Free Republic

The presidential election has an oddly placid feel to it. Four years ago, the notion that George W. Bush would get another four years in office, actually ratified by a plurality of the voters, was more than any liberal could bear, and, after the election, there was loose talk everywhere about "Jesusland" and wanting to flee to Canada. This time, even though Democrats are extremely enthusiastic about Barack Obama, that life-and-death quality is absent. I think the reason is that a lot of liberals kind of like John McCain. I know I do.

On his first day in office, President Barack Obama will head to the situation room for a video conference with his most important commander, General David Petraeus. If the conversation is chilly, it is not just the awkwardness of virtual chatting. Obama and Petraeus have a history. While Obama has called for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, Petraeus oversaw the deployment of more than 30,000 additional troops. To win support from the left, Obama postured as a skeptic of the general's Iraq strategy during congressional hearings. Meanwhile, Petraeus has emerged as something of a hero to the right--and, despite his...

For almost five long years, many of us have tried to explain to a deaf media and public that President Bush was a victim of the world's intelligence when it came to the whole weapons of mass destruction thing with Iraq. Liberals chanted "Bush lied, people died" and some have called for The Hague to try him for war crimes. So, you can imagine my frustration and near uncontrollable anger when after all that, the Los Angeles Times decides to shock the world... Bush never lied to us about Iraq

James Kirchick, assistant editor of The New Republic, has come under NewsBusters scrutiny for his bias before, of course. Our job is, we all know, to document and analyze that bias. But while we naturally focus on when the media get it wrong, we should have the maturity to point out when those who we criticize get it right. Here is a case when a member of the media that we usually criticize did, indeed, get it right and this time it might get him in Dutch with his lefty pals in the nutroots. After all, the surest way to...

In 1985, Barack Obama traveled halfway across the country to take a job that he didn't fully understand. But, while he knew little about his new vocation--community organizer--it still had a romantic ring, at least to his 24-year-old ears. With his old classmates from Columbia, he had talked frequently about political change. Now, he was moving to Chicago to put that talk into action. His 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, recounts his idealistic effusions: "Change won't come from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized grass roots. That's what I'll do. I'll organize black folks....

The jihadist revolt against bin Laden. Within a few minutes of Noman Benotman's arrival at the Kandahar guest house, Osama bin Laden came to welcome him. The journey from Kabul had been hard, 17 hours in a Toyota pickup truck bumping along what passed as the main highway to southern Afghanistan. It was the summer of 2000, and Benotman, then a leader of a group trying to overthrow the Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, had been invited by bin Laden to a conference of jihadists from around the Arab world, the first of its kind since Al Qaeda had moved to...

...I, too, think Wright is digging center stage. But I also suspect he specifically wants to tank Obama's candidacy. I mean, this is a man who has spent a fair portion of his career spreading the message that blacks cannot get a fair shake in this country; that America was, is, and always will be fundamentally racist; that the U.S. government in particular has it in for blacks. So what happens to all that if suddenly a black man--and not just any black man, but one who has been counseled by Wright and so cannot be dismissed as some pathetic...

On May 3, 2007, ten aspirants to the Republican presidential nomination kicked off the long campaign with a debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. The candidates disagreed about the issues and their respective qualifications--but each claimed Reagan's mantle. "I think it's important to remember," said Mike Huckabee, "that what Ronald Reagan did was to give us a vision for this country, a morning in America, a city on a hill." John McCain talked about Reagan's fiscal austerity: "Ronald Reagan used to say we spend money like a drunken sailor." Tommy Thompson threw in a stilted...

For a long time I did not hear the beauty of church bells; or more accurately, I did not wish to hear it. They sounded only like Christianity, which in my early years was a vexing triumphalist sound--the pealing of history, from which my honor as a Jew required me to recoil. When the tintinnabulations of the Church of St. Francis Xavier on Avenue O reached my ears, they brought the message that I was a member of a minority. I was not acquainted with the liturgical schedule of the church, with the practical reason for the ringings--though I might...

Listen To It! WMP | RealPlayer Audio clips available for Rush 24/7 members only -- Join Now! BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I ran across something last night.  I've not seen this anywhere else.  I did as much as I could to verify this.  Ryan Lizza in the New Republic, a year ago, long story at the New Republic on their website.  If you print it out, it's nine pages long.  Reverend Jeremiah Wright, ladies and gentlemen, used to be a Muslim, according to the New Republic a year ago.  It is interesting how this hasn't come up in the past year,...

Are the Republicans politically suicidal? I don't think so. The public can oppose you on a specific policy question but still favor you on the issue in general. Richard Nixon was fighting an unpopular war in 1972, but he still crushed George McGovern on foreign policy. Likewise, despite the unpopularity of the Iraq war, John McCain's general hawkishness might still be an asset for him. A Democracy Corps poll, highlighted by Ed Kilgore, suggests exactly that. When presented with the choice of a generic Democrat or Republican, voters strongly prefer a Democrat. But when asked to choose between John McCain...

When Democrats contemplate the apocalypse these days, they have visions of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton slugging it out à la Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter at the 1980 convention. The campaign's current trajectory is, in fact, alarmingly similar to the one that produced that disastrous affair. Back then, Carter had built up a delegate lead with early wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, and several Southern states. But, as the primary season dragged on, Kennedy began pocketing big states and gaining momentum. Once all the voting ended and Kennedy came up short, he eyed the New York convention as a...

Now that America has seen clips of Jeremiah Wright--Barack Obama's former pastor and longtime mentor--yelling "God damn America" and referring to the United States as the "U.S. of KKK A," there are obvious questions on everyone's mind. There is, for instance, the complicated biographical question of why Obama aligned himself with Wright in the first place. But there is also the more basic political question of why the presidential candidate didn't disown Wright sooner. After all, whatever personal affection Obama felt for the man who brought him into the Christian fold, he had to realize that Wright was a ticking...

When Barack Obama announced a year ago that he was running for president, I scoffed. How could a black man whose middle name is Hussein and who looks like he is 25 years old win the White House? To be sure, he was a U.S. senator, but he had been elected largely on a fluke when his toughest Democratic and Republican opponents were felled by scandals. "He'll fade by December," I assured anyone who would listen. One year later, Obama is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, having built a formidable coalition of whites and blacks, Democrats and independents, and...

Tom Maguire has up a great post detailing many details some of us may have forgotten about this McCain non-story. First up is this TNR piece which purports to tell us all the backroom dealings going on at The Times regarding the story: The McCain investigation began in November, after Rutenberg, who covers the political media and advertising beat, got a tip. Within a few days, Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet assigned Thompson and Labaton to join the project and, later, conservative beat reporter David Kirkpatrick to chip in as well. Labaton brought his expertise with regulatory issues to the...

Last night, around dinnertime, The New York Times posted on its website a 3,000-word investigation detailing Senator John McCain's connections to a telecommunications lobbyist named Vicki Iseman. The controversial piece, written by Washington bureau reporters Jim Rutenberg, Marilyn Thompson, Stephen Labaton, and David Kirkpatrick, and published in this morning's paper, explores the possibility that the Republican presidential candidate may have had an affair with the 40-year-old blond-haired lobbyist for the telecommunications industry while he chaired the Senate Commerce Committee in the late-1990s. Beyond its revelations, however, what's most remarkable about the article is that it appeared in the paper at...

The New Republic: What Is The Role Of A Conciliating Candidate In An Unconciliating World? What you think of a presidential candidate is in large measure determined by what you think of the world. Different circumstances call for different talents, different sensibilities, different approaches to power. "Leadership" comes in many forms. A sterling individual may be historically inappropriate; and a person whom it is impossible to admire may accomplish significant things. The question of whether Barack Obama will make a fine commander in chief finally depends on your view of the direction of history in the coming years. I cannot...

It was less than two years ago that Mark Warner hosted his now-legendary bash for liberal bloggers--with its ice sculpture and $50,000 price tag--during the 2006 Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas. At the time, the Democratic former governor of Virginia was mulling a White House bid and looking for netroots support. Tom Vilsack, a fellow aspirant, also appeared at the convention, as did Bill Richardson. Hillary Clinton didn't show, to the chagrin of many, but even she, a few weeks later, hired liberal blogger Peter Daou, and she made sure to swing by Yearly Kos the following year. The...

It's not that we expect politicians to have squeaky-clean donor lists. You try running for office without, at one point or another, taking money from someone you probably shouldn't. Even Barack Obama, Mr. Clean, has Tony Rezko. But the Frank Giustra-Kazakhstan-Uranium affair, blown open by The New York Times last week, serves as a reminder that the relationship between the Clintons and money has not always been lily-white. Here, a guide to the unsavory characters who have been associated with Bill and Hillary Clinton. THE DONOR Norman Hsu, Hong Kong "apparel executive." THE GREEN Hsu bundled more than $850,000 for...

Documents released by the Office of the Chief of Staff, U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base Florida, in relation to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests files for documents relating to the military investigation into the Scott Thomas Beauchamp "Shock Troops" article in The New Republic magazine. The following are the never-before published statements of soldiers interviewed in the course of the investigation. Names are redacted per federal privacy laws.

Documents released by the Office of the Chief of Staff, U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base Florida, in relation to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests files for documents relating to the military investigation into the Scott Thomas Beauchamp "Shock Troops" article in The New Republic magazine. The following are the never-before published statements of soldiers interviewed in the course of the investigation. Names are redacted per federal privacy laws.

You hear a lot these days about the chaotic state of the GOP race, which is obviously true insofar as lots of candidates still have a shot at winning. But I don't think it's true in the sense that several candidates have an equal shot of winning. My sense is that Mitt Romney emerges from Michigan with some pretty clear advantages. For one thing, the first kind of chaos ("type 1") makes it pretty tough for Romney's rivals to raise money, which will, perhaps more than anything else, influence the outcome of the 21 February 5th contests. As this Politico piece notes, the GOP's general fundraising environment...

At long last, Democrats are finally trying to reclaim the Constitution. Is the Constitution a partisan, Republican document? GOP candidates sure seem to think so--they have been relentless in asserting that they would "follow the Constitution" in pursuing goals from overturning Roe v. Wade (Mitt Romney) to restoring the gold standard (Ron Paul). And for decades, conservative judges such as Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia have been backing these claims up, advocating for a version of constitutional "originalism" that lines up quite nicely with the Republican platform. This rhetorical onslaught seems even to have convinced Democrats, who have been skittish...

If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you. Paul describes himself as a libertarian, but, since his presidential campaign took off earlier this year, the Republican congressman has attracted donations and plaudits from across the ideological spectrum. Antiwar conservatives, disaffected centrists, even young liberal activists have all flocked to Paul, hailing him as a throwback to an earlier age, when politicians were less mealy-mouthed and American government was more modest in its ambitions, both at home and abroad. In...

A few post-Iowa thoughts: 1. In his book about the Democratic Leadership Council, "Reinventing Democrats," Ken Baer recounts how DLC-ites always imagined Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign as a centrist crusade to take the party back from its orthodox liberal wing, picturing a Clinton battle against a liberal favorite like Mario Cuomo. Instead, Clinton found himself running against uber-centrist Paul Tsongas, and ended up emphasizing populist themes. Hillary Clinton is in a similar spot now. Her main strategist, Mark Penn, has been positioning her as the centrist for years. And now she finds herself running against an opponent in Barack Obama...

Two weeks ago, Britain introduced a toughly worded Presidential Statement at the U.N. Security Council, demanding that Khartoum's National Islamic Front regime turn over two génocidaires to the International Criminal Court. The first, Ahmed Haroun, who, in a grotesque bit of irony, now serves as Sudan's minister of humanitarian affairs, is accused of having directly orchestrated many of the vicious crimes documented by the U.N. and independent human rights organizations in Darfur. Similarly, Ali Kushayb, a Janjaweed militia leader, is deeply implicated in the most egregious violations of international law--targeted ethnic slaughter and the use of rape as a weapon...

There's been a lot of buzz over Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen's crusade against the possibility of campaigns organizing non-Iowa resident college students to caucus. Most of the talk has been about whether Obama will pull in loads of Illinois college kids. But Yepsen offers another scenario, too: On the Republican side, GOP officials are watching precincts in Council Bluffs and Davenport to make certain people aren't driving across the state line to participate. They are particularly concerned about Ron Paul's over-caffeinated backers. This will be fun to watch--not because Paul has a real shot at winning Iowa (he...

It took four months of dodging, ducking, bobbing, and weaving, but bloggers have finally pinned Franklin Foer and The New Republic to the mat. Yesterday afternoon, Foer's online edition of the magazine published a long, self-pitying, highly defensive screed about the Scott Beauchamp articles that accused American soldiers of casual atrocities in Iraq in which the Editor of The New Republic admitted the magazine would no longer stand behind or vouch for their accuracy: "When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that....

The story of our Baghdad Diarist. For months, our magazine has been subject to accusations that stories we published by an American soldier then serving in Iraq were fabricated. When these accusations first arose, we promised our readers a full account of our investigation. We spent the last four-and-a-half months re-reporting his stories. These are our findings. When Michael Goldfarb, a blogger for The Weekly Standard, left me a message on a Tuesday afternoon in mid-July, I didn't know him or his byline. And I certainly didn't anticipate that his message would become the starting point for a controversy. A...

Remember Scott Beauchamp? The soldier who wrote stories from the Middle East, about things like mocking a disfigured woman in a chow hall, running over a dog and wearing pieces of baby skull under helmets? The tales never rang true, but the editors of The New Republic ran with them like crack addicts looking for more baking soda. Now that TNR has posted a whinging, non-apology, Franklin Foer is your editorial man of the hour whose self-effacing pen is less mighty than his apparent ego. And that’s why there’s already a new movie out. See source for lotsa kewl links....

This is definitely a KOmmie THREAD that the Daily KOs would dearly wish to have disappeared down the memory hole. This thread titled, "Wingnut Thugs Personally Attack Soldier Serving In Iraq," was published in KOmmieland back in July. As you can see, the KOmmies are angrily attacking the "Wingnut Thugs" for daring to question the veracity of a soldier, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, whose allegations of atrocities in Iraq were published in The New Republic. One problem now for the KOmmies, it turns out that, in fact, the stories written by Beauchamp, The New Republic's Fabulist, were untrue. And WHO...

For months, our magazine has been subject to accusations that stories we published by an American soldier then serving in Iraq were fabricated. When these accusations first arose, we promised our readers a full account of our investigation. We spent the last four-and-a-half months re-reporting his stories. These are our findings. When Michael Goldfarb, a blogger for The Weekly Standard, left me a message on a Tuesday afternoon in mid-July, I didn't know him or his byline. And I certainly didn't anticipate that his message would become the starting point for a controversy.

For months, our magazine has been subject to accusations that stories we published by an American soldier then serving in Iraq were fabricated. When these accusations first arose, we promised our readers a full account of our investigation. We spent the last four-and-a-half months re-reporting his stories. These are our findings. ::very big snip:: In retrospect, we never should have put Beauchamp in this situation. He was a young soldier in a war zone, an untried writer without journalistic training. We published his accounts of sensitive events while granting him the shield of anonymity--which, in the wrong hands, can become...

November 12, 2007, 0:00 a.m. Slandering the American Soldier An American media tradition. By Mackubin Thomas Owens  As anyone who has not been vacationing on the moon knows, The New Republic embarrassed itself this summer by publishing and defending a series of stories by one Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an active-duty soldier serving in Iraq. As we know, Beauchamp told of his comrades in Iraq mocking a woman horribly scarred by an IED, wrote of another wearing part of a human skull, and depicted yet another using a Bradley fighting vehicle to run over stray dogs. All of the stories...

On June 1, The New York Times published a front-page article titled, ONE PLACE WHERE OBAMA GOES ELBOW TO ELBOW. The feature detailed Barack Obama's love for pickup basketball, his jersey-tugging style, even the time he hit a long game-winning shot after getting fouled. The Obama camp clearly welcomed the humanizing glimpse at Obama's life; his rivals, probably not so much. In an ordinary campaign, that might have been it. But this is no ordinary campaign--not when Hillary Clinton is a candidate. And so, the Clinton team let Times reporter Patrick Healy, who covers the Hillary beat, know about their...

Some voters pining for a principled conservative Republican presidential candidate are pinning their hopes on former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee. But while Gov. Huckabee stands strong on some issues like abortion that are important to social conservatives, a careful examination of his record as governor reveals that he is just another wishy-washy Republican who enthusiastically promotes big government. The Baptist preacher entered politics in an unlikely way for a Republican—as the result of a meeting with Joycelyn Elders, reports The New Republic. As director of the Arkansas department of health under Gov. Bill Clinton, Dr. Elders opined that preachers...

A Scott Beauchamp Update Since our last statement on “Shock Troops,” a Diarist by Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp that we published in our July 23 issue, we have continued our investigation into the article’s veracity. On Wednesday, for a brief period, The Drudge Report posted several documents from the Army’s own investigation into Beauchamp’s claims. Among those documents was a transcript of a phone conversation that TNR Editor Franklin Foer and TNR Executive Editor J. Peter Scoblic had with Beauchamp on September 6—the first time the Army had granted TNR permission to speak with Beauchamp since it cut off...

The soldier whose New Republic article about military cruelty in Iraq was labeled false by Army investigators refused to defend his accusations when questioned by the magazine, even after being told that the editors could no longer support him unless he cooperated.In a recorded Sept. 6 conversation, the writer, Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, said from Iraq that the controversy had "spun out of control" and had become "insane" and "ridiculous" and concluded: "I'm not going to talk to anyone about anything." Beauchamp stood his ground even after Editor Franklin Foer told him "that if you're not able to talk about...

The story of General Petraeus getting accidentally shot in the chest is a case in point. One of his own soldiers had pulled the trigger. Normally, something very bad would have happened to that soldier and his commander. Instead Petraeus sent that soldier to Ranger School, and his Captain (Fred Johnson) was promoted early. In June, I witnessed LTC Fred Johnson helping to restore security and rebuild Baqubah. Fred Johnson is a believer in second chances. Some months ago, a soldier in Baghdad wrote a piece on the way war can degrade the morals and affect the judgment of combat...

Shattered Diarist Ask Peter Arnett for advice next time. It was nice to see the Scott Thomas Beauchamp/New Republic scandal back up on the radar screen yesterday. There was never a satisfactory conclusion to the story; it just faded out over the summer. Now it is back in a big way, with the Drudge Report releasing internal Army documents related to the case, and a very revealing transcript of a conversation between Beauchamp, various luminaries from The New Republic, and Beauchamp’s TNR-supplied lawyer. Shattered Diarist 10/25 Divide and Concur 10/12 Osama, Take II 09/12 Not Osama’s Best Work 09/08 Iran’s...

The Drudge Report has posted a a series of documents that reveal the lengths to which the New Republic’s editors, specifically Frank Foer and Peter Scoblic, went to cover up the truth about the Scott Beauchamp stories. This is the end of the road, and a long road it's been.

Drudge vs. TNR: Early Wednesday afternoon, the Drudge Report posted a red-letter item about the controversy surrounding the New Republic's "Baghdad Diarist," Scott Beauchamp. Beauchamp is a soldier serving in Iraq whose dispatches telling of outrageous behavior by U.S. troops—belittling a woman scarred by an IED, wearing a skull fragment from the remains of a child found in one of Saddam's mass graves, and intentionally trying to kill dogs with armored vehicles—came under intense scrutiny from conservative bloggers over the summer. TNR issued a statement on Aug. 10 saying it was investigating the veracity of the reports but hasn't commented...

Matt Drudge has announced his acquisition of documents from the Army investigation into allegations of misconduct made by Private Scott Beauchamp, and they make The New Republic look like the Nixon administration for stonewalling. He provides PDFs of the documents as support as well. Beauchamp admitted to investigators that he made up most of the stories, including the most disturbing tale of troops harassing a disfigured woman, as well as running over dogs in armored personnel carriers. Why did Beauchamp tell these lies? He had literary aspirations and didn't mind libeling his comrades to achieve them: Army Investigation: Tales "Completely...

Drudge: The Beauchamp transcripts; Foer to Beauchamp: “Let us control the way this story proceeds;” Foer exploits Beauchamp’s wife: “Ellie sent me an e-mail to tell you that it’s the most important thing in the world for her that you say that you didn’t recant;” Update: Foer whines, attacks the military again By Michelle Malkin • October 24, 2007 01:30 PM Update 6:50pm Eastern. Franklin Foer comes out from under his desk to whine to the NY Observer about the transcripts being leaked. All of this damning transcript evidence of TNR’s attempts to cover up, and what does Foer do?...

SHOCK DOCS: THE NEW REPUBLIC 'SHOCK TROOPS' STORY COLLAPSESWED Oct 24 2007 12:29:44 ET The DRUDGE REPORT has optained internal documents from the investigation of THE NEW REPUBLIC'S "Baghdad Diarist", Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an Army private turned war correspondent who reported tales of military malfeasance from the Iraq War front. The documents appear to expose that once the veracity of Beauchamp's diaries were called into question, and an Army investigation ensued, THE NEW REPUBLIC has failed to publicly account for publishing slanderous falsehoods about the U.S. military in a time of war. Document 1: Beauchamp Refuses to Stand by...

SHOCK DOCS: THE NEW REPUBLIC 'SHOCK TROOPS' STORY COLLAPSES WED Oct 24 2007 12:29:44 ET The DRUDGE REPORT has optained internal documents from the investigation of THE NEW REPUBLIC'S "Baghdad Diarist", Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an Army private turned war correspondent who reported tales of military malfeasance from the Iraq War front. The documents appear to expose that once the veracity of Beauchamp's diaries were called into question, and an Army investigation ensued, THE NEW REPUBLIC has failed to publicly account for publishing slanderous falsehoods about the U.S. military in a time of war. Document 1: Beauchamp Refuses to Stand by...

It’s been another week without word from the New Republic on the status of its "investigation" into the columns of TNR Baghdad Diarist Scott Thomas Beauchamp. "The editors" have not spoken on the matter since their (August 10 update). At that time "the editors" spoke grandly of their "commitment to the truth" and their efforts to resolve the "legitimate concerns about journalistic accuracy" that had been raised by the critics of Beauchamp's TNR Baghdad Diarist columns. They also said they took those concerns "extremely seriously." Ten weeks later, however, their promises have proved empty. "The editors" think they can stonewall...

No one thought Jeri Kehn could do it. Back in 2000, the dishy young Republican operative, then 33, had Washington wags atwitter over her high-profile quest to capture the famously footloose Fred Thompson. Divorced from his high school sweetheart in 1985, the senator and erstwhile actor, then 57, had become one of the hottest tickets in town. A deep- drawling, broad-shouldered six-and-half footer, Thompson had a devastating Southern charm, with a gilding of movie-star glamour. Country music bombshell Lorrie Morgan, cosmetics queen Georgette Mosbacher, conservative pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, and Time columnist Margaret Carlson were among Hollywood Fred's better-known, better-heeled paramours....

Conservatives claim to be in favor of stable families, small businesses, hard work, private schools, investment and homeownership. So why in the world are so many on the right attacking the family of Graeme Frost? SNIP The kids were treated, thanks to S-CHIP. The Frosts spoke out so the public would know that real people lie behind the acronym. Their reward was to be trashed on right-wing blogs and talk radio as if they were multimillionaires ripping off the system. The assault on the Frosts apparently began on the Free Republic website and quickly spread to National Review Online, Power...

Last month Pajamas Media published an in-depth report on the scandal surrounding the “Baghdad Diarist” articles by Scott Thomas Beauchamp in The New Republic. Now PJM’s Bob Owens interviews Major John Cross, who led the U.S. Army’s investigation into Private Beauchamp’s shocking claims. Even more shocking is what Cross reveals below: Among other findings, there is no credible evidence that TNR made any attempt at fact checking prior to publishing the articles. Furthermore, not one of the soldiers interviewed under oath in the investigation corroborated Beauchamp’s story. Click link for more: http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/09/new_republic.php