Free Republic

Life in post-WW2 Italy is a difficult one for a working man. Jobs are scarce, and only a handful of men even get considered for most positions. Antonio Ricci is one of the lucky ones this day. He lands a job delivering handbills, with the only requirement being that he have a bicycle to make all of his stops in the city. Joy quickly turns to fear, however, when a local thief steals Antonio's bike on the eve of his new job. Fearful of losing his job, and panicked at the thought of not being able to provide for his...

BY CLIFFORD MAY As America's ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton was the White House's most effective defender. Now, as an ex-diplomat, he has become among the administration's toughest critics. But he critiques from the right, not the left, which probably explains why the elite media are not eager to focus on what he has to say. The son of a Baltimore firefighter who attended Yale Law School on scholarship, Bolton combines a combative nature with a keen intellect. He is a conservative without the prefix - neither neo-con (he's skeptical about nation-building and democracy promotion) nor paleo-con...

The "Condi for President" movement is gathering steam. The recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) featured an "Americans for Dr. Rice" booth, and 47 percent of the public in a new Fox News poll says Rice would make a good president. Even more important, the Wall Street Journal has run an article about the new "neorealists" guiding foreign policy in the Bush Administration, focusing on the arrival of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. The article was obviously intended to be a flattering portrait of Rice. But that is not the way it may come out in the end. The...