Free Republic

For many years, a handful of American political leaders -- including the late senator Ted Kennedy and now President Obama -- have been trying to gain passage of comprehensive health care for all Americans. As far back as President Harry S. Truman, they have urged Congress to act on this national need. In a presentation before a joint session of Congress last week, Obama offered his view of the best way forward. But what seems missing in the current battle is a single proposal that everyone can understand and that does not lend itself to demagoguery. If we want comprehensive...

Do you remember the 1972 Democratic Convention? This was the convention which put abortion on the party's platform. I watched this on tv. I also remember a Democrat Convention which could have been 1972 or maybe 1976, this time they put gay rights on the party platform. I wish someone in the Republican Party could find these archives and show the whole country how the Democratic Party accepted these extreme views and officially put it on their party platform. It appears that there are too many naive Democratic voters who have never heard of this and are under the illusion...

We keep saying this — and no one seems to listen — but over the course of this campaign, we’ve met about 50 people who worked on McGovern-72, and every one of them said to us, without quivocation, that the main reason McGovern lost to Nixon was McGOVERN’S SUPPORTERS. The way McGovern’s “youth army” behaved, and the terrible things they did in McGovern’s name, worked against their candidate and every day drove more people who would have never voted Republican over to Nixon. [more (but not much) at source URL

On August 8, George McGovern had an editorial published by the Wall Street Journal that astounds for the fact that it runs counter to union aims. In it, McGovern warns the unions against their woefully misnamed "Employee Free Choice Act," the legislation that has as one of its main goals the elimination of democratic styled, secret balloting for union elections. Unions actually wish to eliminate the union member's ability to keep his vote private. This act will serve to put pressure on union voters to conform to the union's party line because, after all, every vote they make as individuals...

He was a fighter pilot in World War II, bombing targets in Europe to stop Hitler. But former Senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern says that didn't qualify him to run the country--and the same goes for GOP presumptive nominee John McCain. ``I don't have any regrets about that,'' the antiwar Democratic stalwart said in a brief interview yesterday on Capitol Hill. ``While bombing is a terrible thing, we smashed Hitler's oil refineries all over Europe.'' ``But I don't recall ever saying that experience as a bomber pilot equipped me to be very strong on how to run...

When you're a Clintonite, you're a Clintonite all the way. From your first Monicagate defense, To Hil's last primary day.—with apologies to Leonard Bernstein Look next to the definition of "Clinton loyalist" in the dictionary, and you're likely to find a photo of Lanny Davis. The man who would have put Baghdad Bob to shame for his unflinching flackery during Bill's Monica mess is back on the beat for Hillary. Yesterday, Davis wrote a HuffPo column purporting to set forth 10 Undisputed Facts showing Obama's weakness as a general election candidate against John Mccain. As Jake Tapper has observed, some...

Winners work and save and plan – and somehow manage to overcome the vagaries and pitfalls of life; losers do not. Through bad luck or a lack of discipline, losers fall through the cracks. Throughout the ages there have always been winners and losers, and there have always been hugely more losers than winners. Dictators have used this to focus the hatred of the losers on scapegoats to gain and keep power – Hitler and the Jews; Mugabe and the white farmers; Stalin and the bourgeois farmers, for example. In democracies, political opportunists scapegoat the winners to gain power –...

People worldwide -- and indeed, most Americans -- are under the impression that whichever party candidate has the most delegates at the end of the primary elections is assured the party nomination for president. And who can blame them? In a typical year, one candidate will emerge from the primary campaign with a majority of the delegates, and he will have the nomination secured. But this year's race is unprecedented; a woman and black man, running neck to neck against each other to try and reach the magic number of 2025 delegates to lock the nomination. There are 4,049 total...

As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president. After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me. Today I have made a different choice. Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The...

As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president. After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me. Today I have made a different choice. Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The...

In spite of what the polls supposedly tell us, I strongly suspect that the Democrats may already have blown the 2008 election. Unlike the late Senator Aiken of Vermont, who proposed that we declare victory and get out of Vietnam, the Democrats want us to declare defeat and get out of Iraq. This, they imagine, is what the American people were demanding in the congressional election of 2006. But it seems far more likely that the message of that election was not "Get out," but rather "Win, or get out." In any case, the position the Democrats are now taking...

George McGovern, the former senator and Democratic presidential candidate, said Thursday that he will meet with more than 60 members of Congress next week to recommend a strategy to remove U.S. troops from Iraq by June. If Democrats don't take steps to end the war in Iraq soon, they won't be in power very long, McGovern told reporters before a speech at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "I think the Democratic leadership is wise enough to know that if they're going to follow the message that election sent, they're going to have to take steps to bring the war to a...

Former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate, George McGovern, says he has encouraged Tom Daschle to run for president in 2008. McGovern lost to Republican Richard Nixon in the 1972 election. Eight years later he lost his bid for re-election to the Senate. McGovern expects up to a dozen people to run for the Democratic nomination for president, and he says Daschle has as good a chance as anyone. Daschle expects to make a decision by year's end on whether he'll run.

A Democratic stalwart warns that labor's old strategy can't win against a new competitive reality. Many of my friends will consider this view heretical. But it is based on stark reality... It can be galling to hear companies argue that they have to cut wages and benefits for hourly workers — even as they reward top executives with millions of dollars in stock options. The chief executive of Wal-Mart earns $27 million a year, while the company's average worker takes home only about $10 an hour. But let's assume that the chief executive got 27 cents instead of $27 million,...

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick's eyes twinkle at the mention of that August 1984 night at the Republican National Convention in Dallas when she eviscerated liberal Democrats as the "blame America first crowd." "When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies," ... "They blame United States policies of 100 years ago. But then they always blame America first." With those words, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations -- a long-time Democrat -- described the difference between President Reagan's determination to defeat communism and Democratic Party leaders'...

An American Traitor: Guilty As Charged By Henry Mark Holzer and Erika HolzerFrontPageMagazine.com | June 10, 2005For three decades Jane Fonda obfuscated, distorted and lied about virtually everything connected with her wartime trip to North Vietnam: her motive, her acts, her intent, and her contribution to the Communists’ war effort.  With the aid of clever handlers, she so successfully suppressed and spun her conduct in Hanoi that many Americans didn’t know what she had done there, and, more important, the legal significance. Three years ago, our book, “Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam (McFarland & Co.), laid bare...

here is a notion abroad in American politics, carefully crafted by its proponents, that is both disturbing and false. It is especially disturbing to me personally because it is frequently associated with my campaign for the presidency in 1972. The notion is that my party, and especially its standard-bearer of '72, are not interested in the defense and security of America. Nor, according to this notion, do we care about marriage and the family, the sacredness of human life and the things of the spirit. Perhaps my views are outdated, but I have always assumed that every American cares...

Last August, Edvard Munch’s famous masterpiece, “The Scream,” was stolen again. Armed gunmen took the painting from the Oslo Munch Museum in Norway. Saturday, the Democratic National Committee will elect former Governor Howard Dean as the Chairman of the DNC. Are these events connected? Sometimes, reality is its own parody. As the satirical website ScrappleFace.com reported this week, “Faced with the fact that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is the only person still seeking the chairmanship of the Democrat National Committee (DNC), the nine-member panel of elected officers announced today that it had posted the job on CareerBuilder.com, and would...

Another election, another smashing setback for the Democratic insurgency. How long will it take for the party of George McGovern, Sidney Blumenthal and Edward Kennedy to recover from bloody Sunday? Ol' George and young Sid have long been fla-fla, but for Ted the huge turnout yesterday was particularly devastating. Last week he thought he'd be hailed as the new Chamberlain, the next Benedict Arnold, the white Jesse Jackson, the Irish Jacques Chirac, the trans-gendered Jane Fonda. Alas, he remains the Crown Prince of Chappaquiddick, a perennial bottom feeder and all-purpose lout. "Johnny, we hardly knew ye," a hanger-on once said...

It will take some time for the stinking truth emanating from John Kerry to be fully inhaled by all people who actually vote, come November. However, after digesting my daily sources on the Internet, a single factoid that ended one of them leapt up and bit me. LIAR, LIAR, your pants are on FIRE = LIBERAL! Here's the nub of the GREAT AWAKENING we're just beginning. You know how becoming enlightened, or even simply becoming aware of something mundane that you'd previously not known, necessarily has various barriers to pass through? In the everyday vulgar world, the saying "Talk is...

Backward Bounce By Joel Mowbray FrontPageMagazine.com | August 2, 2004 For very good reason, the rule of thumb is that a presidential candidate gains ground following his party’s convention: It almost always happens. It happened four years ago, despite Al Gore’s nearly incoherent rant. It happened in 1984, after Walter Mondale reaffirmed his pledge to raise taxes. It even happened for Jimmy Carter in 1980 after a brutal civil war with Ted Kennedy. But it didn’t happen for John Kerry. According to the USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, conducted Friday and Saturday, Kerry lost a total swing of 5 points from the...

The Quintessential McGovern Joseph Farah Remember George McGovern? I'll bet John Kerry would like to forget. McGovern was the 1972 Democratic Party presidential nominee. He lost in what was then the biggest landslide in U.S. election history to Richard Nixon. McGovern had all kinds of problems in that race, including a vice presidential nominee who had to be dumped because of undisclosed mental health problems. But the biggest obstacle to election facing McGovern was his political platform. He called for an immediate withdrawal of all forces from Vietnam, with the full support of John Kerry and Bill Clinton, as well...

To the Editor: I am a longtime admirer of Thomas L. Friedman. I disagree, however, with his advice to Senator John Kerry relative to our Army in Iraq, which is summarized in his final line: "We will not run" (column, Feb. 15). This determination to stand and fight is tempting to political leaders. The trouble with this appeal is that brave young Americans do the bleeding and dying — not the political leaders who committed them to a mistaken war. Terrorists are killing American soldiers in Iraq because our Army is in Iraq. I hope that President Bush, with the...

had not expected to be involved in this year's presidential campaign. But almost daily my name is mentioned by some commentator, usually as a warning of what candidates should avoid. One gets the impression that the campaign of 1972 is the only one whose shortcomings are worth noting. Is the central lesson of '72 that George McGovern lost everywhere except Massachusetts and the District of Columbia? If so, what is the lesson of 1984, when my friend Walter Mondale lost everywhere except Minnesota and the District? Is the lesson of these campaigns that Midwestern liberals can never reach the White...

To George McGovern, it all looks very familiar. Mr. McGovern, the last insurgent Democrat to run for president on an antiwar platform, sees parallels between the 1972 race and the current campaign. And in the candidacy of Howard Dean, he hears echoes of his own. The pivotal issue in the coming primaries, Mr. McGovern said in an interview, is sure to be the "foolish war in Iraq," just as the Vietnam War was central to his own campaign for the Democratic nomination. Next year, he believes, Democratic voters will insist on a nominee who is outspoken against the war, just...

Thanks to the most crudely partisan decision in the history of the Supreme Court, the nation has been given a President of painfully limited wisdom and compassion and lacking any sense of the nation's true greatness.... ....This President and his advisers know well how to get us involved in imperial crusades abroad while pillaging the ordinary American at home. The same families who are exploited by a rich man's government find their sons and daughters being called to war, as they were in Vietnam--but not the sons of the rich and well connected. .....As I have watched America's moral and...

The Reason Why by George McGovern Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. --Alfred, Lord Tennyson "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (in the Crimean War) Thanks to the most crudely partisan decision in the history of the Supreme Court, the nation has been given a President of painfully limited wisdom and compassion and lacking any sense of the nation's true greatness. Appearing to enjoy his role as Commander in Chief of the armed forces above all other functions of his office, and unchecked by a seemingly timid Congress, a compliant Supreme Court, a largely subservient...

Former South Dakota Sen. George McGovern, who lost his own race for the White House to Richard Nixon in the biggest landslide in American history, predicted Tuesday night that fellow South Dakotan, Senate plurality leader Tom Daschle, will eventually run for president. "My guess is that at some point he'll run," McGovern told WABC Radio's John Batchelor and Paul Alexander. "Whether he'll do it in 2004, though, I think, is another question." If the Democrats retain their plurality in the Senate after this year's midterm election, Daschle will likely stay put, the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate said. "He likes the...