Free Republic

A year before the British surrender at Yorktown, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail: “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy.” It’s a simple point: times defined by the former are not times defined by the latter. C. Bradley Thompson understandably desires that Americans “rediscover the philosophy of Americanism,” the philosophy—at least as he understands it—of the American Founding. What Thompson misunderstands, though, is that ours are once again times of war and politics; no mere philosophy can save us now. Americans of the founders’ age could realize the...

WASHINGTON, April 4, 2007 – Without delay, the United States needs to provide American men and women in uniform with the funds, supplies and weapons they need to get the job done, the deputy secretary of defense said here today. “Importantly, we need to send a clear message of resolve,” Gordon England said today at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition. Speaking to a packed room of about 850 active and retired servicemembers, as well as defense industry officials and other civilian professionals, England said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the first two battles in what will prove...

James Baker's "Iraq Study Group" seems to have been cast on the same basis as Liza Minnelli's last wedding. A stellar lineup: Donna Summer, Mickey Rooney, the Doobie Brothers, Gina Lollobrigida, Michael Jackson, Mia Farrow, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Jill St. John. That's Liza's wedding, not the Baker Commission. But at both gatherings everyone who was anyone was there, no matter how long ago it was they were anyone. So the fabulous Baker boy was accompanied by Clinton officials Leon Panetta and Bill Perry, Clinton golfing buddy Vernon Jordan, Clinton's fellow sex fiend Chuck Robb, the quintessential ''moderate'' Republican...