Free Republic

VENICE (Reuters) - After last year's attacks on the United States, President Bush ( news - web sites) declared "You're either with us or against us." But film directors exploring the world's reaction to Sept. 11 say things are not that black and white. Almost a year after suicide hijackers killed more than 3,000 people and brought down New York's World Trade Center towers, the Venice Film Festival is abuzz with discussion about "11'09"01 September 11" -- 11 directors' responses to the day America came under attack. Some of the short films have been accused of anti-Americanism, linking U.S. foreign...

The odour of appeasement that permeates the Western world has apparently driven President George W Bush to seek strength by studying the career of Winston Churchill.Depressed by the warnings of his father's old friends against taking action against Iraq, he is looking for support in the life story of the supreme anti-appeaser. Churchill's refusal to be silenced by the peacemongers during Hitler's rise to power, a refusal all too painfully proved right when war came, sets an example President Bush finds reassuring.If Churchill was right about Hitler, he seems to be asking, how can America be wrong about Saddam Hussein,...

<p>I was a preacher's kid, so Sundays were church, no doubt about that. The church was the center of our lives. In segregated black Birmingham of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the church was not just a place of worship. It was the place where families gathered; it was the social center of the community, too.</p>

Deploying Marines for gays, feminism and peacekeeping On a break from lachrymose accounts of Palestinian women weeping for their children, the New York Times has been trying to induce hysteria over the shocking Bush policy of deploying American troops in order to protect American interests. Such self-interested behavior is considered boorish in Manhattan salons. The only just wars, liberals believe, are those in which the United States has no stake. Liberals warm to the idea of American mothers weeping for their sons, but only if their deaths will not make America any safer. Thus the Times and various McTimes across...

Ann Coulter, author of the No. 1 best-selling nonfiction book in America—Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, a small book coruscating with giddy bile—was 20 minutes late to lunch at Michael’s, the sunlit media-centric restaurant on West 55th Street. I’d been so excited to meet the glowing scimitar of the American right that I hadn’t fallen asleep until 5 a.m. the night before. Now I was worried that Ann had backed out. Had she figured she’d be un-welcomed, hissed at, throttled at the hub center of the media elite? Bobby Zarem, the publicist, waved to me from a nearby...

"Cast your Best of Ithaca ballot on-line! Be sure to include your name and address, and if you're one of the lucky 10 people chosen at random you'll win a gift certificate for dinner-for-2 at an Ithaca restaurant. Only one entry per person, and any attempts at ballot stuffing will be disqualified. Entries must be received by Friday, August 30."Okay, Freepers, last year we were able to FREEP this poll so that Cornell's only conservative professor (and Ann Coulter's mentor), Jeremy Rabkin, was voted best professor (funny how that catagory is gone this year...heh).We were also able to flood the...

May I say something about Ann Coulter? She is a half-wit, a termagant, a dimwit, a blowhard, a worthless silicone nothing, physically ugly and could be likened to Eva Braun, who was Hitler's mistress. As it happens, these are all descriptions or characterizations Coulter uses for others in her book, "Slander." It ought to be called "Mirror."

Nuclear annihilation can't be confined to the outer boroughsHow is it that the New York Times managed to locate the only eight people in America opposed to attacking Iraq? (By "America," I obviously mean to exclude newsrooms, college campuses, Manhattan and Los Angeles). Americans have been repeatedly polled on the question of using military force to depose Saddam Hussein. Within the last six months, the ABC News-Washington Post Poll showed 72 percent supporting a U.S. invasion of Iraq. The FOX News-Opinion Dynamics Poll also has 72 percent supporting it. The Newsweek poll shows 68 percent in favor. The least support...

Working families from Malibu to East Hampton Having dragged a group of Manhattan elites back from the Hamptons last week to attend a fund-raiser at a tony Chelsea night club, Al Gore criticized the Bush administration for "working on behalf of the powerful, and letting the people of this country get the short end of the stick." Back when he was exhibiting the Democrats' renowned good sportsmanship after he lost the presidential election, Gore managed to fund his tantrum with donations sent in from such ordinary Americans as dot-com multimillionaire Steven Kirsch ($500,000), former Slim-Fast Foods chief S. Daniel Abraham...

Murdering the bell curve At least we finally have liberals on record admitting there is such a thing as IQ. Six years ago, Eric Nesbitt, a U.S. airman assigned to Langley Air Force Base, was brutally murdered by Daryl Renard Atkins, a repeat violent criminal. It was a heinous and pointless murder: Atkins already had Nesbitt's money and car when he unloaded his gun into the defenseless airman. According to a cellmate, Atkins later laughed about the murder. After hearing the (overwhelming) evidence against him, a jury sentenced Atkins to death. Last week, the Supreme Court overturned that sentence. The...

<p>Morning television darling Katie Couric may be extra early to work Wednesday.</p> <p>That's when Couric may get to settle a score with one of the scheduled guests on "Today," conservative commentator Ann Coulter.</p> <p>Coulter is supposed to show up to promote her new, 205-page book, "Slander," which hits bookstores Tuesday. In the tome, she rips into A-list names from the worlds of media, politics and entertainment in her quest to expose "liberal lies about the American right."</p>

Some people think of pundit Ann Coulter as a razor-tongued right-winger. But in her latest book, "Slander," she's a human Uzi -- spraying a volley of invective at members of the media establishment.Among those who come under heavy fire -- for allegedly spreading what Coulter labels "liberal lies about the American Right" -- are "Today" show anchors Katie Couric and Matt Lauer; U.S. News & World Report owner Mort Zuckerman and his one-time girlfriend, feminist icon Gloria Steinem; the New York Times's ArthurSulzberger, Howell Raines and Maureen Dowd; and our Post colleague Howard Kurtz. Click here for the entire column.

This whistle-blower they like In their enthusiasm to bash the Bush administration for its handling of the war – which Democrats consider an annoying distraction from the real business of government, which is redistributing income – the left has embraced FBI agent Coleen Rowley as a modern Joan of Arc. From liberal headquarters in Times Square, Maureen Dowd fawns over Rowley, calling her "the blunt Midwesterner" painting a "stunning and gruesome portrait of just how far gone the bureau is." Frank Rich calls her "a forthright American woman." At least they seem to have gotten over their disdain for government...

SINCE SEPT. 11, we have been authoritatively informed that buildings as tall as the World Trade Center will never be built again. A "consensus" quickly emerged among city officials to replace the soaring Twin Towers with some potty-little buildings and a park. Make Comments View Comments Printable Article Email Article But at a meeting to discuss the future of the site last week, hundreds of New Yorkers showed up and shocked the experts by demanding that the towers be rebuilt. One man, who worked on the 77th floor of 1 World Trade Center, said: "Please do not diminish the memory...

Would Mohamed Atta object to armed pilots? In a new safety initiative, the Department of Transportation has instituted an affirmative-action program for Arabs interested in pursuing careers in aviation. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta explained the security advantages of the program, saying, "surrendering to discrimination makes us no different than the terrorists." Since you can't tell these days: This is not, in the strict sense, true. It is true, however, that the department has prohibited pilots from carrying guns and has rejected the idea of a "trusted traveler" program. In fact, it's not doing anything to make the airlines any safer....

What do Democrats know now? Republicans were so dumbstruck by the mendacity of Democrats claiming President Bush had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attack, they have overlooked the most stunning legerdemain of this accusation. Suppose Bush had known 18 Muslim immigrants planned to hijack four planes on Sept. 11. What could he have done? Throw Arabs out of the country? Put them in preventive detention? Order airport security to take an extra little peek at swarthy men boarding planes? Liberals won't let us do that now! In a girly-girl, eye-poking attack, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., has demanded...

French voters tentatively reject dynamiting Notre Dame Liberals have finally found a people even more worthy of their admiration than the adulterous French: synagogue-burning, genital-mutilating, terrorist-cheering Muslims. Ordinarily, Jean-Marie Le Pen of France's National Front Party would be the left's ideal politician. He regularly denounces U.S. "imperialism." He opposed the Gulf War. He is supported by communists. He so despises religion that he happily married a divorcee, pleased that he would not have to marry her in a church. He has lots of affairs – the centerpiece of France's superiority to America. But liberals don't like Le Pen. They want...

Parental advisory: This column discusses 'speech' Whenever a Supreme Court opinion is bristling with references to Renaissance paintings, classical mythology, and "art and literature throughout the ages," you know the court is about to invoke the First Amendment to protect "Bisexual Schoolgirls' Porn Pictures." Writing for the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy struck down a perfectly sensible federal child porn law last week. Though you might think the attorney general was preparing to rip "War and Peace" off the shelves, the law simply extended the reach of the federal child pornography laws to computer-generated "virtual" images of minors engaging in sexually...

Having wearied of opposing the war on terrorism, Democrats are now trying to sabotage the country's energy policy. A better idea, they think, is to continue sending large amounts of money to countries that nurture homicidal Muslims intent on destroying America. George Bush has proposed drilling in a tiny, desolate portion of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR. According a leading Democratic opponent of the plan, lying is the key to defeating ANWR. ABC-NBC-CBS have been accompanying discussions of ANWR with picturesque footage of caribou frolicking in lush, fertile fields – all of which happens to be nowhere near...

You know you've lived a good life when both Fidel Castro and Bill Clinton mutter your name in disgust. If Vlad the Impaler knew about Orlando Bosch, he'd have belched out Bosch's name, too. Just a few months ago, Fidel Castro was regaling an audience in Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion with tales of Bosch's perfidy. In the sort of crisp, punchy speaking style that draws millions to hear him (nearly as much as the threat of execution), Castro compared Bosch to the Sept. 11 terrorists. Bosch, Castro said, was the perpetrator of a "monstrous terrorist act." Similarly, Clinton invoked...