Free Republic

THE WHITE House is in lockdown after a man attempted to set himself on fire, a New York Times reporter has claimed. Photos taken at the scene show security personnel tackling a person on the ground. Police and amublance crews are in attendance. Nicholas Kristof, a columnist with the New York Times, said: “Someone apparently set himself on fire in front of the White House just now. I was coming out of the West Wing, and the Sevret Service isn’t letting anyone out onto Pennsylvania Ave. They say there are also suspicious packages. “The whole area in front of the...

The indictment of a former Florida professor on charges of being a Palestinian terrorist has cast a very different light on some past punditry. After flying to Tampa to interview him, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote last year that the University of South Florida's attempt to fire Sami Al-Arian shed light on "what kind of universities we desire, how much dissent we dare tolerate and how we treat minorities in times of national stress." He noted that the proceedings began after "Bill O'Reilly invited Mr. Al-Arian on his Fox News show and virtually accused him of being a...

On Friday, the government filed this statement of the facts in its memorandum in support of its motion for summary judgment in a civil rights and Privacy Act lawsuit brought by Dr. Steve Hatfill. “The anthrax attacks occurred in October 2001. Public officials, prominent members of the media, and ordinary citizens were targeted by this first bio-terrorist attack on American soil. Twenty-two persons were infected with anthrax; five died. At least 17 public buildings were contaminated. The attacks wreaked havoc on the U.S. postal system and disrupted government and commerce, resulting in economic losses estimated to exceed one billion dollars....

Speculation is mounting (except, of course, among the “professional” press), as to the identities of six of the eight individuals included in the Libby subpoena to The New York Times (see Clarice Feldman’s piece here). The Times deemed the identities of only two of the parties worthy of release, former CIA director George Tenet and former White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer. The names of the other six remain elusive

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is facing criticism after retweeting a controversial message that referred to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the National Rifle Association as “the 2 most pig like lobbies” in America. Longtime Israel critic M.J. Rosenberg, who was dumped by the liberal Media Matters for America for his use of borderline anti-Semitic language, authored the controversial tweet Wednesday afternoon. It called to mind recently unearthed statements by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi that referred to Jews as “pigs.” “OBAMA told the 2 most pig like lobbies, AIPAC & NRA, to drop dead in same month....

On a backpacking trip once, I slipped on a steep ice sheet and began sliding uncontrollably toward the edge of a cliff overhanging an icy river. Luckily, my son pulled me to safety with his trekking pole. Am I better off now than I was when I was sliding toward the abyss? Duh! That’s a useful starting point in any assessment of President Obama. In many ways, his first term has been disappointing: the economy remains weak, housing is a mess and, for a man with a silver tongue, he has been a wretched communicator. Then again, we’re incomparably better...

Health care reform may be defeated this year in part because so many Americans believe the government can’t do anything right and fear that a doctor will come to resemble an I.R.S. agent with a scalpel. Yet the part of America’s health care system that consumers like best is the government-run part. Fifty-six to 60 percent of people in government-run Medicare rate it a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. In contrast, only 40 percent of those enrolled in private insurance rank their plans that high. Multiple surveys back that up. For example, 68 percent of those in Medicare...

NEW YORK After months of complaints from what he calls “bloggers on the right,” among others, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has posted at his paid TimesSelect page a clarification on his now-famous, but somewhat flawed, column that played a central role in the still-enveloping Plame/CIA leak case. Kristof said the reasons for correcting the record now were that the Libby indictment had revived interest in the May, 6, 2003 column -- and he has been pressing for Vice President Cheney to “tell all” about the case so “here's my effort to do the same.” It came just hours...

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof made a name for himself with a series of columns claiming he knew who the prime suspect in the anthrax murders was. He called him "Mr. Z," until "Mr. Z" went public and affirmed his innocence. "Mr. Z" is Steven Hatfill, whose spokesman Patrick Clawson says that Krisfof's columns were full of "bunk" and "total garbage." Perhaps Kristof ought to be investigated for impersonating a serious columnist. Getting off Hatfill's case for a while, he went off on another tangent in a column simply titled "Bush vs. Women," making the president out to be...

OP-ED COLUMNISTCalling Bush a LiarBy NICHOLAS D. KRISTOFPublished: June 30, 2004 o is President Bush a liar?Plenty of Americans think so. Bookshops are filled with titles about Mr. Bush like "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them," "Big Lies," "Thieves in High Places" and "The Lies of George W. Bush." A consensus is emerging on the left that Mr. Bush is fundamentally dishonest, perhaps even evil — a nut, yes, but mostly a liar and a schemer. That view is at the heart of Michael Moore's scathing new documentary, "Farenheit 9/11."In the 1990's, nothing made conservatives look more petty...

I don’t want to be a bloodthirsty fiend squatting on a heap of skulls, waving a lasso made of my enemies’ entrails over my head, whooping like Conan on Spring Break in Lemuria. I want nothing more than a well-ordered world of rational people, a globe where societies react with instinctive revulsion to barbarism and smother it in its cradle. Where a sociopathic rogue leader who seizes power is extirpated by altruistic neighbors - who promptly help the vanquished nation rebuild its civic institutions. I want a world in which international law is respected by all, because it reflects the...