Free Republic

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday said the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative organizations could be “fatal” for the Obama administration if it turns out that anyone in the White House was aware of it. Appearing on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Krauthammer called the IRS situation “the one scandal that people have a visceral sense about” — it’s the one U.S. institution, besides the military, that can do very serious harm. Going after conservative groups based on their politics is “a violation that everybody — left or right– understands,” he added. Krauthammer urged that there’s no suggestion that Obama knew...

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: It's clear that that the press has turned. I'm not sure how permanent it will be but this is surely different than what we've seen over the four years being acolytes and cheerleaders and really supine. And the reason I think, a, is the accumulate of scandals all at once and the remarkable coincidence that the president was speaking early on about conspiracies and don't worry about government, tyranny, you know. The IRS scandal, which is the second most powerful agency in government as an agent suppression of political speech is almost a definition of tyranny. But that...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, I've had people say, "Rush, how do we handle this? What's the best way to deal with all this?" See if you agree with this. Dr. Krauthammer on Fox News Special Report during the All-Star Panel last night, Bret Baier said, "Charles Krauthammer, when the president says there's no 'there' there, it almost seemed that he was challenging reporters to say, 'No, really, there's no "there" there.'" KRAUTHAMMER: The one advice I'd give to Republicans is stop calling it a huge scandal. Stop saying it's a Watergate. Stop saying it's Iran-Contra. Let the facts speak for...

Fate is fickle, power cyclical, and nothing is new under the sun. Especially in Washington, where after every election the losing party is sagely instructed to confess sin, rend garments and rethink its principles lest it go the way of the Whigs. And where the victor is hailed as the new Caesar, facing an open road to domination. And where Barack Obama, already naturally inclined to believe his own loftiness, graciously accepted the kingly crown and proceeded to ride his reelection success to a crushing victory over the GOP at the fiscal cliff, leaving a humiliated John Boehner & Co....

“The O’Reilly Factor” host Bill O’Reilly on Thursday criticized those seeking to downplay the role of Islamic extremism in the Boston Marathon bombings. “There is no question that many on the left are very disappointed the two suspects in the terror bombing are Muslim,” O’Reilly said. “And it is sad to say that many in the Muslim world will never believe the Tsarnaev brothers committed the atrocity.” O’Reilly referred specifically to comments by Zubeidat Tsarnev, the mother of suspected Boston Marathon bombers Dzohkhar and Tamerlan Tsarnev. ...more (w/video)...

As predicted, the House GOP’s release of an interim report on their ongoing investigation into last September’s Benghazi attack — offering a rather scathing assessment of Hillary Clinton and the White House’s handling of the situation before, during, and after — was not particularly well received in all circles, and several House Democrats are already up in arms about it. In a letter to Speaker Boehner: We are concerned that by issuing this staff report with only five Republican Committee Chairmen, you are sacrificing accuracy in favor of partisanship. You have stated repeatedly over the past several months that “It’s...

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer brought momentarily silence, and not the kind that is out of respect, to a Fox News panel on “Special Report” after National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg said that Obama will not get a vote on the majority of new gun control legislation that he wants. “All he wants now is the money,” Krauthammer responded. Several seconds of silence followed Krauthammer’s, “all he wants now is the money” comment. It was as if everyone at the table had been caught off guard, including host Chris Wallace. Wallace finally recovered stating, “You don’t really mean that.” “He’s lost...

KRAUTHAMMER: The president is out there; it’s rather puzzling. He’s tilting at windmills and he will lose. The windmill is going to win on this one. He is not going to get anything of importance. He might eke out a weak compromise on background checks. But you have to ask yourself why is he doing this? You hear Pfeiffer implying that we’re going to blame the Republicans if this doesn't pass, as if that will be political success for them. Yes, the national polls show a shift, at least a temporary shift, after Newtown. But that’s not where elections are...

The administration’s rollout plans for their perfect ObamaCare timeline just keep getting punctuated with flaws and delays, from Sebelius oh-so-casually admitting that the overhaul is causing some insurance premiums to rise, to Congressional Democrats’ buyers’ remorse for the godawful medical device tax, to their recent decision to hold off on the promised small-business insurance-shopping option for a year. Whichever way you look at it, the telltale signs of bureaucratic incompetence are starting to peek through — and really, as Krauthammer outlined last night, how could it have gone otherwise? In a nutshell, ObamaCare basically dissolves the basic idea of insurance...

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday once again demonstrated how liberal media members often make statements about issues they know nothing about. On this occasion, it was NPR's Nina Totenberg making unfounded claims about past Israel peace offers on PBS's Inside Washington that led Krauthammer to scold, "You’re simply factually wrong" (video follows with transcript and commentary): Krauthammer Schools Totenberg on Israeli Peace Offers: ‘You Are Simply Factually Wrong’ NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: There also has to be lines that make sense for the Palestinian state, and, you know, I can’t argue this with Charles with the same kind of detail...

<p>The proposition that entitlement curbs are the key to maintaining national solvency is widely accepted, though not by many congressional Democrats. President Obama, however, has endorsed it on various occasions. And he could make it happen.</p> <p>If he wants. I remain skeptical that he does. But national solvency is important enough to test this proposition at least once more. The obstacle is Obama’s current position that entitlement cuts must be “balanced” with new revenue from closing loopholes.</p>

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer called Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) filibuster of the John Brennan nomination for CIA director Wednesday a "stroke of political genius." Appearing on Fox News's Special Report, Krauthammer also said, "This will be a moment that people will say has launched him as a national figure." CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Stroke of political genius. He will be remembered. This raises his image, and he’s completely sincere about this. This will be a moment that people will say has launched him as a national figure.

To hear President Obama and the Cabinet officials he has been steadily trotting out like show ponies tell it, the sequester cuts cannot, must not happen, because we’ll subsequently be hit with all kinds of disasters just short of a plague of locusts. Come on, White House, get it together --- I don't know that the sequester is the best specific way to get this done either, and maybe defense-related spending is getting the short end of the stick, but not even the Department of Interior can manage their devastating, draconian budget cuts, really? It's almost like you're trying to...

On Thursday, February 21, 2013 while appearing on FoxNews Special Report, hosted by Bret Baier, Charles Krauthammer asserted that Obamacare was duly passed by Congress and is the law of the land. But our founding fathers were very careful to stipulate in our Constitution, and in crystal clear language, that our Constitution, and only those laws which shall be made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land. And so, since Mr. Krauthammer asserts Obamacare is ``the law of the land``, I would imagine he is capable of explaining why the following stated reasons are insufficient to...

Here is video of Charles Krauthammer making fun of President Obama’s new mandatory entitlement plan that would give preschool to every 4 year-old in America. . . .

The New Republic has quietly dropped at least five prominent Jewish writers from its masthead in a move that may signal the publication’s continued drift away from a staunchly pro-Israel standpoint. The magazine has launched an aggressive new editorial direction under the ownership of wealthy socialite Chris Hughes, who is best known for sharing a room with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard University. The names of several prominent Jewish writers from both the left and right of the political spectrum were dropped from TNR’s masthead in the latest issue. They include: Daily Beast reporter Eli Lake, longtime TNR columnist...

Over the weekend, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer spoke at the National Review Institute Summit in Washington, D.C. During a question-and-answer session, he was asked if he thought President Barack Obama would attempt to hand-pick his successor in order to help guide the country down a path to “socialism.” ... Krauthammer said it was less important whether Obama chose his successesor and more crucial what kind of groundwork he would lay for him or her ... Krauthammer urged conservatives to make a case for liberty and its benefits in order to defeat the President’s agenda ...

I am thrilled that Governor Palin has left the constraints at Fox News. She’s one of the few to offer a better solution which works on combating the machine within the Republican Party as they continue to fail us as a country. During her service on the network, she provided clear and honest analysis. It served as music to the ears of many within the grassroots who continue to appreciate her fearlessness. Even though she grew as a national advocate over the last three years, sadly the network and few of its other contributors seem to be falling by the...

nfluential conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer has praised Republican House Speaker John Boehner for preventing a ‘rape of the Treasury’ by blocking a larger relief bill for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Bohener and the GOP leadership have been criticized by New York-area Republicans for failing to pass a $60 billion bill to the floor, with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie calling it ‘disgusting.’ Instead, the House passed a much smaller bill dealing solely with flood insurance on Friday, with a larger bill set to follow. Speaking on Fox News’ Special Report on Friday, Krauthammer claimed that Boehner had done the...

The rout was complete, the retreat disorderly. President Obama got his tax hikes — naked of spending cuts — passed by the ostensibly Republican House of Representatives. After which, you might expect him to pivot to his self-proclaimed “principle” of fiscal “balance” by taking the lead on reducing spending. “Why,” asked The Post on the eve of the final fiscal-cliff agreement, “is the nation’s leader not embracing and then explaining the balanced reforms the nation needs?” Because he has no interest in them. He’s a visionary, not an accountant. Sure, he’ll pretend to care about deficits, especially while running for...

Krauthammer on an apology: CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I have no apology to make because I've just explained why I did, as a result of the information that I received. And I would say that perhaps the State Department, if not apologize, ought to explain why it withheld information and why a lot of it mitigated what we now are hearing might have been a more serious set of circumstances. But we still don't know what she was suffering [from] in those two weeks.

In February 2011, President Obama ordered a sweeping review of the federal government, saying to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that, “if there are rules on the books that are needlessly stifling job creation and economic growth, we will fix them.” However, according to Regulations.gov — which bills itself as “your source for information on the development of federal regulations and other related documents issued by the U.S. government” — the feds have posted thousands of new regulations in the past few months alone. The breakdown:...

Every mass shooting has three elements: the killer, the weapon and the cultural climate. As soon as the shooting stops, partisans immediately pick their preferred root cause with corresponding pet panacea. Names are hurled, scapegoats paraded, prejudices vented. The argument goes nowhere. Let’s be serious: (1) The Weapon Within hours of last week’s Newtown, Conn., massacre, the focus was the weapon and the demand was for new gun laws. Several prominent pro-gun Democrats remorsefully professed new openness to gun control. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is introducing a new assault weapons ban. And the president emphasized guns and ammo above all...

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I think the president invoking the massacre of children to essential say the Republicans need to accept his terms of surrender in the negotiations is not just a non-sequitur, I think it's sacrilege. And it's of a piece with the whole tone of his news conference and this is the way he conducts them generally, which is he is excessively self-righteous. He talks about the other side of being unprincipled, not interested in the national interest, slaves of ideology which he says makes no sense. And as you mention, invested in opposing him to the point they are...

Why was there an Israel–Gaza war in the first place? Resistance to the occupation, say Hamas and many in the international media. What occupation? Seven years ago, in front of the world, Israel pulled out of Gaza. It dismantled every settlement, withdrew every soldier, evacuated every Jew, leaving nothing and no one behind. Except for the greenhouses in which the settlers had grown fruit and flowers for export. These were left intact to help Gaza’s economy — only to be trashed when the Palestinians took over. Israel then declared its border with Gaza to be an international frontier, meaning that...

Rush is right! And the GOP-e along with the Morrises, the George Wills, etc, failed in their predictions. Morris admitted he had egg on his face, but I did not see George Will admit this. Maybe he did, but I didn't see it. Are the now obsolete? Are the Krauthammers, the O'Reillys, the Vannitys, Rollins, etc also obsolete? Is Vannity still going to continue having the same ol same ol on his show? And what about the other shows on FOX News? Are they going to continue having RINOS/CINO guests/hosts on their shows? Mitt Romney got fewer votes than McCain...

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Tuesday said the White House used David Petraeus’s affair to get the CIA director to give testimony about the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that was in line with the administration’s position on the matter. Appearing on Fox News's Special Report, Krauthammer said, "The sword was lowered on Election Day" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The childish unprofessionalism on display at MSNBC is becoming breathtaking. Martin Bashir on Wednesday jokingly apologized to young viewers that might have been frightened by Charles Krauthammer's face in a video clip he aired (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

<p>They lose and immediately the chorus begins. Republicans must change or die. A rump party of white America, it must adapt to evolving demographics or forever be the minority.</p> <p>The only part of this that is even partially true regards Hispanics. They should be a natural Republican constituency: striving immigrant community, religious, Catholic, family-oriented, and socially conservative (on abortion, for example).</p>

“Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.” That was Barack Obama in 2008. And he was right. Reagan was an ideological inflection point, ending a 50-year liberal ascendancy and beginning a 30-year conservative ascendancy. It is common for one party to take control and enact its ideological agenda. Ascendancy, however, occurs only when the opposition inevitably regains power and then proceeds to accept the basic premises of the preceding revolution. Thus, Republicans railed for 20 years against the New Deal. Yet when they...

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I think it's unequivocal, Romney won. And he didn't just win tactically, but strategically. Strategically, all he needed to do is basically draw. He needed to continue the momentum he's had since the first debate, and this will continue it. Tactically, he simply had to get up there and show that he's a competent man, somebody who you could trust as commander in chief, a who knows every area of the globe and he gave interesting extra details, like the Haqqani network, which gave the impression he knows what he's talking about. But there is a third level...

Fight night at Hofstra. The two boxers, confined within a ring of spectators — circling, feinting, taunting, staring each other down — come several times, by my reckoning, no more than one provocation away from actual fisticuffs, of the kind that on occasion so delightfully break out in the Taiwanese parliament. Think of it: the Secret Service storming the ring, pinning Mitt Romney to the canvas as Candy Crowley administers the 10 count. >>SNIP<< The rub for Obama comes, ironically enough, out of Romney’s biggest flub in the debate, the Libya question. That flub kept Romney from winning the evening...

Full title: Krauthammer: 'Biden’s Debate Prep Was Watching The Shining' - 'Excellent Imitation of Jack Nicholson' "One would think that Biden’s debate preparation was watching repeatedly 'The Shining,' and I think he did an excellent imitation of Jack Nicholson." So marvelously said syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday's Special Report on Fox. Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/10/12/krauthammer-biden-s-debate-prep-was-watching-shining-excellent-imitat#ixzz29991BLTA

And he pulled off a tactical coup by coming right out of the box to undo millions of dollars’ worth of negative ads that painted him, personally, as Gordon Gekko — rapacious vulture capitalist who doesn’t just lay off steelworkers but kills their wives... The Romney campaign had let these ads go largely unanswered. But a “kill Romney” strategy can only work until people get to see Romney themselves. On Wednesday night, they did. Regarding the character assassination, all Romney really had to do was walk out with no horns on his head. Confident, smiling and nonthreatening, he didn’t look...

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer gave quite a scolding Friday to his fellow panelists on PBS's Inside Washington. During a discussion about the murder of our ambassador in Libya, Krauthammer said, "I just want to respond to my liberal pals over here. I can’t believe you guys are covering for the administration on the Susan Rice thing when they themselves said five days later it was obviously a terror attack" (video follows with transcript and commentary): Krauthammer Scolds 'Liberal Pals' on PBS: 'I Can’t Believe You're Covering for the Administration' on Libya CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I just want to respond to my...

This weekend, the news is full of Obama's Cairo speech three years ago when he gave Muslims the idea that he was the savior of the Muslim people, and would change American Government, thus The People would submit and respect Muslims, come hell or high water. From my perspective, the new President of the United States effectively said  'I understand why you hate us, your hostility is my country's fault, and I will change that reality by the sheer force of my magnetism and power of office.' To Obama, Islamic jihad was nothing more than a gnat on a camel, nothing...

"What we are seeing on the screen is the meltdown, collapse of the Obama policy on the Muslim world," Charles Krauthammer said on the panel segment of FOX News' "Special Report" tonight. "The irony is that it began in Cairo, in the same place where the speech he made in the beginning of his presidency in which he said, you wanted a new beginning with mutual respect, implying under the other presidents, particularly Bush, there was a lack of mutual respect. Which was an insult to the United States, which had gone to war six times in the last 20...

Charles Krauthammer on President Obama's convention speech: "I was stunned. This is a man who gave one of the great speeches of our time in 2004. And he gave one of the emptiest speeches I have ever heard on a national stage. Yes it had cadence, and yes, there were deceptions in it, but that is not what is so striking about it. There was nothing in it. This is a man who believes that government can and should do a lot. There's nothing here that tells us how he's going to go from today to tomorrow."

<p>BAIER: Charles, we are just getting word from the Associated Press that President Obama personally intervened to change the Democratic platform language on Jerusalem and God. That is crossing the AP wire. So, obviously, it was important for the Obama campaign to deal with this.</p>

Charles Krauthammer: Her whole task was to say why. And her answer was, “Why? Because essentially he's a saint.” Because of his upbringing and because of his emotions and because of his humanity. He does of this because he cares. And the brilliance of it is this: It drained Obama of any, either, ideological motivation, or any having to do with self interest or ambition, which I think is sort of a more plausible explanation. He's a man highly who is liked and highly ideological. A man of the left who sees the role of the government as ordering, the...

In a Saturday morning appearance on the Fox News Channel, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer reacted to the announcement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s running mate choice, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. Krauthammer said that the choice changed the race by shifting it from a referendum on Obama to an idea-driven race powered by the young, “Kennedy-esque” Ryan. “I think the picture sort of changes the dynamics of the race,” Krauthammer said. “Up until now it was Romney running as the guy who could do a better job — ‘I know how to fix the economy. The other guy is...

There are two ways to run against Barack Obama: stewardship or ideology. You can run against his record or you can run against his ideas.The stewardship case is pretty straightforward: the worst recovery in U.S. history, 42 consecutive months of 8-plus percent unemployment, declining economic growth — all achieved at a price of an additional $5 trillion of accumulated debt.The ideological case is also simple. Just play in toto (and therefore in context) Obama’s Roanoke riff telling small-business owners: “You didn’t build that.” Real credit for your success belongs not to you — you think you did well because of...

At the outset of his recent foreign trip, Mitt Romney committed a gaffe. In answer to a question about the Olympics, he expressed skepticism about London’s preparations. The response confounded and agitated Romney supporters because it was such an unforced error. The question invited a simple paean to Olympic spirit and British grit, not the critical analysis of a former Olympic organizer. Soon that initial stumble was transmuted into a metaphor for everything that followed. The mainstream media decided with near unanimity that the rest of the trip amounted to a gaffe-prone disaster. Really? The Warsaw leg was a triumph....

In a statement posted on the White House’s website on Tuesday afternoon, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer revealed an email he sent to Charles Krauthammer offering an apology to syndicated columnist and Fox News Channel regular over a back-and-forth about a bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Krauthammer asked that the apology — which even included an endorsement for Krauthammer’s favorite Major League Baseball team, the Washington Nationals — be made public, and Pfeiffer obliged: Charles, I take your criticism seriously and you are correct that you are owed an apology. There was clearly an internal confusion...

In a statement posted on the White House’s website on Tuesday afternoon, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer revealed an email he sent to Charles Krauthammer offering an apology to syndicated columnist and Fox News Channel regular over a back-and-forth about a bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Krauthammer asked that the apology — which even included an endorsement for Krauthammer’s favorite Major League Baseball team, the Washington Nationals — be made public, and Pfeiffer obliged: Charles, I take your criticism seriously and you are correct that you are owed an apology. There was clearly an internal confusion...

Shortly after 9/11, President George W. Bush received from Prime Minister Tony Blair a bust of Winston Churchill as an expression of British-American solidarity. Bush gave it pride of place in the Oval Office. In my Friday column about Mitt Romney’s trip abroad and U.S. foreign policy [“Why he’s going where he’s going,” op-ed], I wrote that Barack Obama “started his Presidency by returning to the British Embassy the bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office.” Within hours, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer had created something of a bonfire. Citing my statement, he posted a furious...

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer perfectly demonstrated Friday why three liberal media members are no match for one conservative armed with the facts. During a discussion about gun control on PBS's Inside Washington, Krauthammer gave fellow panelists Colby King, Mark Shields, and Nina Totenberg a much-needed education on "the cowardice of the Democrats" regarding this issue (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo): Krauthammer Schools Entire 'Inside Washington' Panel on the 'Cowardice of the Democrats' MARK SHIELDS, PBS: Why is it that after Katrina, we say, “We have to do something about the levees?” After 9/11, we agreed we have...

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: The problem for [Joe] Lieberman is the gun lobby is the majority of the American people. It's not a lobby that is stopping all of this. The reason that the lobby is strong is because it represents overwhelming opinion in the United States. How do we know that? The president of the United States, who had this tremendous opening if he wanted to push the use of guns after a tragedy of this magnitude could easily have done it and he has assiduously stayed away because he knows it's a losing political proposition. Liberals in the country want...

“If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” — Barack Obama, Roanoke, Va., July 13 And who might that somebody else be? Government, says Obama. It built the roads you drive on. It provided the teacher who inspired you. It “created the Internet.” It represents the embodiment of “we’re in this together” social solidarity that, in Obama’s view, is the essential origin of individual and national achievement. To say that all individuals are embedded in and the product of society is banal. Obama rises above banality by means of fallacy: equating society with...

"Spoken by a man who never created or ran so much as a candy store," syndicated columnist and FOX News contributor Charles Krauthammer said in response to >a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/07/15/obama_if_youve_got_a_business_you_didnt_build_that_someone_else_made_that_happen.html">President Obama criticizing individual achievements in business this weekend. "And it's completely a straw man argument as if conservatives and Republicans are arguing to disband the fire department and the police department so we could all individually do it on our own. The idea that infrastructure is necessary and good is as old as the republic. It's older than that. The Romans had the Via Appia, and that wasn't exactly a new...