Marine combat troops arrived in Vietnam at Danang. That decade had been punctuated by premature proclamations of victory, promises of "light at the end of the tunnel" and a Tet offensive that effectively destroyed the Viet Cong, but remained a potent Communist propaganda coup in Western media. "Vietnamization" finally removed almost all America combat...

The spectacular fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, 30 years ago, had Americans glued to their television sets. Millions watched as long lines snaked up stairs at the American Embassy waiting to be rescued by the U.S. military. It had been barely 10 years since the first U.S. Marine combat troops arrived in Vietnam at Danang. That decade had been punctuated by premature proclamations of victory, promises of "light at the end of the tunnel" and a Tet offensive that effectively destroyed the Viet Cong, but remained a potent Communist propaganda coup in Western media. "Vietnamization" finally removed almost...

...The object of U.S. action in South Vietnam was to stabilize Asia in general and Southeast Asia in particular. At the time, Asia was anything but stable. The former British colonies Malaysia and Singapore were under siege by Communist guerillas. The No. 2 political party in India was the growing Communist party, and Pakistan and India were still at one another's throats. Taiwan expected an assault from Red China at any moment. And China itself was suffering from Mao's "Great Leap Forward" industrialization that led to a famine that killed more than 30 million. Indonesia under Sukarno was headed toward...

THE spectacular fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, 30 years ago, had Americans glued to their television sets. Millions watched as long lines snaked up stairs at the American Embassy waiting to be rescued by the U.S. military. It had been barely 10 years since the first U.S. Marine combat troops arrived in Vietnam at Danang. That decade had been punctuated by premature proclamations of victory, promises of "light at the end of the tunnel" and a Tet offensive that effectively destroyed the Viet Cong, but remained a potent Communist propaganda coup in Western media.

When Dan Rather departed on March 9, at least he beat his competitors at ABC and NBC for the first time in five years. What seems to have been overlooked by media managers and journalists in their exhaustive discussion of Rathergate and Easongate is what news organizations are supposed to do for a living--- report and publish the news “without fear or favor,” as The New York Times' owner, Adolph Ochs, once put it. Whatever CBS and CNN may have done wrong originally, both organizations compounded it by going into a coverup mode worthy of the Nixon White House or...

I spoke with Tom Lipscomb a short time ago. Tom did great reporting for the New York Sun about John Kerry's phony war record and the plot in Kansas City. He has been nominated for a Pulitzer for his reporting, but is not hold his breath. He knows they will never award it to him because of the subject of the reports. Tom is named in a song on the new parody CD, YOU'BE BEEN FREEPED, Vol. 1. We did a version of BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS by Johnny Horton that became the BATTLE OF KANSAS CITY. Our kudos to...

We pause briefly to interrupt QaQaagate for this question: What if captured Viet Cong documents revealed close coordination and cooperation between the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Communist Hanoi during the period John Kerry served most actively as VVAW's national spokesman and a member of its executive committee? Our sources suggest that we'll find out tomorrow, courtesy of Thomas Lipscomb and the New York Sun.

Hanoi Approved of Role Played By Anti-War Vets BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB - Special to the Sun October 26, 2004 The communist regime in Hanoi monitored closely and looked favorably upon the activities of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War during the period Senator Kerry served most actively as the group's spokesman and a member of its executive committee, two captured Viet Cong documents suggest . . . The significance of the documents lies in the way they dovetail with activities of the young Mr. Kerry as he led the VVAW anti-war movement in the spring of 1971. . . The...

Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Navy Discharge An official Navy document on Senator Kerry's campaign Web site listed as Mr. Kerry's "Honorable Discharge from the Reserves" opens a door on a well kept secret about his military service. The document is a form cover letter in the name of the Carter administration's secretary of the Navy, W. Graham Claytor. It describes Mr. Kerry's discharge as being subsequent to the review of "a board of officers." This in it self is unusual. There is nothing about an ordinary honorable discharge action in the Navy that requires a review by a board of officers.