Free Republic

Next week a vastly important book will be published: "Preemption, A Knife That Cuts Both Ways" by Alan Dershowitz. Yes, that Alan Dershowitz: the very liberal civil libertarian, anti-capital punishment Harvard Law School professor. And but for my lack of his legal scholarship, there is nary a sentence in the book that I — a very conservative editor of the Washington Times, and former press secretary to Newt Gingrich — couldn't have written. The premise of his book is that in this age of terror, there is a potential need for such devices as profiling, preventive detention, anticipatory mass inoculation,...

But the Washington press corp, and particularly the White House press corp, has developed, as an institution, a grossly dilated view of itself. Most of us can tolerate arrogance if it is accompanied by extraordinary capacity and virtuosity. The brilliant scientist, the war-winning general, the great artists are entitled to their pride. But the hallmark of the Washington Press corp these days is mediocrity, groupthink, a lack of curiosity and rampant careerism. These attributes were all on show in the shooting party incident. But this is just a trivial incident -- except for the poor, shot gentleman who suffered a...

   Snip.. As I understand the profound concern of the ever alert White House reporters, they smell a constitutional crisis because the shooting party failed to alert the media of the accidental shooting down in Corpus Christi, Texas. Well, actually they did alert the Corpus Christi media — but that didn't count. Unless the exalted ones have been formally informed by an official government press secretary, no public communication has technically occurred.     I checked the bylaws of the White House press corps, and they are right. It seems that the bylaws refer to Article XXIII of the U.S. Constitution which expressly designates...

THE WEST’S LAST CHANCE - WILL WE WIN THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS By Tony Blankley THE WASHINGTON TIMES September 13, 2005 'An Islamist threat like the Nazis' But that survival instinct is threatened by the multiculturalism and political correctness advocated in media and academe -- and institutionalized in national and European Union laws and regulations for half a century. Europe's effort at cultural tolerance since World War II slowly morphed into a surprisingly deep self-loathing of Western culture that denied the instinct for cultural and national self-defense. If Europe doesn't rise to the challenge, Eurabia will come to pass. Then...

Listen While You Freep! All programs are replayed for 23 hours and again on weekends so tune in when it’s convenient for YOU! Call In Number - 866-884-TALK (8255) Heating the EDGE of a New Media! Noon EST - Michael Graham UNLEASHED! 1pm EST - The Right Hour ( 1pm EST) Description: Tony Blankley, Editorial Page Editor of The Washington Times, will be the featured guest of RIGHT HOUR Host Paul M. Weyrich, Chairman and CEO of Free Congress Foundation. Blankley’s new book, The West’s Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?” explains The War on Terror in...

Listen While You Freep! All programs are replayed for 23 hours and again on weekends so tune in when it’s convenient for YOU! Call In Number - 866-884-TALK (8255) Heating the EDGE of a New Media! Noon EST – Michael Graham UNLEASHED! 1pm EST - Straight Talk - In August the spokesman for the muslim group CAIR appeared on my show. When pressed to be forthcoming about what they stood for; he emoted and hung-up. My guest this week will do what Ibrahim Hooper was unwilling to do. This week's guest will shed the light of truth on CAIR. Are...

GOP, Dems in synchronized funk Tony Blankley August 31, 2005 Usually, when one of our major political parties is feeling weak, the other one is feeling strong. But right at the moment, both the Republican and Democratic Parties seem to be in a synchronized funk.   Republican operatives do not currently anticipate the 2006 election to be a good time for Republican challengers. As a result, as Bob Novak and others have pointed out, it is hard to get the best Republican hopeful candidates to risk taking on even weak Democratic incumbents in the next election.  Meanwhile, Republican incumbent congressmen...

The case for victory Tony Blankley August 24, 2005 In Tuesday's Wall St. Journal, reporters Farnaz Fassihi and Christopher Cooper wrote the phrase: "Mr. Bush and others have stopped talking so much of an outright victory in Iraq as they focus on plans to train Iraqi soldiers … so American troops can come home."  I guess they didn't read President Bush's radio speech from three days earlier where he said, in referring to our troops who had died in Iraq: "Now we must finish the task that our troops have given their lives for and honor their sacrifice by completing...

Summer is the season for World War II anniversary celebrations: May 8, Victory in Europe Day; June 6, D-Day; Aug. 15, Victory in Japan Day. But one WWII anniversary day is rarely celebrated: Sept. 29. This year, Sept. 29 will be the 67th anniversary of the signing of the Munich Agreement by (in order as their signatures appear on the document): Adolph Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier and Benito Mussolini. Today's politicians please take note: History tends to remember harshly those statesmen who sell out their and other nations -- even if it is done under cover of impeccable diplomatic...

Summer is the season for World War II anniversary celebrations: May 8, Victory in Europe Day; June 6, D-Day; Aug. 15, Victory in Japan Day. But one WWII anniversary day is rarely celebrated: Sept. 29....

"When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master — that's all . . . When I make a word do a lot of work like that, said Humpty Dumpty, I always pay it extra." Mindful of the foregoing, Sen. Joe Biden must have written a particularly handsome check to the account of the word "ideology," because...

Just one day after its official release, Edward Klein's new book about Hillary Clinton has reached the No. 2 spot on Amazon.com's list of best sellers. "The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President" shot past David McCullough's blockbuster work "1776" to take the list's second spot and was only surpassed by the latest Harry Potter book. The news of Klein's success is bad news for Hillary, whose top aides have been working overdrive to close down the author's public appearances. Klein has been locked out of traditional venues...

[/snip, because it's required] According to the Financial Times, the generally free trade enjoyed by the United States since 1945 has accounted for about 10 percent of our economic activity. That is to say, America would be about a trillion dollars a year poorer without the benefits of free trade. Of course world trade will not decline over night. But it is an ominous political fact that there may be an emerging majority in Congress prepared to sacrifice the golden goose on the altar of their deepest economic fears.

It has been an awkward winter and spring for the Grand Old Party, but as the city sanitation department sweeps away the last of the cherry blossoms, the Republicans seem to be re-forming as a coherent fighting mechanism. Winter got off to a bad start when the tidal waves killed hundreds of thousands of Asians and, more to the political point, swept away the aura of good feelings following the Republicans' triumphant November election results. That gave Democrats a chance to feel good about themselves again by beating up on "American stinginess," while Republicans had to apologize for the mere...

In its upcoming issue, Vanity Fair has done an investigation into the current cause of the kooky left, the case of disgraced White House reporter Jeff Gannon/James Guckert. And reporters David Margolick and Richard Gooding have uncovered...nothing. No White House wrongdoing. No secret plotting or illicit Gannon affairs with White House staffers. No Karl-Rove-master-plan-to-undermine-democracy hijinks. Nothing. "As time passed, Gannon came to seem, to at least some of the [left-wing] bloggers, as more like a freelance zealot than the linchpin of some much larger conspiracy," Margolick and Gooding write. "They now admit that for them Gannon emerged as less a...

I understand why the Democrats are going after Sen. Tom DeLay. Snakes gotta slither, mosquitoes gotta bite, hyenas gotta laugh and Democrats without a blooming idea in their heads gotta go negative. I also understand why the New York Times is out soliciting Bob Livingston to write an attack op-ed against Mr. DeLay (he refused), and why they report legal, ethical, common and specifically Ethics Committee-approved activity like Mr. DeLay employing relatives on his campaign — as if it were a crime.

It's not only the top of the market old media like CBS and the New York Times that are under assault. In the last few days there have been stories about the travails of the National Enquirer and the New York Daily News' gossip columnist, Liz Smith, drowning in the digital storm. It seems the Enquirer has lost a cool million readers per edition in circulation over the last eight years — down to 1.5 million over its historic high of 4 million in the halcyon days of the 1970s. Liz Smith, proud to be a gossip columnist a publicity...

The perplexing, appalling, heartbreaking Terri Shiavo case brings very modestly to mind Socrates's injunction that the proper study of philosophy is man. Perhaps the great Socrates could make the study of man a useful endeavor, but if the Schiavo case is any example, most of the rest of us don't seem up to the task. But there is nothing new in recognizing man's heroic inadequacies. Consider the first stanza of the Christian Enlightenment poet Alexander Pope's The Proper Study of Mankind : Click to learn more... "Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is...

--snip-- As a former prosecutor, I am convinced that from time to time juries find before them 16- or 17-year-old defendants who understand full well the vicious nature of their murders, and deserve -- after receiving the full panoply of due process -- to be fried, gassed, hanged, shot, injected or otherwise sent promptly to Hell. --snip-- Even if you are of a sympathetic nature and believe that the little 17-year-old darlings deserve to be rehabilitated, you might still find this Supreme Court opinion stomach turning for its sheer disdain of logic, public attitudes and American law. --snip--

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck again -- this time overturning by a 5-4 decision, all statutes that apply the death sentence to 16- and 17-year-old murderers. As a former prosecutor, I am convinced that from time to time juries find before them 16- or 17-year-old defendants who understand full well the vicious nature of their murders, and deserve -- after receiving the full panoply of due process -- to be fried, gassed, hanged, shot, injected or otherwise sent promptly to Hell.