Free Republic

Race, the yet unclosed scab that has run deep through our history, is about to be discussed as it never has been in a presidential election. In fairness to the United States, racial attitudes (or man's view of the "other" man) is a universal phenomenon that in most countries either goes unspoken or results in straight-out ethnic cleansing and murder. Here in America, in our earnest striving toward perfected tolerance and equality, we loquaciously agonize over our shortcomings -- and it is good that we do. In this unprecedented election year, we run the risk of having two conversations: a...

Obviously, and first, don't come out against change and hope — the perennial themes of successful election campaigns.

Every political season has its pleasures. With the accelerated metabolism of the frenzied fight for Super Tuesday now behind us, the two parties are settling in for the more discreet political pleasures of late winter and early spring. Republicans are entering the teeth-gnashing stage, as they come to reluctant terms with their ideologically cross-dressing ancient mariner nominee. Sen. McCain is condemned to wander about with the albatross of his former conservative apostasy around his neck. I suppose he hopes that he will be excused, just as the mariner is in the poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Eventually, the...

What will the right-of-center coalition in American politics look like in five or 10 years? Before considering that, let's consider what it looked like in, say, 1940 and 1980. In 1940, the conservative alternative to FDR was in the minority. It was largely anti-New Deal, somewhat anti-Catholic, pro-domestic free market, pro-protectionist, isolationist in its Midwestern center of gravity (with a more internationalist Northeastern wing). It was strongly opposed to the draft (the August 1940 vote in Congress for the draft had 182 Democrats and only 21 Republicans supporting it. The no vote was 133 Republican, 65 Democratic.) Culturally, particularly in...

Having spent much of my adult life in politics, it would be silly at this late date to be shocked by the discovery of insincerity and misleading statements coming from leading candidates for president. But if I have seen too much of the world to be shocked, at least I can still be appalled. Consider the following Associated Press story from earlier this week: "The economy needs help and fast, Hillary Rodham Clinton declared Monday, claiming the experience for the job and saying the nation can't afford to break in a newcomer... There is one job we can't afford on-the-job...

<p>Tony Blankley, the editorial page editor of The Washington Times for the past five years, yesterday accepted a position as executive vice president of the Edelman public-relations firm in Washington.</p> <p>He will also become a visiting senior fellow in national-security communications at the Heritage Foundation. He will continue to write his weekly editorial-page column for The Times.</p>

Yesterday, I read Bob Novak's column titled "Republican Melancholy," which correctly caught the current depressed mood in GOP circles. President Bush's position on illegal immigration has deeply alienated much of the loyal rank and file Republicans across the country. Key Republican incumbents, such as Sen. John Warner of Virginia and Rep. Debbie Price of Ohio, are announcing their retirements. Sen. Larry Craig's cringe-inducing disgrace only adds to the funereal mood. And, of course, the Iraq War, for all the surge's success this summer, remains vastly unpopular with the public. To top off this GOP discontent, none of our presidential candidates...

(CNSNews.com) - A significant percentage of Muslims across the globe are buying into radical ideas at a time when the technology enabling lethal weaponry is becoming more readily available, the editorial page editor for the Washington Times said Tuesday while addressing a gathering of conservative-minded college students in Washington, D.C. The real possibility of a chemical, biological and even nuclear device being detonated in a major American city is further maximized by the unwillingness of many Bush administration critics to appreciate the dangers associated with the rise of radical Islam, Tony Blankley argued during the 29th Young America's Foundation National...

Just as our troops are fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to face them here at home, I watched the Democratic Party presidential debate on Monday so you wouldn't need to let those egregious people into your own living rooms. (Although, obviously, our troops in Iraq face deadly duty, while I only face deadly dull duty.) But I did learn a few things. For the first time Monday, CNN provided us with sustained close-up shots of Sen. John Edwards' haircut, and I can now understand why he paid between $400-$1,200 a cut. At middle range, it looks...

The word Iraq seems to derange the minds of almost all who contemplate it. Like other famous vexations in history -- Carthage for the Romans, Germany for the French, the Irish for the English (and, of course, the English for the Irish) -- Iraq induces in the current American mind the full range of mentalities except reason.

Snip With the trend of recent years toward early voting and greater use of absentee ballots, it has already become harder to design a presidential campaign rhythm to peak at an exactly optimum moment -- as the Nixon 1968 campaign did. snip Thus is lost one of the great advantage of challengers: that their ideas are fresh, appealing and plausible, but not public long enough to be measured by events and considered judgment -- which is the inevitable plight of incumbents and their party successors. And how in the name of all that's holy does a campaign manage the timing...

Before the invention of movable type in the 15th century, the media of mass communication was limited to architecture, paintings, sculpture, images on coins and songs sung by balladeers. Christians learned about the dangers of Hell from the stained-glass stories in the cathedrals. The people might have had an idea of what their king looked like by his minted (usually heroic) image on coins. But they might not have known much about their king or what he was doing that might change or even end their lives suddenly. SNIP Of course the sovereignty of the people has — and I...

The American presidency has been called "A Glorious Burden" by the Smithsonian Museum, and the loneliest job in the world by historians. As we approach Christmas 2006 Anno Domini, President Bush is surely fully seized of the loneliness and burden of his office. snip Commentators who urged the president on in 2002-03, having fallen out of love with their ideas, are quick to quibble with and defame the president. snip That such transparent sophism from the leader of the American foreign policy establishment is dignified with the title of realism, only further exemplifies the loneliness of the president in his...

Pope Benedict in the lion's den Pope Benedict XVI's trip to Turkey was characterized by the Associated Press thusly (in one of their increasingly rare exercises in objective journalism): "Benedict's journey is extraordinarily sensitive, a closely watched pilgrimage full of symbolisms that could offer hope of religious reconciliation or deepen what many say is a growing divide between the Christian and Islamic worlds." While we must hope for the former, it is hard not to expect the latter. .....Snip... "So, too, Pope Benedict continues to be a sign of contradiction. He has crossed the lines of our normal categories regarding...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The human resources director of The Washington Times has been arrested on charges of soliciting a teenager for sex on the Internet. D.C. police say 53-year-old Randall Casseday of Dobbs Ferry, New York, was arrested Tuesday night in Northeast Washington. He had allegedly arranged to meet what he believed was a 13-year-old girl he had been corresponding with in an online chat room. The person he was communicating with was a detective with the department's Internet Crimes Against Children branch. Casseday, who rents a room in the Washington area, was charged with attempted enticement of a minor...

There is a historically fairly predictable pattern to the unfolding strategies and views of great wars. They often start with a morally ambiguous view of the enemy, a more limited conception of the war's magnitude and a restrained application of violent tactics. Eventually, moral clarity is obtained, war objectives expand -- often to grandiosity -- and tactics become ferocious. For example, at the start of our Civil War during the 1861 battle of First Manassas, spectators came out by carriage with picnic lunches to observe the event. By 1865, Gen. Sherman executed a campaign of civilian terror and material obliteration...

Are Bush's critics right?By Tony Blankley Wednesday, August 23, 2006 We are all aware of the dangerous Middle East conditions the United States faces today after five and half years of President Bush's leadership. So let's consider what the world might well look like if, in his remaining two and a half years, he were to follow the recommendations of his critics. First: America out of Iraq by the end of 2007. We warn the Iraqis to get off their duffs and prepare to be in charge by Dec. 31, 2007. We depart (leaving a couple of divisions in a...

David Brooks devoted his entire Sunday New York Times column to a truncated verbatim text of an interview he had on background with a Bush administration "policy maker" on our Middle East foreign policy. It reveals several shrewd assessments, but also an undeniable air of unreality and defeatism. If the comments are a true reflection of President Bush's views, then one is obliged to reassess virtually every word the administration expresses on the topics of the Middle East and terrorism.

In a remarkable week, nothing was more remarkable than the following announcement (reported, but not sufficiently, by the American media) from the government of Saudi Arabia: "Viewing with deep concern the bloody, painful events currently taking place in Palestine and Lebanon, the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] would like to clearly announce that a difference should be drawn between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventures carried out by elements inside [Lebanon] and those behind them [i.e. Iran and Syria] without consultation with the legitimate authority in their state and without consultation or coordination with Arab countries, thus creating a gravely dangerous situation...

The Marine incident, and its aftermath, at Haditha tells us much more about the media than it does about the Marines. And what it tells us ought to outrage us to the core. On every radio and television show I appeared on last week (and all I observed) in which this topic came up, without exception at least one of the media people immediately attempted to implicate not just the still-presumed-innocent Marines, but the American military's leadership and methods in general. The "Drive By Media" (Rush Limbaugh's scientifically accurate description) has already started to report this story in a manner...