Free Republic

Walter Cronkite created Fox News. Cronkite's fundamental role as a "cultural artist" in creating Fox. one of the most notable moments of Cronkite's liberalism being unmasked in a highly visible fashion was his now famous series on Vietnam. But by this time conservative Americans were already well awake to the realization that this powerful new institution of television was being used in ways both subtle and not, to convey the message that there was no more enlightened or superior world view than modern American liberalism. Broadcast by broadcast it was increasingly apparent that those who disagreed or who challenged the...

Journalism: After the eulogies, the fact remains that "the most trusted man in America" betrayed that trust. He helped snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam and tried hard to do the same in Iraq.President Obama on Friday praised Walter Cronkite as a journalistic icon, calling the CBS anchor the "voice of certainty in an uncertain world." More to the point, he was the father of advocacy journalism, the patron saint of media bias. He went from reporting news to recreating it in his own image. Far from the image of the patriotic war correspondent, Cronkite was a...

June 14, 2009Obama's Other Controversial ChurchBy Andrew Walden "This is a guy (former Weatherman terror-bomber Bill Ayers) who lives in my neighborhood ... the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago - when I was 8 years old - somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense." -- Barack Obama on the Campaign trail, 2008 As President Obama prepared to commemorate D-Day, the Associated Press dug up old details and photos to write a warm fuzzy story about the WW2 service record of Obama's maternal grandfather...

An almost ten minute excerpt from a 1982 Canadian Broadcasting Corp. documentary on the KGB. The posted section focuses on Communist Cuba's involvement in training, funding and giving orders to the Weathermen.Much of the info comes from an interview with Larry Grathwohl, who is in the film No Place to Hide.The CBC documentary ties the Weathermen, the Cuban government and a French-Canadian seperatist group,the FLQ.The documentary also features an interview with an unnamed Cuban and an unnamed figure involved with the FLQ and a 1965 plot by balck radicals to bomb the Statue of Liberty.The video was just posted today....

Since the McCain campaign has resurfaced the matter of Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers--the former terrorist now Chicago education professor---there are some matters I am curious about. I say this as one who has explained time and again in print and on television Ayers, by the time Obama met him in the 1990s, was a respected academic who was welcome into Chicago's civic life. On Monday, Obama chief strategist David Axelrod said Obama was not aware of Ayers' terrorist background when he attended a political coffee at Ayers Hyde Park home at the beginning of his state senate race...

In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller, We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries—often with surprising results. More than fifteen years since its original publication, the number one New York Times bestseller, We Were Soldiers Once...and Young is still required reading in all branches of the military. Now Moore and Galloway revisit their relationships with ten American veterans of the battle—men such as Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley and helicopter pilot Bruce "Old Snake" Crandall—as well as...

In his first sit-down interview with KDKA Political Editor Jon Delano, U.S. Sen. John McCain recounted how he would recite the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive line-up to his North Vietnamese captors. ..."When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup -- defensive line -- of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!"

The problem with voting third party (or not at all) instead of for McCain – and O, Lord! I am tempted – is that the Democrat may get in. The problem with voting for McCain as the lesser evil is that the RINOs will claim it's a vote for McCain and 'moderate' Republicans everywhere, declare a 'mandate' and go forth to govern like conservatives don't exist. What to do? Here's an idea: how about, instead of pulling the lever or punching the chad or filling in the arrow for McCain, we enter his name on our ballots as a write-in...

Senator John F. Kerry already has a Democratic opponent for his U.S. Senate seat. He is not from the party's right since there is barely anyone sitting in those seats in blue Massachusetts. Kerry's antagonist is Ed O'Reilly, a Gloucester lawyer who, according to the Wednesday Boston Globe, is targeting Kerry from the anti-Iraq war left. And, lo and behold, he wants to know the truth about Kerry's military record and has questions himself about the Swift Boat record and the Swift Boat ads. Besides, like a lot of the senator's tormentors, he is suspicious about whether Kerry is really...

Every American needs to see "Rescue Dawn," in theaters nationwide today. If it's the only movie you see this year, you've done yourself a service at the box office. It is the best movie of the year. The silver screen story of Dieter Dengler--a Navy pilot shot down over Laos and imprisoned in a Vietcong POW camp--is not only a great movie. It is patriotic and uplifting. It is the story of survival against all odds, and the story of a man who refused to denounce his adopted country, the United States of America. And it is the story of...

THE most attractive location for manufacturing investment is Vietnam, not China, and the United Arab Emirates beats India as a location for service-sector activities, according to a new emerging-market index to be launched by Price Waterhouse Coopers this week. The index assesses 20 prominent emerging-market locations on the basis of “reward” factors, including production costs, size of market, taxes, transport costs and tariffs, and “risk” factors, largely defined by bond-market risk premiums. It finds that the so-called Bric economies, Brazil, Russia, India and China, do not come top as locations for either manufacturing or services. In the case of manufacturing,...

By now, everyone is familiar with the insensitive words uttered by Shock Jock Imus which appeared in Mary Mostert's commentary of 12 May Either Al Sharpton Should be Fired or Don Imus Should Be Re-Hired. We should also not forget what happened to comedian "Kramer," from the Seinfeld Show when he railed against two black hecklers in the audience during a performance by calling them the n-word. Just like Imus, his racist comments cost him his job. But what happens when a U.S. diplomat shows his true character when he rails against an entire race of people during war? Not...

Muslim peoples excel at expelling imperial powers by terror and guerrilla war. So wrote Patrick J. Buchanan six months before Operation Iraqi Freedom. "They drove the Brits out of Palestine and Aden, the French out of Algeria, the Russians out of Afghanistan, the Americans out of Somalia and Beirut, the Israelis out of Lebanon," he reminded us. Lacking institutional memory, Congress is blissfully unaware the history now being written on Capitol Hill will add yet another chapter -- "they also drove the Americans out of Iraq." And the scenario is eerily reminiscent of how Congress ensured a U.S. defeat in...

Pham Xuan An, 79; Reporter for Time, Spy for Viet Cong By Patricia Sullivan Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, September 21, 2006; B07 Pham Xuan An, 79, the Viet Cong colonel who worked as a reporter for U.S. news organizations during the Vietnam War while also spying for the communists, died of emphysema Sept. 20 in a military hospital in the former Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City. The secret of Mr. Pham's double life was kept for almost 30 years, from 1959 until the 1980s. He was the first Vietnamese to be a full-time staff correspondent for...

NEW YORK - On a March morning in 1968, American troops swept into a village on South Vietnam's central coast in search of communist guerrillas. Instead, they found unarmed civilians — and gunned them down, leaving bodies huddled in ditches. Nearly four decades later, the notorious name of that hamlet — My Lai — has been summoned from memory again, as the U.S. military investigates allegations of mass civilian killings by a group of Marines in the western Iraqi town of Haditha. While the numbers differ — upward of 300 at My Lai, compared to 24 at Haditha — some...

/5/2006 - WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFPN) -- More than 120 former prisoners of war continued a 33-year layover of freedom by reliving the flights that carried them home from North Vietnam. The Hanoi Taxi -- the last C-141 Starlifter still serving in the Air Force -- made two of its final three flights May 5. Former POWs gathered in Fairborn, Ohio, for a reunion and to take part in a weekend of activities created by the Air Force Reserve’s 445th Airlift Wing here that includes the retirement of the famed aircraft. The Hanoi Taxi was the first of...

MEIRA, Pakistan - Former U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry toured earthquake-devastated parts of northern Pakistan on Saturday, distributing school uniforms and meeting local leaders at a tent village funded partly by both the United States and communist Cuba. The visit came amid warnings that heavy snow would blanket the quake zone over the next four to five days, possibly triggering avalanches along the jagged peaks and promising more misery for the 3.5 million people left homeless by the Oct. 8 quake. "The relief operations will be affected badly," the Pakistan Meteorological Department said. Kerry toured a camp housing some 18,000...

Traitors of Record: The Record of the New York TimesBy Fedora “. . .the most untrustworthy paper in the United States. . .” --President Dwight Eisenhower, referring to the New York TimesIntroductionLast week Senator John Cornyn criticized the New York Times for endangering national security with a James Risen story on NSA surveillance timed to coincide with a vote on the Patriot Act and, incidentally, with the release of a book by Risen. A review of the record illustrates that endangering national security through irresponsible leaks is nothing new for the New York Times. Some particularly outrageous examples are worth...

When American ground forces paused briefly during the march to Baghdad in 2003, critics of the war were quick to warn of a “quagmire,” an oblique reference to the Vietnam War. Virtually as soon as it became clear that the conflict in Iraq had become an insurgency, analogies to Vietnam began to proliferate. This development is not surprising. Critics have equated every significant American military undertaking since 1975 to Vietnam, and the fear of being trapped in a Vietnam-like war has led to the frequent demand that U.S. leaders develop not plans to win wars, but “exit strategies,” plans to get out of messes. There...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. .................................................................. .................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should...