Free Republic

It is [said]... the only sure winner in American politics is the media.... Maybe not this time. Big Media lost big. But it was more than a loss. It was an abdication of authority. Large media institutions, such as CBS or the New York Times, have been regarded as nothing if not authoritative. In the Information Age, authority is a priceless franchise. But it is this franchise that Big Media, incredibly, has just thrown away. It did so by choosing to go into overt opposition to one party's candidate, a sitting president. It stooped to conquer... National Guard... Abu Ghraib......

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 - President Bush on Wednesday nominated Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel and a longtime political loyalist, to be his next attorney general. The speed with which Mr. Bush acted, only a day after making public the resignation of John Ashcroft, indicated that the president wants to get his new appointees in place before the start of his second term, 10 weeks from now. The nomination of Mr. Gonzales would also put one of his most trusted aides in a post where past presidents have wanted to have a confidant, as well as someone who can...

...Ashcroft.... will go down in history as the Attorney General who led the legal fight against terrorism. Every wartime AG has had to make tough calls about the balance between civil liberties and national security, and in a better world Mr. Ashcroft would be retiring to bipartisan accolades for taking on these difficult issues.... Yet no one in this Administration has endured more personal and political abuse. Granted Mr. Ashcroft isn't the smoothest public spokesman, and his cultural conservatism and strict interpretations of the law on the death penalty, partial-birth abortion and sentencing guidelines incensed liberals.... The irony is that...

...Mr. Gonzales has many things going for him, not least his relationship with the President, whom he has served for more than a decade starting in Texas. These personal ties -- much like those between Californians Ed Meese and Ronald Reagan -- will give him a stronger influence in the Cabinet than Mr. Ashcroft had. But his job will nonetheless be to build on the Ashcroft legacy. That includes moving ahead with terror cases, riding hard on the FBI as it reshapes itself to fight terrorists, and working for the renewal of the Patriot Act, portions of which expire next...

...The ferocious partisan dissension that has broken out at home over the war on terror dangerously subtracts from the nation's war-fighting effectiveness. • Partisan warfare at home has given credibility and confidence to America's enemies abroad.... • Partisan disunity has damaged America's alliances.... • Hyper-partisanship has weakened America's own war-fighting strength.... It's essential to acknowledge mistakes and learn from them.... At home, ...Democrats will do everything they can to stop [Bush].... There are, however, some actions that might help President Bush introduce some useful bipartisanship to American foreign policy. • Listen: For months after 9/11, President Bush met once a...

By Jim Emerson Editor, RogerEbert.com October 14, 2004Who's the, uh, biggest villain in "Team America"? Kim Jong Il or Hollywood celebrities?"You should learn to keep your opinions OUT of your reviews!" Every critic I know has received at least one letter like that from an indignant reader. Of course, it's an absurd proposition; critics are paid to express their opinions, and the good ones (who exercise what is known across all disciplines as "critical thinking") are also able to cite examples and employ sound reasoning to build an argument, showing you how and why they reached their verdict. Well, since...

...Mr. Bush was granted Bill Clinton's wish to live in "interesting times,"... Instead of inheriting an economic recovery as Mr. Clinton did, Mr. Bush began his term facing the end of the 1990s' investment bubble and a looming recession. And instead of inheriting a placid post-Cold War world, he was presented with September 11.... On the economy, he compromised on his first tax cut to win 12 Democratic Senate votes, but it proved too Keynesian and too long-delayed to pack much punch. So Mr. Bush used his Senate victory in 2002 to double down on his tax cut bet.... Yes,...

Europeans may have trouble carving out a common foreign policy, but most agree on one thing: Bush must go. With US elections rapidly approaching, countless Europeans are fervently seeking to sway American voters. But can their efforts really make a difference? Even in Europe, there is no escaping it. The United States presidential campaign is everywhere. Every tiny change in the polls wins a spot on the evening news and not a day goes by without coverage of the campaign. Academics regularly bash heads over the latest campaign intrigue and a flood of titles critical of Bush and the Iraq...

PRISONERS U.S. Ruling Drops Rights of Some Captured in Iraq By DOUGLAS JEHL Published: October 26, 2004 WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 - A new legal opinion by the Bush administration has concluded for the first time that some non-Iraqi prisoners captured by American forces in Iraq are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, administration officials said Monday. The opinion, reached in recent months, establishes an important exception to public assertions by the Bush administration since March 2003 that the Geneva Conventions applied comprehensively to prisoners taken in the conflict in Iraq, the officials said. They said the opinion...

The military police soldiers who ran the high-security wing of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq kept an unofficial log of their daily activities, a diary of sorts that documents the conditions that gripped the prison during the months that detainees were abused in what would later erupt into an international scandal. From Oct. 19, 2003, to Jan. 18, 2004 -- just days after digital photographs of soldiers mistreating prisoners were turned in to Army criminal investigators -- the members of the 372nd Military Police Company who ran tiers 1A and 1B at Abu Ghraib jotted their experiences in a...

WASH POST obtains Abu Ghraib 'prison diary'... Developing...

BALTIMORE - The wife of an Army Reservist sentenced to prison for abusing prisoners in Iraq said she knows her husband did wrong, but she also blames the abuse on higher-ranking officials who "sit behind the curtains." Martha Frederick, wife of Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, said the eight-year sentence he received Thursday in Baghdad for his role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal will force her family to "endure hardships and many sacrifices." "The pain sets deeper yet in knowing that he serves these years not only for his actions or actions of a few reservists, but those included...

Letter Of Apology Author unknown - sentiment shared. For good and ill, the Iraqi prisoner abuse mess will remain an issue. On the one hand, right thinking Americans will abhor the stupidity of the actions while on the other hand, political glee will take control and fashion this minor event into some modern day My Lai massacre. I heard some Arabs are asking for an apology. I humbly offer mine here: I am sorry that the last seven times we Americans took up arms and sacrificed the blood of our youth, it was in the defense of Muslims (Bosnia, Kosovo,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The highest ranking soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was sentenced to eight years in prison for abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib during a court martial Thursday in Baghdad. Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, 38, of Buckingham, Va., was also given a reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge. The sentencing came a day after he pleaded guilty Wednesday to eight counts of abusing and humiliating Iraqi detainees. He had faced a maximum possible sentence of 11 years in prison. The Abu Ghraib scandal broke worldwide in April with the publication of...

Some 2000 US citizens opposed to the Iraq war will be sending Iraqis personal photos with protest messages to show not all Americans condone the invasion. A means to counter the infamous images of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, each picture will be accompanied by a signed personal message – either decrying the US-led invasion or extending sympathies to besieged Iraqi civilians. "With deep shame, we apologise for the suffering our country has brought to the people of Iraq," says a banner in a photo showing 11 people in Vancouver, Washington.

...This spring, film producers... sent 150 digital video cameras to Iraq and invited Iraqis to tape whatever they wanted -- and then pass the cameras onto someone else. The three had no idea how the victims of first Saddam Hussein and then of the chaos that accompanied his fall would react. By the end of last month, the producers had received some 450 hours of footage, taped all over the country with some 2,000 Iraqis. The scenes in their completed film, "Voices of Iraq" (www.voicesofiraq.com), come as a shock.... But mostly, overwhelmingly, there are signs of life and optimism. Iraqis...

COPENHAGEN, Sept 27 (AFP) - Torture is even worse than terrorism "because torture is carried out by the state", a Danish torture expert will state before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in Washington this week, according to a copy of her presentation obtained by AFP on Monday. "Terrorists and tortures may very often use the same methods. But while the state will protect its citizens against terrorism, there is no one to protect the victims of torture," Inge Genefke, a Danish neurologist and the founder of The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), states in the document. While Genefke...

......But the most striking thing about this modest, delayed homecoming was the presence of the Vietnam veterans. I have now lived long enough, thank God, to see men of my own generation, slightly older brothers, turn out to do what I remember seeing veterans of World War I and World War II and the Korean War do on such occasions -- serve in color guards and stand at attention through long speeches and ceremony. Another generation passeth, and it's the Vietnam veterans who are there now to support the young men politicians ship around the world for dubious battle. "You...

"Smoketown Six" headed for trial Face charges of disorderly conduct for dropping drawers at local Bush rally By Justin Quinn Intelligencer Journal Published: Sep 21, 2004 9:15 AM EST LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Six Lancaster city men are headed to court next month, accused of dropping their pants this summer in protest during President George W. Bush's visit to Smoketown Elementary School Each of the self-monikered "Smoketown Six" has been charged with one count of disorderly conduct for stripping down to thong underwear minutes before the president's bus rolled by on its way to the Conestoga Valley elementary school. East...

...[W]hat happened to Dan Rather and CBS suggests that the standard media model may be faltering, that in the future the way people get information about an event like Iraq will be different. Mary Mapes... is credited with surfacing the famously potent Abu Ghraib photos.... the media winds blew the Abu Ghraib images into a wildfire that burned through our politics for weeks.... Mapes expected the media winds to similarly carry their National Guard scoop. But the wind shifted, and the media bonfire engulfed them instead.... Alternative media, primarily Internet bloggers, dismantled their story. For years, there has been a...