Free Republic

In 1996, The New York Times columnist William Safire diagnosed Hillary Clinton's real problem. He called her a "congenital liar." Congenital is defined as "having by nature a specified character." Following Hillary Clinton's health scare Sunday in New York, we may have reached the conclusion author Mary McCarthy did when speaking of playwright Lillian Hellman: "Every word [Hellman] writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'." A person's character is a clue to the entire person and both Clintons have displayed over many years severe character deficiencies. Abraham Lincoln said, "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want...

Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady -- a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation -- is a congenital liar. Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends in a web of deceit. 1. Remember the story she told about studying The Wall Street Journal to explain her 10,000 percent profit in 1979 commodity trading? We now know that was a lie told to turn aside accusations that...

Nowadays, the “smoke-filled room” is mostly just a metaphor—but there was a real room that started it all. Well, sort of. The compelling image of the smoke-filled room, a “place of political intrigue and chicanery, where candidates were selected by party bosses in cigar-chewing session,” per William Safire, arose during the 1920 Republican convention. That year, Sen. Warren G. Harding of Ohio was the come-from-behind nominee for president, selected after ten ballots. According to historian David Pietrusza, author of 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents, the room in question is often credited with the phrase “because the people who...

THE OPEN MIND Host: Richard D. Heffner Guest: William Safire Title: “William Safire on the Book of Job in Today’s Politics” VTR: 10/9/92 I’m Richard Heffner, your host on THE OPEN MIND, where only very rarely – indeed too rarely, as far as those of our viewers who want me to draw blood are concerned – only occasionally do I play at what Ross Perot has called “Gotcha journalism”. But when I do, or at least try to, it’s usually in the guise of – oh so innocently of course – asking a guest about this or her most fervently...

WASHINGTON - Intelligence shortcomings, as we see, have a thousand fathers; secret intelligence triumphs are orphans. Here is the unremarked story of "the Farewell dossier": how a CIA campaign of computer sabotage resulting in a huge explosion in Siberia -- all engineered by a mild-mannered economist named Gus Weiss -- helped us win the Cold War. Weiss worked down the hall from me in the Nixon administration. In early 1974, he wrote a report on Soviet advances in technology through purchasing and copying that led the beleaguered president -- detente notwithstanding -- to place restrictions on the export of computers...

This has not been a good time for losing friends. Genius pal John Hughes. Patriot, superstar political and moral philosopher, Irving Kristol. One of the kindest, gentlest, finest men on the planet, a twinkle of intelligence and love always in his eyes, beautiful soul Irving Kristol. Now, just yesterday, irreplaceable Bill Safire, who was more family than friend. When I think of Safire and losing him to cruel, vicious cancer, I think of losing the walking talking embodiment of that highest of virtues, loyalty. (Kristol, too.) Yes, a brilliant writer and phrase-maker -- the words, "an effete corps of impudent...

<p>No article yet; just an announcement on the NYT front page.</p>

BY choosing the venue of a vast outdoor stadium as John Kennedy did for his “new frontier” acceptance, and by speaking on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” address, Barack Obama — whose claim to fame is an ability to move audiences with his words — deliberately invited comparison with two of the most memorable speeches of our recent history. What a mistake. A speaker must first ask: what is the best setting to make close contact with the person I want to reach? In this day and age, it is not a huge throng wildly...

Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our first lady - a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation - is a congenital liar. Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends in a web of deceit. 1) Remember the story she told about studying The Wall Street Journal to explain her 10,000 percent profit in 1979 commodity trading? We now know that was a lie told to turn aside accusations that...

OPTIMISTIC predictions took a beating in 2006 (except for the stock market), but today — in my 33rd annual office pool in this space — is my chance to recoup. In these multiple choices, pick one, all or none. 1. The “O’Connorless Supreme Court” will decide (a) without reversing Roe v. Wade to uphold laws restricting late-term abortion because they do not impose an “undue burden” on women (b) that public schools in Seattle and Louisville, in their zeal to prevent re-segregation, have gone too far in using race in selection of students (c) to reject Massachusetts’ case to force...

Weekend Talk Show *Preview* for 7/1 and 7/2/06 (not the live thread)The main message is the Sunday Shows.  Message 1 will be the Saturday Shows and message 2 will be the show guest links post.  Then I'll post the ping list.ABC This Week (George Stephanopoulos) Meme: Bush was wrong on all the issues McCain is right onThe Supreme's smack down the Bushies (who cares if it endangers the country, it's NEWS!!!) Topics: Hamdan, Immigration, and Iraq Guests Senator John McCain, Republican - Arizona He's BAAAAACKMcCain's back and Georgie's got himIt's such a tragedy that President Bush didn't listen to Saint...

A report commissioned in mid-1999 by Rep. Curt Weldon (R) looks into possible Chinese front companies in the US seeking technology for the Chinese military. Dr. Eileen Preisser and Michael Maloof are commissioned to make the report. Dr. Preisser, who runs the Information Dominance Center at the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) and will later become closely tied to Able Danger, uses LIWA's data mining capabilities to search unclassified information. According to Maloof, their results show Chinese front companies in the US posing as US corporations that acquire technology from US defense contractors. When the study is completed...

Washington LEGEND has it when Henry David Thoreau went to jail to protest an unjust law, his friend, the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, visited him and asked, "Henry, what are you doing in here?" The great nature writer replied, "What are you doing out there?" The Supreme Court has just flinched from its responsibility to stop the unjust jailing of two journalists - not charged with any wrongdoing - by a runaway prosecutor who will go to any lengths to use the government's contempt power to force them to betray their confidential sources. The case was about the "outing" of...

Roll Call’s Mary Ann Akers will reveal Thursday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dined earlier this week with Fox News CEO Roger Ailes and Sen. John Thune, the man who took out former Democratic Minority Leader Sen. Tom Daschle, RAW STORY has learned. The dinner, Akers is set to report, included Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper, Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, conservative columnist William Safire and Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot, and their wives. “Despite incessant rumors of Rumseld’s imminent departure, [Aker’s] source said the secretary was...

Did United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan hightail it to Moscow to check in with his handpicked UN reform man Yevgeny Primakov within weeks of William Safire’s New York Times expose on alleged scandal in the Oil-For-Food Program? The first of Safire’s groundbreaking Oil-For-Food investigative stories ran in mid-March, 2004. Here’s Annan’s Moscow itinerary as documented by The Russian Federation: "Annan arrived in Moscow on Sunday, April 4, 2004 where he had an early working dinner with Evgeni (sic) Primakov, former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation." On the following day, Annan visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where...

Did United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan hightail it to Moscow to check in with his handpicked UN reform man Yevgeny Primakov within weeks of William Safire’s New York Times expose on alleged scandal in the Oil-For-Food Program? The first of Safire’s groundbreaking Oil-For-Food investigative stories ran in mid-March, 2004. Here’s Annan’s Moscow itinerary as documented by The Russian Federation: "Annan arrived in Moscow on Sunday, April 4, 2004 where he had an early working dinner with Evgeni (sic) Primakov, former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation." On the following day, Annan visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where...

There are substantial revisions to our lineup and schedule of syndicated national columnists: Six columnists from our current lineup - Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, Maureen Dowd, Leonard Pitts, David Broder and Ellen Goodman - are continuing, but their work will appear on different days of the week. We're adding five new columnists to the page - three conservative, two liberal - with an eye toward freshening up the mix and upgrading the quality of the writing and advocacy. Conservative Michael Barone, a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and principal co-writer of the "Almanac of American Politics," has...

The Nobel laureate James Watson, who started a revolution in science as co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, put it to me straight a couple of years ago: "Never retire. Your brain needs exercise or it will atrophy." Why, then, am I bidding Op-Ed readers farewell today after more than 3,000 columns? Nobody pushed me; at 75, I'm in good shape, not afflicted with political ennui; and my recent column about tsunami injustice and the Book of Job drew the biggest mail response in 32 years of pounding out punditry. Here's why I'm outta here: In an interview 50...

OP-ED COLUMNIST WASHINGTON — What's the secret to long-run success? For a person, it's useful to have the smarts, look great, be lucky and exude charisma. All that is not enough. For a political party, it helps to have good organization, articulate candidates and pollsters to discern a popular set of issues. Not enough. For a nation, success can seem assured by natural resources, free enterprise, a culture of compassion and a free press. It can still go under. For a person, a party and a nation, the element essential to success is character, a word that grew out of...

OP-ED COLUMNIST WASHINGTON — A global coalition of the giving - bolstered by American military ships and choppers that are able to deliver needed relief to sick and starving tsunami victims - rightly dominates the news. In Asia, the cataclysm's aftermath pulls even warring factions together. Not in the Middle East. Palestinians and Israelis must first resolve their internal battles before they can begin to make peace with each other. In Gaza, the leading candidate to replace Yasir Arafat in Sunday's election, Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, has embraced the radical Arabs who want not peace but conquest. These...