Free Republic

Here's the main thought Republicans are consoling themselves with these days: Notwithstanding President-elect Barack Obama, a nearly filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate and the largest Democratic majority in the House of Representatives since 1993, the United States is still a center-right country. Sure, voters may be angry with Republicans now, but eventually, as the Bush years recede and the GOP modernizes its brand, a basically right-tilting electorate will come back home. Or, in the words of the animated rock band the Gorillaz, "I'm useless, but not for long/The future is comin' on." Thus Rich Lowry, the editor of National...

Historians looking back on these tumultuous times will no doubt argue over the precise date on which the Age of Palin began. Her speech at the Republican National Convention on September 3 certainly catapulted her to national renown. But there is a good case to be made for her introductory appearance in Dayton, Ohio, five days before. It's all there: You have the same poise and panache Palin exhibited at the convention. You have the self-assurance of a champion high-school athlete who went on to bigger and better things (unlike in the gloomy Democratic, Bruce Springsteen version of life, in...

The 2008 presidential election is a wide-open contest, and Democrats, as we saw here last week, have responded with a broad field. What could have been an early consensus in favor of Hillary Rodham Clinton is so far anything but, as Democrats fight over how they want to position themselves. The Republican field, by contrast, seems surprisingly underpopulated, again given the givens. Notwithstanding a recent Gallup Poll that gave former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani an edge among Republicans, Sen. John McCain is the Republican front-runner

That's some feud between the White House and Francis Fukuyama, the Johns Hopkins professor and author of "The End of History and the Last Man." Here's Mr. Fukuyama writing in or quoted in the New York Times sniping at the Bush administration, and there's the White House firing back by e-mail quoting Mr. Fukuyama's past statements in contrast to his current ones. This is, of course, painful for those of us who have been friendly with both sides. I don't think, at this point, reconciliation is possible. It would probably ease tensions to some degree if Mr. Fukuyama presented his...

Oh dear, it happened again: By late fall, Democrats had talked themselves into the proposition that the Bush administration was, for all practical purposes, over and done with. A few scant weeks later, in fact just in time for Christmas, Mr. Bush was back, with a respectable and rising job-approval rating and momentum in the news cycle. By now, this phenomenon has repeated itself sufficiently to warrant a generic analysis. So, here goes. Consider late summer 2003 (on the eve of Mr. Bush's pressing the case for the Iraq war), spring 2004 (with the emergence of the Democratic presidential nominee),...

If you have praised John Roberts for his many charms, you will need to find other charms if you wish to praise Miss Miers. What was striking last week was the swift and certain verdict from conservatives that no competing set of charms was possible in the case of Miss Miers. The conservative community wanted a stellar nominee and wanted Mr. Bush to fight. It seems likely to me that Mr. Bush placed a high value on avoiding the prospect of a High Court "nuclear option" scenario, in which Republicans in the Senate queued up a simple majority to change...

The Washington lawyer is the quintessential Washington type. He has the huge house in Wesley Heights or Potomac; the million-dollar partnership bonuses; the Rolodex with everyone's private number; the squad of young associates who do the grunt work and call him Godfather; the easy intercourse with pols and corporate chieftains seeking free advice or high-priced counsel--and, of course, the ego to go with all of the above. He slips and slides in and out and around government, usually making his reputation through political work he can then sell on the open market. The Washington lawyer comes in a number of...

As leaked government documents go, the "Downing Street Memo" is pretty sexy. Not actually a memo but the official notes of a July 23, 2002, meeting in the British prime minister's office, the document reproduces the thoughts and concerns about Iraq of Tony Blair and his key advisers, including his foreign and defense secretaries, his attorney general, and "C" — code for Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence service, recently returned from high-level meetings in Washington. Rarely do you find an open window on such a high-level discussion, especially on a matter that will take a...

I have been wracking my brain for a while now for a good reason for Republicans in the Senate not to get rid of the filibuster in the case of judicial nominees. You know, something about the higher need for comity, respect for the traditions of the "world's greatest deliberative body," the need for majorities to act with restraint so that minorities do not feel oppressed, etc. I give up. There are no principles at stake here. The prerequisite for a Senate rule that requires 60 votes for cloture is sufficient institutional comity to ensure that the filibuster is not...

Democrats want a scalp, and John Bolton's would do splendidly. Their visceral opposition to his nomination as U.N. ambassador has its origins not in his outspokenness in defense of American prerogatives but in his role in support of George W. Bush in Florida in November and December 2000, where his was the mustache behind the magnifying glass examining the hanging chads. Let's not forget that there were 43 Democratic votes against his confirmation for his State Department job in 2001. That was a Florida effect. And Democrats in the Senate, though fewer than in 2001, have not become less partisan...

President Bush famously rewards loyalty and competent service. There is one more promotion logical for him to make in his second term: engineering the 2008 GOP presidential nomination for Dick Cheney. Such a move is not, of course, within the president's plenary authority. Others will surely want the nomination. Republican-primary voters will have to be heard from. But as the 2004 election demonstrated to the surprise of many, Mr. Bush is something close to a beloved figure among Republicans nationally. That's true at the grassroots level, and it's true among the party's biggest donors. They all regard Mr. Bush as...

President Bush famously rewards loyalty and competent service. There is one more promotion logical for him to make in his second term: engineering the 2008 GOP presidential nomination for Dick Cheney. Such a move is not, of course, within the president's plenary authority. Others will surely want the nomination. Republican-primary voters will have to be heard from. But as the 2004 election demonstrated to the surprise of many, Mr. Bush is something close to a beloved figure among Republicans nationally. That's true at the grassroots level, and it's true among the party's biggest donors. They all regard Mr. Bush as...

As far as legislative affairs go, one of the big differences between Bill Clinton in 1993 and George W. Bush in 2005 is that when Mr. Clinton asked the impossible of a Democratic Congress, he did so in a much more competitive political environment than the one in which Mr. Bush is asking the impossible of a Republican Congress. The big tests for Mr. Clinton in 1993-94 were 1) a tax increase on upper incomes; 2) a "stimulus package" for the economy; 3) a crime bill; 4) health care reform. Grade for ambition: A-minus.

When George W. Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this month to three former officials intimately involved in his Iraq policy, the news was greeted by his political opponents with all the suave grace characteristic of Howard Dean and MoveOn.org. One could almost be forgiven for thinking the awards had been bestowed upon the three as part of a clever Karl Rove plot to keep the administration's opponents in a permanent state of self-discrediting hyperventilation. On the other hand, Mr. Bush would probably provoke the same state of excitation merely by reading the first three names in the...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Hating and waiting is not winningBy Tod LindbergPublished July 20, 2004 Where is the John Edwards surge in the polls for John Kerry? Democrats want to know. What happened? With a choice for veep as brilliant as Mr. Edwards, shouldn't Mr. Kerry have gotten a bigger bump than the small-to-nil effect the announcement actuallyproduced?     People, people. You've got to get a grip. I realize it's difficult for Democrats to take my advice at face value, since I am not a member of theclub. Butseriously, I've been writing about Democrats (and Republicans, too) as disinterestedly as humanly possible...

CHISINAU, MOLDOVA—At the checkpoint where my car is stopped, it is pretty clear from those in attendance—in assorted military garb or the ill-fitting suits that remain the uniform of the lower ranks of the successor organizations to the KGB—that there is a list inside the guardhouse with my name on it. So I will not, after all, be visiting Transnistria, the region of the former Soviet republic of Moldova that saw the worst violence in the breakup of the USSR and remains under the control of a local strongman, Igor Smirnov, who maintains his Stalinist grip thanks to an extensive...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Summertime in politicsBy Tod LindbergPublished July 6, 2004          Does politics still have a slow season? If so, the Fourth of July weekend marks its official beginning. According to conventional wisdom, even in an election year, summer is no time to try to drive a political message. People aren't interested. But does that old conventional wisdom adequately take into account the intensity of feeling this year? That's the proposition we are likely to test this summer.     Inthe usual reckoning, campaigning is mainly a post-Labor Day phenomenon. This is not to say that candidates usually just disappear for...

<p>Forget about the "fog of war" for a while -- that is, the inability to know what's going on in the heat of battle. Let us turn our attention instead to the "fog of occupation."</p> <p>What, really, is going on in Iraq? Well, if you read newspaper reports or catch the news, what you get these days is mainly a catalogue of the U.S. casualties of the previous 24 hours, which havebeen alarmingly high (though lower overall than military planners expectedto incur just in thecourse of toppling Saddam).</p>

The Washington lawyer is the quintessential Washington type. He has the huge house in Wesley Heights or Potomac; the million-dollar partnership bonuses; the Rolodex with everyone's private number; the squad of young associates who do the grunt work and call him Godfather; the easy intercourse with pols and corporate chieftains seeking free advice or high-priced counsel--and, of course, the ego to go with all of the above. He slips and slides in and out and around government, usually making his reputation through political work he can then sell on the open market. The Washington lawyer comes in a number of shapes and...

<p>I would like to review this week a little footnote to the history of the 2004 presidential campaign, namely, Howard Dean's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. I think it may have something to tell us about the current ebb and flow of the presidential campaign now that Democrats have settled on John Kerry as their nominee.</p>