Free Republic

It would not surprise me if, at the next Republican National Convention, Benjamin Netanyahu took a seat in the delegates-from-abroad section. The Israeli leader has both allied and associated himself with congressional Republicans who differ with President Obama over whether to impose additional sanctions on Iran and who also — let’s not beat around the bush — hate his guts. Their foreign policy is actually a domestic one: to destroy the president. Whether this is political or personal — or a combination of the two — is beside the point. Whatever the case, when Netanyahu accepted John Boehner’s invitation to...

They had a term for her, but I've forgotten it. It was a name applied to a person who could not say no to a door-to-door salesman. The one I remember from my brief career selling magazines was totally upfront about her intentions. "I'll buy whatever you're selling," she said. I sold her Esquire and two other subscriptions. Salesmen back then had a name for such people. Today, I would call them conservatives. They, too, will buy anything. The current evidence for this is Edward Klein's latest book, "Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas." It has just jumped over...

Tuning the car radio some weeks back, I heard the President denounced as a moron. I was shocked. I had reached some right-wing talker and he was carrying on about something Barack Obama had recently said — that he worries more about a nuclear attack on New York than he does about Russia. The radio guy declared that the president had given terrorists an idea. He apparently forgot that the notion of attacking New York had already occurred to them. -SNIP- I feel about the GOP as I do about the religion of others: I don’t get it. -SNIP- No...

The day after Chris Christie, the cuddly moderate conservative, won a landslide reelection as the Republican governor of Democratic New Jersey, I took the Internet Express out to Iowa, surveying its various newspapers, blogs and such to see how he might do in the GOP caucuses, won last time by Rick Santorum, neither cuddly nor moderate. Superstorm Sandy put Christie on the map. The winter snows of Iowa could bury him. From a Web site called the Iowa Republican, I learned that part of the problem with John McCain and Mitt Romney, seriatim losers to Barack Obama, “is they were...

Another stupid media controversy, this one touched off by a characteristically stupid column by the Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, not known for the density of his gray matter. The Post man, sort of the epitome of what used to be called bleeding-heart liberals, suggested “conventional” Americans “gag” when they see an inter-racial couple. He was supposed to be writing about the new mayor of New York and his wife. In fact, he was writing about himself and his ilk. The Washington media went into navel-contemplation exercises for several days following and revealed the startling fact that they have no...

I've tried my level damndest to ignore the latest Richard Cohen column controversy, because life is short and Cohen will stumble into another racial contretemps within six weeks or so. And I don't like the idea of a columnist being Mau-Mau'd out of a job because he's a casual bigot. The smarmy-sounding Fred Hiatt defense—that Cohen "isn’t afraid to take on subjects where culture and politics and emotion overlap"—isn't entirely wrong. Past-their-prime white guys have opinions, too. No, the problem with Cohen's column was that he made an assertion about an entire class of people being racist, and did no...

Poor Richard Cohen. He was just trying to accuse the Tea Party of being a bunch of racists when he ended up being accused of racism.Writing about “Christie’s Tea Party Problem”, another one of those boring “Christie would be a great candidate but the radical right wing won’t let him” that once he becomes the candidate will transition predictably to “Christie used to be moderate, but he became a right-wing nut job to appeal to the Tea Party”, Richard threw in the usual stuff.1. Palin is illiterate2. Ted Cruz and his dad are bigots who hate gay people3. The Tea...

It probably seemed like a good idea: Trash Iowa, trash the Tea Party — an easy day’s work for a Washington Post columnist, and hey, why not throw in a cheap shot at Sarah Palin for good measure? . . . Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah (considered to the right of Cruz, if such a thing is possible), Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the party’s recent vice presidential candidate and its resident abacus, and the inevitable Sarah Palin, the Alaska quitter who, I think, actually now lives in Arizona. If this...

Columnist Richard Cohen is not a friend of conservatives (see past articles posted at FR). However, he did write an article in the WaPO, see Racism vs. reality (posted here today) that was pretty balanced. Needless to say, the rest of the left is not pleased with their colleague. Yes, Richard Cohen is now a racist. Elspeth Reeve of The Atlantic and Tom Scocca of Gawker have chimed in. There have been others as well. Meanwhile, WaPo is standing by Cohen for now. Will the Post end up firing Cohen? Will this experience wise Cohen up to his leftist brethren?

In May 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the White House. It was 17 months after Pearl Harbor and a little more than a year before D-Day. The two Allied leaders reviewed the war effort to date and exchanged thoughts on their plans for the postwar era. At one point in the discussion, FDR offered what he called "the best way to settle the Jewish question." Vice President Henry Wallace, who noted the conversation in his diary, said Roosevelt spoke approvingly of a plan (recommended by geographer and Johns Hopkins University President Isaiah Bowman)...

Many of the Nazi camps in Europe are falling apart, an expert has warned in advance of Holocaust Memorial Day. Florence Eizenberg, who is finishing a doctorate on the topic of Holocaust denial, said that the camps, which provide valuable testimony to Nazi war crimes, are in poor condition. Eizenberg visited camps across Europe as part of her research. …

Today it is more clear than ever why Niles doubted FDR genuinely supported Zionism. President Barack Obama has spoken of his deep admiration for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his desire to emulate FDR’s leadership style. But in the wake of the discovery of new documents detailing FDR’s behind-the-scenes coldness regarding the creation of a Jewish state, many Israelis will be hoping that sentiment does not extend to Roosevelt’s views on Zionism.

Franklin Roosevelt enjoyed the overwhelming support of American Jews during his presidency, and the reasons are clear. In his three-plus terms from 1933 to 1945, he led the war against Hitler, supported a Jewish homeland in Palestine... Starting in the 1960s, a flood of books appeared with self-evident titles like “No Haven for the Oppressed” and “While Six Million Died.” But the most influential account by far was David S. Wyman’s “Abandonment of the Jews,” published in 1984. Wyman considered numerous parties responsible for America’s tepid response to the Holocaust, including a badly divided Jewish community, a nest of virulent...

Historian Rafael Medoff says Franklin Delano Roosevelt failed to take relatively simple measures that would have saved significant numbers of Jews during the Holocaust, because his vision for America only encompassed having a small number of Jews. “In his private, unguarded moments, FDR repeatedly made unfriendly remarks about Jews, especially his belief that Jews were overrepresented in many professions and exercised too much influence and control on society,” Medoff told The Daily Caller in an email about his new book, “FDR and the Holocaust: A Breach of Faith.” “This prejudice helped shape his overall vision of what America should look...

On April 12, 1945, my grandfather approached me as I played outside and asked where my mother was. He looked stricken, and so I quickly followed him inside and heard him say words that made my mother burst into tears: President Roosevelt had died. My mother’s grief and panic were so palpable — her brother was fighting in the Pacific, her brother-in-law was fighting in Europe — that it scared me. In our house, FDR was not merely the President. He was a god. He is a god no more. His New Deal is no longer solely credited with ending...

Imagine President Barack Obama leaning hard into Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, pressing him to support a piece of legislation or, say, introduce a budget bill that has been MIA for the past three years. Obama is a real go getter and has been burning up the phone lines until late at night to convince legislators to support him. He even invites a number of people from Capitol Hill to join him for rounds of golf where he continues the art of persuasion. Hard to believe that fantasy? Well, that is what the Washington Post opinion writer Richard Cohen is...

It is not nice to speak ill of the dead, my mother once told me. But it is okay, I think, to speak ill of those who praise the dead when the deceased was best known for sliming a well-intentioned and wholly commendable public servant or for exposing a politician who had already exposed himself. I am referring to Andrew Breitbart, whose passing was noted and mourned throughout the conservative firmament. His eulogies tell us more about the movement than they do about him. Almost immediately, conservative commentators let out a wail signifying the passing of one of their own....

Why Santorum Scares the Left February 28, 2012 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Okay, we have some headlines that are in the Drive-By Media today. Most of them are about Santorum and how out of touch he is and how what a wacko he is and what a creep, what a fanatic. I had 'em set aside. I'll just run through the headlines here.ABC: "New Lows Among Conservatives Mark Romney’s Popularity Problem."This is an ABC News/Washington Post poll on Romney's plummeting popularity with conservative Republicans. From the Right Scoop: "Santorum: Romney Uniquely Unqualified to Take on President Obama." From the National...

<p>He wants religion returned to “the public square,” is opposed to contraception, premarital sex and abortion under any circumstances, wants children educated in what amounts to little red schoolhouses and called President Obama a “snob” for extolling college or some other kind of post-high school education. This is not a political platform. It’s a fatwa.</p>

<p>For a second, I could not believe my eyes. I saw a headline, or at least I thought I did, which went like this: "Pawlenty Questions Bachmann's Fitness." I rose out of my chair and exclaimed hallelujah, because here in the person of Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, was a Republican willing to say that Michele Bachmann was not qualified to be President; moreover, up to that very moment, not a single other Great Republican had been willing to say anything like this. But it was true, of course, it was true.</p>