Free Republic

Liberal opinion is engaged heavily now in belaboring Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh for calling the Prophet Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a racist. The proximate cause for this charge is the following statement by Judge Sotomayor to an audience at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law in 2001: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Well, possibly the bigotry inhering in that line does not rise to the level of...

As I suggested a few weeks ago, Sen. Barack H. Obama is not going to have an easy time of it. For one thing, Sen. John McCain is a much tougher candidate than has been suspected. Looking over his career, one will note that McCain learned politics before ever entering politics. As a young Navy liaison to the Senate in the 1970s, he worked effectively with Democratic and Republican hawks to reverse the post-Vietnam military decline. He, having managed the largest fighter squadron in the Navy, has management skills of which he can boast, as Sen. Obama cannot -- despite...

Bush Is Back By Emmett Tyrrell Thursday, December 6, 2007 WASHINGTON -- As with the late Abraham Lincoln, so with the present George W. Bush -- once the right general was found and the right strategy adopted, victory was in hand and a beleaguered president's fortunes were restored. Doubtless President Bush is aware of the parallel, and perchance, he will avoid Ford's Theatre. A curious inhibition shared by both Bush 41 and Bush 43 is to downplay their interest in reading. Actually both are hearty readers, certainly as compared with the general public. Earlier this year, I attended a luncheon...

The Clinton administration is going to be the most difficult presidency for historians to record accurately. This is because the Clintons are inveterate liars and frauds. They are not particularly competent — they often get caught. Just the other day, Bill was caught lying about opposing our invasion of Iraq, and before that, his lovely wife, Bruno, was caught lying about a questioner her campaign planted at an Iowa campaign event. However, the Clintons lie so frequently and across such a wide range of matters from the petty (Hillary's lie about the origin of her name) to the serious (Hillary's...

The infallible Washington Times reports that up for sale is one of the most famous scenes of infantilism in the 20th century, "Woodstock." Actually, what is on the block is the late Max Yasgur's New York farm, 38 acres of which were used for the 1969 Woodstock music festival that hagiographers for the "1960s Generation" have ever since boomed as a pivotal event in American history. Such rock singers as Jimi Hendrix and Richie Havens got together before a stupefied crowd of some 500,000 eternal children to sing of peace, and freedom, and mind-numbing substances, even the most feeble of...

I find myself in unusual company, and I am always so careful about the company I keep. Nonetheless, here I am arguing on the same side as Washington Post columnist and ritualistic liberal Richard Cohen and Christopher Hitchens. At least Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair and Slate, is an independent man of the left. Yet here I am on their side arguing for leniency for Vice President Richard Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby. Having been found guilty of lying under oath, he is about to be sent to prison before his appeal is considered. In fact his...

Well, it is a very pleasant time to be in Washington. Senators and representatives alike have vacated the premises. Most have headed off to ply their trade on their constituents. The off-year elections are approaching, and most of our federal legislators want another stint at what the Democrats call "public service." That is a euphemism for what all reasonable observers call the "public trough." The Democrats are in a sunny mood. As they see it, we are losing in Iraq. We are losing the war on terror. And Wal-Mart just posted a quarterly loss. All of this means, so the...

The Hon. Newt Gingrich's recent oracular rumble to a luncheon audience at the Brookings Institution, during which he threatened to seek the Republican presidential nomination if a "vacuum" remains in the Republican field, reminded me of an inescapable insight I suffered sometime in 1998. Mr. Gingrich is the Republicans' Bill Clinton. Being a Republican, Mr. Gingrich is not as hollow as the Arkansas huckster, nor as amusing. In fact, he can be boring. Springing from the same late 1960s jugendkultur as the Boy President, Mr. Gingrich is the career pol, the hustling, self-promoting narcissist, the sempiternal fantasist. When he was...

WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- It is very reassuring that Republican negotiators in the House and Senate have reached an agreement to extend President George W. Bush's cuts in tax rates on dividends and capital gains. Equally reassuring, the negotiators plan to liberate as many as 15-million middle-income Americans from the impending burden of the alternative minimum income tax. Now the unparalleled economic growth that has characterized the American economy since the early 1980s can proceed. My only question is why? Why did the Republicans extend these tax cuts? Many of them are the same salons who offered the embarrassing quackery...

WASHINGTON -- The legal concept of the Public Nuisance has for long been recognized throughout all the civilized countries of the world. Basically, and unadorned by the tortured language of the legal profession, a public nuisance is one who uses property to annoy or damage an individual or the general public. Occasionally the annoyance or damage is sufficiently grievous for the public nuisance to suffer some sort of penalty.

    The Rise of BoltenismBy R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Published 3/30/2006 12:09:14 AM WASHINGTON -- Did you catch Senator Harry Reid's reaction to President George W. Bush's replacement of Chief of Staff Andy Card with Budget Director Joshua Bolten? Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, called Bolten a "failure." It could have been worse. He might have inveighed against Bolten's terrible temper. In fact, the Democrats still might sound the alarm over reports of Bolten's terrible temper. Reid called Bolten a failure the same day that the Conference Board's consumer index showed consumer confidence climbing to a near four-year...

p>The Talk Shows Sunday, March 26th, 2006 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Gary Schroen, former CIA agent; Democratic strategist James Carville, Republican strategist Mary Matalin. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and national security adviser Stephen Hadley. THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.; Gov. Brian Schweitzer, D-Mont.; Harvey Mansfield, author of "Manliness," and author Naomi Wolf. LATE EDITION (CNN) : Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and...

WASHINGTON -- Those gruesome news reports from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony the other night remind me of a conclusion I came to a few years back. Rock and Roll is dead. Rest in peace. Through the years the peace of the grave has crept up on a lot of rockers, usually years before they arrived at the average life expectancy of almost any type of adult human being, including skydivers and inebriated jaywalkers. Given how preachy the average rocker became by the late 1960s, this is ironic. In their warbles they lectured ordinary Americans on what...

So we hear this week President Bush is taking delight in the spread of the "alternative press" (read conservatives on the Internet, in talk radio, in print and at Fox) and the gentle detumesence of "mainstream media" (read liberal media, or more precisely Democratic media). I join him in his satisfaction. I have spent much of my life with journalists, beginning in competitive swimming and moving on to politics and culture. Usually, even in covering sports, the journalists have been liberal Democrats. I recall a Sports Illustrated writer who used to come out to Indiana to cover my world champion...

WASHINGTON - A long-awaited report detailing an independent counsel investigation of a former secretary of housing and urban development, Henry Cisneros, outlines a coordinated effort by Clinton administration officials to first block and then limit the probe as a way of taking pressure off an administration that was already beset by scandals. The report, by independent counsel David Barrett, is scheduled for release on January 19. Details of it have been disclosed to The New York Sun by persons familiar with its contents. The release of the report coincides with the end of an investigation that began in 1995 with...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Cisneros probe side effectsBy R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.Published January 6, 2006 Advertisement In a very clever year-end column the venerable William Safire writing in the New York Times asks whether "special prosecutor David Barrett's 400-page exposé of political influence within the Internal Revenue Service and the Clinton Justice Department" will be the government report "most likely to resist investigative reporting" this year. I certainly hope not.     The misuse of the IRS and Justice Department has a long record going back to Richard Nixon and Watergate and before that to Franklin Roosevelt and his harassment of former...

    Dingy DemocratsBy R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Published 12/29/2005 12:08:26 AM WASHINGTON -- 'Tis the end of 2005 and time to look back. In politics what do I see? Well, I see the Republican Party struggling against high seas. In the media the party is depicted as being in danger of losing to the Democrats in the off-year elections next fall. That probably will be the case, unless the Republicans have to run against the Democrats. Against the Democrats they could win with Warren Harding in the White House. The reason for this is that the Democratic leadership is fractured...

    The Good News Is GoodBy R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Published 12/8/2005 12:09:57 AM WASHINGTON -- The President is out on the hustings. He is exhorting steadfastness on the war. He is booming the economy. He will be getting hoarse quite soon. The reason is simple. He is trying to reason with the unreasonable. On the matter of the war his opponents' rejection of reason is demented. There is no alternative to facing down the terrorists and the nihilists in the Middle East. They attacked us here and will do so again and again unless they are defeated -- and...

It is now becomes ever clearer the 20th century's last decade could go down in history as the Decade of Illusion. There was the tech bubble whose detumescence was predicted by some of the same engineering geniuses who had created the technological marvels it was based on -- for instance, Bob Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet and a major force in creating the Internet. He predicted the bubble's burst almost to the day. Another illusion of the 1990s was that, with the fall of communism, barbarism vanished. The world would be safe. Our military budget could be trimmed. All we needed...

LONDON, July 7, 2005 -- Boy, are AmSpec readers loyal! Half a dozen have already e-mailed to me knowing I am in London for the Spectator of London's annual party. They want to be sure I am all right. I am. Moreover British spirits are undaunted. An Islamofascist website howls that the bombs in London filled "the British with terror and fear and panic." Claptrap! The Islamofascists are curiously like our earlier enemies the Nazis and the Communists. Almost every claim they make is a lie. I had breakfast at a cafe this morning, a mere 20 minutes from where...

Drat. The battle royal I predicted last week is off in the U.S. Senate. The battle was to be fought between Democrats and Republicans over what conservatives call "the constitutional option" and liberals call "the nuclear option." That it was reported throughout the media as the "nuclear option" is still more evidence the media are liberal. Obviously the argument over whether the media are liberal or not is another of America's unnecessary debates. So too is the argument over whether the president's judicial nominees are "activist" an unnecessary debate. What distinguishes the president's nominees from what in the recent past...

WASHINGTON -- The new year dawns dank and melancholy, at least for me. Shuffling off the nation's center stage are my favorite sanctimonious hinds, Dan Rather and Bill Moyers. Both have been burning incense before their own graven mugs for years. Soon both will exalt themselves in solitude. Moyers was a gifted understudy of his old boss, Lyndon Johnson, and though he affected piety wherever he went, there was always a whiff of the thug about his person. How well I recall the revelations of the journalist, Andrew Ferguson, demonstrating that while an independent contractor of PBS the Rev. Moyers...

WASHINGTON -- Oh, this vexatious season is almost over. How to greet my fellows Americans amid statues of Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Rangifer tarandus? Merry Christmas? Happy Hanukkah? Something about Kwanzaa? Happy Holiday? Have A Good One? There are so many choices and so many possibilities of giving offense. Loath as I am to give offense (unintentionally!) I have been avoiding the whole subject. Then along came Charles Krauthammer who is surely the most sensible pundit in the land, as well as one of the best informed and most agreeable -- though the burden of good sense...

WASHINGTON -- Justice never sleeps. Or rather the free-floating moralism that is the left never sleeps. The other day a Chilean judge, Juan Guzman Tapia, decided that an 89-year-old man was competent to stand trial for human rights abuses, though it has been fourteen years since he left office, and when he did he handed his thitherto troubled country over to democrats and eventual prosperity. The 89-year-old man is, of course, General Augusto Pinochet, and his human rights abuses are not even reported in the newspapers as "alleged" human rights abuses. For the New York Times on Tuesday Guzman's decision...

Do you know who Harry M. Reid might be? Frankly I did not know either until he was quoted in the newspapers as having said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Justice Clarence Thomas is "an embarrassment to the Supreme Court." He also asseverated that Justice Thomas' opinions "are poorly written." As he made these utterances recently on "Meet the Press," I concluded the man must have some stature, unless, of course, the issue being treated on the show was small-town bigotry. Well, it turns out this fellow Mr. Reid is a U.S. senator. In fact, he is the...

WASHINGTON -- Do you know who Harry M. Reid might be? Frankly I did not know either until he was quoted in the newspapers as having said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Justice Clarence Thomas is "an embarrassment to the Supreme Court." He also asseverated that Justice Thomas's opinions "are poorly written." As he made these utterances recently on "Meet the Press" I concluded that the man must have some stature, unless, of course, the issue being treated on the show was small-town bigotry. Well, it turns out that this fellow Reid is a United States senator. In fact,...

WASHINGTON -- Tom Wolfe has done it again. He has written a novel full of the blood and gore, the preposterosity and pomposity of the age. I Am Charlotte Simmons is about the excesses of college life. It is particularly good on the imbecility of college sports, specifically basketball. Wolfe depicts fans that are witlessly agog about the players. And he depicts players teetering on the brink of megalomaniacal madness. It is a vastly amusing book and highly instructive. Now out of nowhere the National Basketball Association has come forward to give Wolfe's book a tremendous boost. Last week's...

History takes time. To understand the historic decline of the Democratic Party I have found it useful to reach back to a book I wrote in 1984, The Liberal Crack-Up. It is a diagnosis of what was then the core philosophy of the Democratic Party, liberalism, and a prognosis of its future. Doctor Tyrrell was not optimistic, but history takes time. . . . . The conservatism of President George W. Bush, a conservatism that has been governing America for most of the past 24 years, remains to these liberals shocking, dangerous, or "extremist," as they say. The liberalism of...

WASHINGTON -- For the most perceptive insight into George W. Bush and the Republicans' robust victory over Senator Jean-François Kerry and the Democrats, look to Tom Wolfe. As usual America's finest living writer sees America with limpid clarity. In a pre-election interview with the British newspaper The Guardian Wolfe observes that the eastern media elite "do not have a clue about the rest of the United States. You are considered twisted and retarded if you support Bush in this election." Well, a record 59 million voters did support Bush. "I have never come across a candidate who is so reviled,"...

WASHINGTON -- I see that the convalescing Bill Clinton is about to leave his Chappaqua infirmary to hit the campaign trail for Democratic presidential candidate, Jean-François Kerry. Reportedly the reinforcements will arrive next week. Most likely the ex-Boy President will not hit the campaign trail too thunderously. Having recently undergone quadruple bypass surgery, he remains a bit tender. But he will put in a good word for the whole Democratic ticket that now strains to save America from the Bush Madness. You know the Democrats' line: an economy reminiscent of Herbert Hoover's, the Bible Belt threatening our easy-going hedonism, Bush's...

WASHINGTON -- In observing the violence in Iraq it is helpful to have a grasp of history. There is a reason for the increased random violence. Our enemies -- free Iraq's enemies -- want to influence the American elections. Thus they make it appear that things are going more badly than they are. There is nothing new about this. History abounds with examples of a democracy's enemies trying to influence an election. It happened just months ago in Spain. History also abounds with lessons on how to deal with brutes whether the brutes are trying to influence an election or...

Print Article         Close Window     Judgment Day Published 8/27/2004 12:01:17 AM IN CHARACTER;Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s Judgment and Character: Bob Tyrrell's takedown of Kerry is, of course, spot on. However, I believe he is firing small caliber rounds, easily deflected, when he has a Hellfire available at the push of a button. Nobody disputes that John Kerry, an officer, left Vietnam at the earliest possible moment permitted by the regs. This is the most damning evidence of his utter unfitness to command. Or lead. Or, for that matter, dine in the company of decent folk. A leader...

WASHINGTON -- Is it not curious that in major media there is not a trace of humor or even irony perceptible in the hullabaloo over Senator John Kerry's latest self-inflicted wound, to wit: the controversy over his Vietnam record? Oh, one fellow has shown a proper sense of the absurdity of it all...snip For that matter there has not been all that much talk about Kerry's mendacity, though he has been caught in petty lies since the primaries, lies that contribute to the perception that Kerry is a man of very poor judgment. There was his early lie that he...

Is it not curious that in major media there is not a trace of humor or even irony perceptible in the hullabaloo over Senator John Kerry's latest self-inflicted wound, to wit: the controversy over his Vietnam record? Oh, one fellow has shown a proper sense of the absurdity of it all. James Taranto, editor of the Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web Today," has for months made a running joke of Kerry's reckless boasts about his service in Vietnam. Whenever he introduces this insufferable braggart into his column Taranto is wont to write "who by the way served in...

WASHINGTON -- I share the estimable Rush Limbaugh's assessment of the soi-disant Independent Vote (IV). It is delusional and unconvincing. Usually it is composed of voters who do not weld character to intellect to arrive at an intellectually sustainable conclusion. The conclusions they usually arrive at are consequently superficial and wrong. Yet there are times when I find myself in sympathy with them. There are times when the election debate is so abundant with repellent sophistries and canards that sensible citizens would rather avert their gaze from the undignified proceedings. For observers of the Kerry campaign, it has come to...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Reflections of scandals pastBy R. Emmett Tyrrell JrPublished August 13, 2004 A brilliant article by Jonathan Aitken in London's Sunday Times, of Aug. 1 prepared me for the torrent that would surely hit America a week later with the 30th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation, Aug. 9.     Mr. Aitken, a distinguished writer and biographer of the 37th president, reminded readers of the incomparable drama fevering the last days of the Watergate president. "End career as a fighter," Nixon had scrawled on one of his yellow legal pads hours before he planned to bow out on Aug. 1,...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com CIA's futureBy R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.Published July 16, 2004 When Bill Casey, my old friend and once my lawyer, was CIA director during the Reagan administration, he often confided his was "the best job in Washington." He thought he headed the finest government agency in town.     Alas, over the next decade it lost a lot of steam, as the Senate report on its ineptitude made clear last week. It is overly bureaucratized, hidebound, and lacking in the capacity for human intelligence. Some of this started in the 1970s when liberals such as Stansfield Turner thought they could...

<p>Pondering the Clintons' many scrapes with the law and with public convention over the last dozen years of the Clinton Glory, we can ascertain one weird quirk shared by both eminences that explains their unprecedented string of scandals.</p> <p>Having reviewed both their autobiographies, I see this one weird quirk standing out ever more starkly. The Clintons land in the soup most frequently because they lie when they do not have to, and they tell a whopper when a little white lie would be perfectly understandable. Whether this gratuitous mendacity is a profound moral defect, I leave to the theologians. What is unconscionable and cruelly exploitive is that after being caught in their lies so many times they continue manipulating the passions of the more gullible sort of Democrat who has joined the Clintons in transforming their soap opera into one of the Democratic Party's national issues.</p>

WASHINGTON -- Pondering the many scrapes with the law and with public convention that the Clintons have suffered over the past dozen years of the Clinton Glory, we can ascertain one weird quirk shared by both eminences that explains their unprecedented string of scandals. Having reviewed both their autobiographies now, I see this one weird quirk standing out ever more starkly. The Clintons land in the soup most frequently because they lie when they do not have to, and they tell a whopper when a little white lie would be perfectly understandable. Whether this gratuitous mendacity is a profound moral...

<p>By R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.</p> <p>HOT SRINGS, Va. -- Some years ago, while dining in a Paris restaurant, I asked the waiter about the venison on the menu. He told me it was smaller than servings in the United States.</p>

Hot Springs, Virginia – Some years ago, while dining in a Paris restaurant, I asked the waiter about the venison on the menu. He told me that it was smaller than that served in the United States. The waiter, a long-faced man, who, come to think of it, looked rather like the junior senator from Massachusetts, went on to say, "But then, everything in Europe is smaller than in America." I was too much the gentleman to tell him that my corn-fed venison back in the American Midwest was more tender than his and tasted better, if only un peu...

The Current Crisis A Great Gentleman By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Published 6/7/2004 12:09:43 AM WASHINGTON -- The Old Cowboy is gone. The oldest man ever to be elected president lived on to be the oldest ex-president, and we who were his friends and allies have lived on to hear him praised in the media's eulogies for his achievements and even for his intelligence. That last item would have amused him. Though he entered the White House an accomplished writer (the recently published Reagan: A Life in Letters makes that clear), a fairly erudite reader of history, philosophy, and economics,...

<p>I am a conservative. To be precise, I am a libertarian-conservative. That is to say I stand for personal liberty and tradition. In the scheme of government bequeathed to us by the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) those value are maintainable, with various requisite adjustments, all depending on the passing imbecilities of our fellow citizens.</p>

<p>By R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.</p> <p>One of the gravest losses attendant with the spread of broadcast media is, I suppose, perspective. Yes, the public gains pictures, film clips, and sound bites, but we lose perspective and with that judgment, always at the expense of sound policy.</p>

<p>By R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.</p> <p>If, as Sen. Teddy Kennedy rumbled recently, Iraq is President George W. Bush's Vietnam, surely the silver-haired senator is becoming Mr. Bush's Jane Fonda.</p> <p>Of course Teddy is not as svelte as Miss Fonda, for he has never been an adept of fad diets, and an aerobics regimen could impair his precarious health. Nonetheless, Teddy is becoming the Fonda of our time. Possibly he will fly off to Falluja to be photographed on a burned-out Humvee or visit Najaf to confer with the scowling Muslim cleric, the Rev. Muqtada al-Sadr. Having become so historically minded, Teddy goes on to call President Bush our era's Richard Nixon.</p>

WASHINGTON -- If, as Senator Teddy Kennedy rumbled recently, Iraq is President George W. Bush's Vietnam, surely the silver-haired Senator is becoming Mr. Bush's Jane Fonda. Of course Teddy is not as svelte as Miss Fonda, for he has never been an adept of fad diets, and an aerobics regimen could impair his precarious health. Nonetheless, Teddy is becoming the Fonda of our time. Possibly he will fly off to Falluja to be photographed on a burned out Humvee or visit Najaf to confer with the scowling Muslim cleric, the Rev. Muqtada al-Sadr. Having become so historically-minded Teddy goes on...

WASHINGTON -- I believe the Democrats are on to something. I believe they have devised a very clever plan to stop Senator John François Kerry's decline in the polls. According to news reports, they are checking him in at an undisclosed hospital for tendon surgery on his shoulder. That will keep him out of sight for a while. After that they can try knee surgery. He has a record of knee injuries. Then there are his allergies. Off and on they can check him into an allergy sanitarium. When he actually does appear on the campaign trail, if his penchant...

Forum Madame Hillary New York, New York (United States) ID: 181161 - 03/15/2004 - 0:50 - $29.95 Tyrrell Jr., R. Emmett, Editor in Chief, [American Spectator] Regnery, Alfred, President, Regnery Gateway Publishing Innis, Niger, National Spokesman, Congress of Racial Equality Mowbray, Joel, Columnist, Townhall.com Fund, John, Columnist, [Wall Street Journal] Mr. Tyrrell was joined by a panel of political reporters, columnists, and commentators to discuss his book, Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House, published by Regnery Publishing. In the book, the author examines the life of Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton. He also speculates about...

WASHINGTON -- I do not know what you thought when you heard that Senator John François Kerry was overheard in a scrum of Chicago blue-collar workers referring to unnamed politicians as "crooked" and "lying." I thought he was referring to the Clintons. What is more, I thought he was being complimentary. The Clintons have, indeed, been very artful in all their transgressions. Even when they get caught they wriggle out of it, save for the time that Bill got impeached and found in contempt of court and lost his license to practice law. Actually Bill has never really practiced law....

In Review:Madame Hillary: The Dark Road To The White House, by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. with Mark W. Davis (Regnery Publishing, 231 pages, $27.95) It is incumbent upon a reviewer to disclose a bias or personal interest, unless it is already blatantly self-evident. For instance, any reader would realize that a hostile review of Bob Tyrrell's excellent book by, say, Sid Blumenthal might have been motivated by the reviewer's desire to ingratiate himself with the boss, Hillary Clinton. Since this review will be enthusiastic and laudatory, my own motives must be spelled out. I am a very old and good...