Free Republic

Much has been written recently about the fact that Democrats, arguably with malicious intent, mercilessly attack Republican positions, programs, and political appointees without offering any positive alternatives of their own. This has been ascribed variously to their hatred of George W. Bush (which is certainly a factor), to the fact that a significant percentage of the Democrat base and their elected representatives are unrepentant '60s-style liberals (this, too, plays into the current scenario), even, as Michael Medved has put it, to "an internal contradiction deep within the liberal soul." The bottom line is that, no matter how we might characterize...

The Framing Wars By MATT BAI Published: July 17, 2005 After last November's defeat, Democrats were like aviation investigators sifting through twisted metal in a cornfield, struggling to posit theories about the disaster all around them. *snip* *snip* Democrats thought they knew the answer. Even before the election, a new political word had begun to take hold of the party, beginning on the West Coast and spreading like a virus all the way to the inner offices of the Capitol. That word was ''framing.'' Republicans, of course, were the ones who had always excelled at framing controversial issues, having invented...

Is the Democratic Party taking the “big tent” idea too far? It’s one thing to be the anti-war or pro-war party. It’s entirely another to be both. Yet that appears to be what the Democratic Party is trying to do. But don’t take my word for it. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the widely respected Connecticut senator who was the party’s vice presidential candidate in 2000, is squarely behind the war in Iraq. He supported the ouster of Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, when Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act and many of his Senate colleagues voted for it because they knew...

On the 60th anniversary of VJ-Day in 2005, Marine Capt. Randy Stone, a military lawyer serving in Iraq, became a presidential poster boy. Capt. Stone's two grandfathers fought at Iwo Jima, so President Bush, in a celebratory speech, turned the whole family into a gold-braided rhetorical flourish to depict the continuity of American character and courage from one war to another. "Captain Stone proudly wears the uniform just as his grandfathers did at Iwo Jima," said Mr. Bush. "He's guided by the same convictions they carried into battle. He shares the same willingness to serve a cause greater than himself......

''Your President is lying to you.'' ''This war is illegal.'' ''You can't win the war.'' These phrases have been repeated over and over again by voices in the Democratic Party. Why in the world, during a time of war, would any American publicly say things so inflammatory and negative while troops are in harm’s way? Why would folks like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, John Murtha, John Kerry, and Al Gore and friends continue this daily dose of Democratic attack on the president in his efforts to fight the war on terror? What is it that motivates members of...

Prominent political fundraisers who backed Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign are reserving support for the current slate of 2008 Democrats in hopes the former vice president will swoop in for another White House bid. H.E. "Sonny" Cauthen Jr. told The Washington Times he has been flattered to get calls from candidates asking for his help this time around, but said he is hesitating on picking one while he waits to see what Mr. Gore decides. "If he wants to run, I would be very supportive of that," said Mr. Cauthen, a founding partner of the Washington lobbying firm Cauthen Forbes...

It has occurred to me recently that the Democrats have tried this "peace now" stuff before, during the Civil War. There really isn't much difference between what they said then and what they say now. I only point this out because we, as conservatives, have a beachhead to exploit in this. We need to point this out to as many people as we can, that if it were up to Democrats, there would be a Confederate States of America, and slavery probably would still be legal. For that matter, we need to get our local Republican parties to point this...

WASHINGTON, May 3 (UPI) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said in the Senate Thursday she and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., will introduce legislation to end authority for the war in Iraq. The bill will propose Oct. 11, 2007, as the expiration date for the congressional resolution that authorized President George W. Bush to use force in Iraq. That resolution was approved Oct. 11, 2002. "The American people have called for change, the facts on the ground demand change, the Congress has passed legislation to require change," said Clinton, a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. "If the...

The powerful Iraqi cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr called President George W. Bush the Antichrist on Saturday and urged him to heed calls by the opposition Democrats to withdraw from the chaos of Iraq. In fresh violence on Saturday, 14 people were killed and 39 others were wounded in a suicide car bombing in the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala south of Baghdad, a hospital said. A Reuters witness said he saw tens of casualties. Sadr, whose ministers quit Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government this month, renewed his demand for a U.S. pullout a day after Bush pledged...

Saw this photo and thought - and thought - Hey that sign looks familiar It's the Confederate Flag! Wonder if the Dem's realize it?

The district attorney of New York County, Robert Morgenthau, called the other day to say that he'd appreciated the editorial about the Copperheads. It wasn't just the substance of the editorial that had caught his eye, he said, but the historical tone, and he suggested we take a similar look at the battle of Okinawa. We perked up because Mr. Morgenthau is an old salt himself, having had a destroyer* torpedoed out from under him and sunk in the Mediterranean and then, in the Pacific, had another destroyer ** torpedoed, but not sunk, and later, when he was still on...

O.K. Freepers; I know most of you watched the 'Rats one and a half hour debate tonight. What do you think was the most stupid remark any of them made? I'll start it off. I thought Sen. Dodd's statement opposing drug testing for welfare recipients was utterly stupid. He said that drug addiction was an illness and a person should not have to give up their welfare because they are ill. Gag me with a book of food stamps!

As Democrats push to withdraw troops, they seek to undermine Republicans by creating repeated chances to side with an unpopular president. WASHINGTON — As congressional Democrats move to force President Bush to veto a war spending bill that would start a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, they are simultaneously pursuing a carefully crafted offensive aimed at another target: Republican lawmakers. In the charged debate over the war, the strategy aims to achieve Democratic objectives on both policy and political fronts, according to party leaders and aides. Convinced that Bush will never listen to their calls to bring troops home,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A defiant Democratic-controlled Senate passed legislation Thursday that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1, propelling Congress toward a historic veto showdown with President Bush on the war. At the White House, the president immediately promised a veto. "It is amazing that legislation urgently needed to fund our troops took 80 days to make its way around the Capitol. But that's where we are," said deputy press secretary Dana Perino. The 51-46 vote was largely along party lines, and like House passage of the same bill a day earlier, fell far short...

CNN Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware and anchor Kyra Phillips joined Kiran Chetry on American Morning to discuss their recent trip to Iraq. Towards the end, Chetry wondered if America pulling out of Iraq would “help the situation.” Neither Ware nor Phillips appear to think anything of that idea, with Ware saying pulling out would hand “Iraq to Iran…and al Qaeda.” Will liberal bloggers who constantly swoon over Ware post about this? Transcript: KYRA PHILLIPS: It would be a disaster. I mean, I had a chance to sit down with the Minister of Defense, to General Petraeus, to Admiral Fallon, head...

BAGHDAD (AP) - An Iraqi government spokesman criticized the U.S. Senate vote to begin withdrawing U.S. troops by Oct. 1. "We see some negative signs in the decision because it sends wrong signals to some sides that might think of alternatives to the political process," Ali al-Dabbagh told The Associated Press. He spoke after the Senate passed legislation Thursday that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1. The House passed the same bill a day earlier, and President Bush has promised a veto. The legislation is the first binding challenge on the war that Democrats...

WASHINGTON - A defiant Democratic-controlled Senate passed legislation Thursday that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1, propelling Congress toward a historic veto showdown with President Bush on the war. The 51-46 vote was largely along party lines, and like House passage of the same bill a day earlier, fell far short of the two-thirds margin needed to overturn the president's threatened veto. Neverthe less, the legislation is the first binding challenge on the war that Democrats have managed to send to Bush since they reclaimed control of both houses of Congress in January.

In light of todays Senate vote to undermine our Troops, who serve to keep us free,I thought I might post part of a response from a lengthly letter President Lincoln issued to "Erastus Corning & others" June 12,1863 in response to the "Peace Democrats" during the Civil War."In giving me the resolutions that earnest consideration which you request of me,I cannot overlook the fact that the meeting speak as "Democrats." Nor can I, with full respect for their known intelligence,and the fairly presumed deliberation with which they prepared their resolutions,be permitted to suppose that this occurred by accident,or in any...

FONT SIZE=4>IRAQ A TALE OF TWO POLLS ONE SAYS WE'RE DOING OKTHE OTHER SAYS WE'RE LOOSING BAD Once upon a time there were two polls Guess which one our MSM will pick ? by L.J.Keslin Will it be the poll that shows Iraqis are feeling that the "surge" is doing its job or will it be the one that shows the "surge" is failing ?    As Pierre de Paillasson an intern from Paris's communist paper Il Hunanitie advising the selection at a major MSM TV outlet observed in his best broken english" Ah but ov course eets de leettle poll one...

March 19, 2007, 6:00 a.m. Copperheads, Then and NowThe Democratic legacy of undermining war efforts. By Mackubin Thomas Owens While recovering from surgery recently, I had the good fortune to read a fine new book about political dissent in the North during the Civil War. The book, Copperheads: The Rise an Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North, by journalist-turned-academic-historian Jennifer Weber, shines the spotlight on the “Peace Democrats,” who did everything they could to obstruct the Union war effort during the Rebellion. In so doing, she corrects a number of claims that have become part of the conventional...