Free Republic

Weigel responds to the Levi-Bristol break-up by shaming the media: "Why assume that [Sarah] Palin was behind [the Levi-Bristol engagement], cleaning up a problem before a possible 2012 run? It’s because the alternative, truer explanation is dull. Palin as tabloid joke is a story for 2008. The story for 2010 is that she’s a master plotter, a recruiter of grizzlies, whose book sales and TV deals prove that she’s outsmarted everyone. This theory doesn’t have many takers inside of Alaska, where Palin’s celebrity and national designs are frowned upon by people who wanted her to serve out her term. But...

In an fascinating development for Sarah Palin fans, readers of People magazine, and people who think it’s best to believe a woman when she claims the infant she’s carrying is her biological child, Levi Johnston has publicly apologized to the Palin family for lying about them. (Snip) Unfortunately, the media didn’t exercise the same level of skepticism a normal person would exercise when listening to gossip about his or her neighbor. Vanity Fair published a piece entitled “Me and Mrs. Palin,” in which Johnston “turns a number of commonly held beliefs about the former governor – the purportedly loving wife,

Andrew Breitbart’s $100,000 offer for the full archives of the now-defunct liberal listserve Journolist has prompted a fight between himself and Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan. Breitbart has not yet had any takers for the offer – assuming such a complete archive of the e-mail list founded by the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein even exists – but Sullivan contends the offer alone has crossed a new line. “Every blogger or writer who has ever offered an opinion is now on warning,” Sullivan wrote. “Your opponents will not just argue against you, they will do all they can to ransack your private...

Andrew Sullivan is not a huge fan of Israel; he is entitled to his opinion. However, his latest column about the incident in the waters outside of Gaza makes up the facts. Honestly, in the case of most of the posts Sullivan writes about Israel, Andrew is living in his own reality, where truth and facts do not matter. The Atlantic columnist begins his latest example of creative writing begins with the first paragraph. Maintaining the siege and blockade of Gaza (because its citizens elected a government Israeli abhors), and strafing it with military might over a year ago, is...

Here's a revealing glimpse into how a delusional, incompetent, pathological liar has managed never to hold a real press conference and yet remains a credible public figure. She avoids the filters - i.e. skeptical journalists - and deploys one simple propaganda tool: (Requests to interview Palin for this article, specifically about her experiences in the 2008 campaign, were turned down. Her former communications aide Meghan Stapleton explained that "with her Fox exclusivity, we are denying requests for articles and stories right now.") The reason I banged on and on about Palin's bizarre story about her fifth campaign prop during the...

A former Lauderhill Middle School computer teacher changed jobs late last year, but there was one thing she couldn't leave behind – an affair with her former student, according to police. Kristen Nicole Sullivan, 25, has been working since November at the Broward School District's Educational Technology Services (ETS) department in Oakland Park. But police say she couldn't resist the sexual affair she started with a student last May.

WASHINGTON -- Congressman John Sullivan introduced H.Res. 1063 Wednesday, a resolution expressing the sense of Congress that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to require American citizens to purchase government approved health insurance, or else face criminal penalty. The Sullivan resolution also demands the removal of the individual health insurance mandate from any final healthcare reform bill that Congress considers. Congressman Sullivan issued the following statement after introduction of the resolution. “My resolution builds off the efforts of at least 36 state legislatures, including Oklahoma, that are looking to limit or oppose health mandates in the House and Senate...

I may catch some flak for this, but I’m prepared. While I very much like Sarah Palin and what she represents, I do believe she made a serious error when answering a question concerning the issue of Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

Patricia Sullivan is daring to go where many women would never have dared to go before Sarah Palin and Barack Obama came on the national political scene. She’s running for Florida’s 8th Congressional District currently held by Democrat Alan Grayson against a trial lawyer and a real estate agent. Palin inspired her; concern for her children’s futures motivated her to leave her current position as a self described Domestic Engineer/School Teacher/Community Organizer. “… and that still wouldn’t come close to covering everything I do,” quips Sullivan. “The first thing I would like to do is repeal the “stimulus” spending bill...

First, expect the major national outlets (NBC, New York Times, etc.) to ignore this evidence of Palin's overwhelming popularity. They've been commissioning polls especially designed to show that Palin is unpopular, and they're not going to let facts get in their way. Second, to the extent that the elite media take notice of the huge crowds at Palin events, expect them to focus obsessively over any tinfoil-hat crackpots who turn up. Time or Newsweek will send reporters out to these book-signings, and the reporters will interview scores of Palin fans until they find one or two conspiracy kooks who think...

a friend has been sending me ecstatic emails about the speech. I just watched it—the speech is every bit as good as the ones candidate Obama gave, as the performance candidate Obama delivered at the HRC/Logo Democratic Primary Debate, as the open letter to the LGBT community that candidate Obama released before last November's election. Imagine all the wonderful things this guy is going to accomplish if he ever actually gets elected president. In other words: sorry, folks, nothing new to see here. Pledges, promises, excuses. Lip service. Other reactions...

A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to release notes and summaries of former Vice President Dick Cheney's 2004 interview with Special Prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald in the CIA leak case, but is allowing the deletion of what may be some of the most interesting details in the documents. In a ruling issued Thursday morning, Judge Emmet Sullivan flatly rejected claims by both Bush and Obama appointees at DOJ that the entirety of the records should be withheld because their disclosure could discourage White House officials from cooperating in future investigations. The judge said the prospect of such inquiries was...

It seems that Andrew Sullivan’s application for US citizenship hangs in the balance — but not really, and that is the issue. Gawker and other sites report that this past summer, blogger and columnist Sullivan was arrested on national seashore in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for illegal possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor that would incur a $125 for Sullivan, if he was found guilty. No big deal — it happens a lot in that area of our country. The only stumbling block is Sullivan’s pending U.S. citizenship, which might have been adversely affected should he have been brought to court. Enter...

Note: Photo and videos included. COEUR D'ALENE -- The Aryan Nations is experiencing an unwanted resurgence in North Idaho. SNIPPET: "However, a man named Paul Mullet claims he is going to bring the racist organization back." SNIPPET: "Mullet says he moved here from Ohio five months ago because North Idaho is the "last stand" for the Aryan Nations movement. Mullet says he's in the process of buying a large amount of land in the area." SNIPPET: "Monday's distribution of racist material in Spokane Valley's Trentwood neighborhood was the latest in a series of similar incidents. Aryan Nations literature has also...

WASHINGTON – One of the most influential bloggers, pundits and columnists in America, Andrew Sullivan, has joined the rising chorus of voices across the political spectrum calling for Barack Obama to release his original, long-form birth certificate to put aside growing doubts about his eligibility for the presidency. Sullivan writes that he believes official accounts, such as the recent statement by Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Health Department, that maintain Obama was born there and is a "natural born citizen." Sullivan says, however, Americans should not be expected to accept on blind faith the word of public...

From the Free Republic blog commenters, courtesy of Balloon Juice: What goes around comes around... One less nazi as far as I am concerned. This isn't good, boys and girls ... not good at all. This serial-killer piece of excrement will be held up by every abortionist and every lover of abortionists as the reason why the Secret Service needs to be assigned to guard every abortionist, every abortion mill and every lover of abortions in this country. SNIP

TULSA, OK -- Tulsa Congressman John Sullivan has checked himself into the Betty Ford Center in California to treat an alcohol addiction. "To ensure my success in this fight, I've decided to take a temporary leave of absence from Congress," he said in a statement. "I value my relationship with the citizens of Oklahoma's First Congressional District, whom I am privileged and honored to have served for the past eight years. So, I wanted to be open and honest on this tough situation. "I ask for your continued support and prayers as I face the challenges that lay ahead. I...

In the Sunday Times yesterday Andrew Sullivan claimed, in respect of the controversy over the alleged use of torture by counter-terrorist investigators under the Bush administration, that a senior al Qaeda suspect named abu Zubeydah had given false information under torture that there had been an operational relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda – furthermore, that he had been tortured specifically to get him to make that statement in order to help justify the war in Iraq. Sullivan wrote: This is partly how the entire war was justified: on a tortured lie. And this much we now know for...

A Plan for Defusing the North Korea Crisis October 17, 2006 by John O'Sullivan Everyone agrees China is the key to the North Korean crisis, but most diplomats dealing with the crisis have no idea how to turn that key in the lock. As the nearest great power, China should in principle favor reducing and eventually eliminating the dangerous instability posed by nuclear totalitarian North Korea. Since Pyongyang is utterly dependent on China economically and strategically, the Chinese government in Beijing has the power to change the regime if it chooses. (In practice a few telephone calls to some of...

"Bush and Cheney were, in fact, more brutal in their "enhanced interrogation" than the Gestapo was. And note that I am not engaging in the slightest hyperbole here. I'm not saying that the US is Nazi Germany in any way. I am saying that the torture program used by Bush and Cheney follows exactly the specific methods used by the Gestapo...When the US captured officials who had done to prisoners exactly what the last president did, the US prosecuted them, found them guilty and executed them. The price Cheney pays is a fawning interview on CNN. That's who we are....