Free Republic

Police officers lined the streets of Boston yesterday before the start of the Democratic National Convention. JAMES J. LEE (THE WASHINGTON TIMES) BOSTON — Police brandished machine guns on downtown streets, jet fighters patrolled overhead and soldiers guarded press offices as Boston yesterday began hosting its first national political convention amid unprecedented security for an American political gathering.

Front page, main headline: "HUSH MONEY — Jacko's secret $15m payoff to sex-case boy." Picture of Michael Jackson. [Mild interest — not enough to make me actually read the story — colored with some pity at seeing Jackson's self-mutilated face.] Yeah, yeah, what a surprise. Saw it on O'Reilly, anyhow. Starting to feel a bit sorry for the guy. Sure, he's a weird freak, but has he actually done any HARM? What proportion of American parents would let Jacko fondle their son for $15m? My guess: at least 10 percent. Would I? No! But being felt up by perverts used...

If I were the late Osama bin Laden, I'd come away from Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 feeling a bit like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard: I'm still big. It's the pictures that got small. Bin Laden and his colleagues in al-Qaida, their various subsidiaries and affiliates, the Wahhabi bankrollers in Saudi Arabia, and thousands of mullahs throughout the Muslim world believe they're engaged in a great crusade (whoops) against the Great Satan and the rest of the infidel world that will go on until they achieve final victory. Michael Moore and his own fanatical worshipers, on the other hand, think...

I can pinpoint the exact moment I knew the jig was up. It wasn't Reykjavik or the fall of the Wall. It was when Gennadi Gerasimov, spokesman for President Gorbachev, appeared on TV and, seeking to explain the Soviet Union's loosened grip on its Eastern European satellites, inaugurated an all-new Warsaw Pact: "The Brezhnev Doctrine is dead," he declared. "We now have the Sinatra Doctrine: You do it your way." Mr. Gerasimov was on TV a lot in those days. Plausible, genial, bespoke, tanned, he looked like a White House press spokesman doing a tour of duty in the Kremlin,...

The Canadian election results June 28 prove four cherished theories: (1) Deeply imbedded in the Canadian electorate is a social democratic ethos which inhibits the growth of any Reaganlike conservatism. (2) The country is still strongly divided between the French Canadian Quebec secessionists, for the moment a quiescent minority but still a Damoclean threat to Canada's territorial integrity, and the rest of Canada. (3) From a U.S. standpoint, it really doesn't matter very much which of the two major parties — the victorious Liberal Party or the newcomer Conservative Party — is in power. The economic-financial ties between both countries...

The man who once embodied male beauty ended his career as the fattest star in motion picture history. But despite the debauchery, the legend of Brando endured. A few years back, The New Yorker published a cartoon in which two ladies discussed the appeal of Marlon Brando: "He plays galoots really well," suggested the first woman, "galoot" being American slang for a big, uncouth, rough-hewn kind of a fellow — "ya big galoot", "ya big lug", etc. "No, he's not a galoot," says the second. "Like in On The Waterfront, he's much more sensitive than a galoot." "He's a sensitive...

-snip- A reader from north of the border passes along an item for my Homeland Insecurity Files — Canadian Edition. A news article from the Ottawa Citizen on grievances by overworked and understaffed Canadian border patrol agents reports: • Besides salary and classification disputes, protesters took exception to the Canada Border Services Agency employing summer students to patrol ports of entry. • "There's your border security," chortled Mr. Lupien, saying students only receive three weeks of training before embarking on their jobs. "It's McCustoms." • According to Mr. Lupien, 1,200 students guard the border over the summer and, at the...

Uniquely, democratic realism recognizes that in the present era of Islamic terror, security is only attainable through engagement, and that engagement will only have meaningful long term benefits if followed by committed democratic construction. In contrast, a policy of containment — one that focuses on either multilateral diplomatic discussions or a realist playing of one hostile interest against another — works to merely reinforce the status quo that breeds Jihadist killers. Only democracy and the rule of law can permanently alter the Middle East's volatile status quo, and extinguish the flames of violent radicalism in the Arab world. This is...

I wouldn’t usually review teen comedies two weeks in a row, but I loved Eurotrip. Well, I loved the first two-thirds of it. It got crummy reviews in America — “Tasteless Eurotrip Doesn’t Travel Well” — and sank without trace, and I expect it’ll do the same in Britain. But it seems to me there is rare wisdom in its sense of its own limitations. The plot is really no more than a pencil outline. Scotty (Scott Mechlowicz) has finished high school in Ohio and been dumped by his girlfriend. When he mentions this to his penpal in Germany, the...

On the eve of an election that will at least superficially change the complexion of Canadian political life, no matter what the result, I won't bother repeating how I think you should vote: it will be obvious to anyone who has been reading me. American election campaigns are far too long (a necessary evil of fixed election cycles); our Canadian ones have become much too short. For whether or not we enjoy the spectacle (and I unashamedly enjoy watching politicians squirm), it is in our interests to make the course gruelling. Politicians should be put to the test, and judged...

Q: Can Islam coexist with the West and its modernity or will events result in a war that may, in the end, provoke a nuclear retaliation and a third world war, a war more terrible and destructive than has ever been known? Hanson: I surely hope not. And in fact I don’t think it will happen that way. … Q: What do you make of the 9-11 commission? Hanson: Nothing like it is all bad or all good. … Q: Why do you think the U.S. failed to come to Israel's defense and veto the U.N. Security Council's May 19...

One of the strangest developments following the recent funeral of Ronald Reagan was the emergence of all sorts of “authentic” — and irreconcilable — Reagans. Die-hard conservatives assured us that the California governor who signed the most liberal abortion legislation of the time, raised a $1 billion in taxes, and asked a liberal Governor Schweiker to be his vice-presidential running mate in 1976 was a true-blue, unyielding ideologue now mostly gone absent from the American scene. The present administration stresses Reagan’s undeniable toughness with the Soviets. Karl Rove’s team wants to evoke Cold-War Reaganism to highlight President Bush’s unyielding stance...

"At best, it's vigilantism. At worst it's anarchy. Islam is against both." That was the reaction of Daniel McBride to the recent beheadings of South Korean Kim Sun Il and Americans Paul Johnson and Nicholas Berg. Mr. McBride, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Boca Raton, Fla., wants to make clear that "for these radicals to even imply that what they're doing is Islamically correct is wrong." Many Muslims are disturbed that such acts of terrorism are being committed in the name of their religion. The Council on American-Islamic Relations launched a petition a few weeks ago that notes:...

t's a good thing Air America is such a flop or it would cause serious problems for the Democratic Party. Randi Rhodes, for example, has been urging those called up for Iraq to refuse to go -- to desert, in other words -- which, if I understand his nuances, isn't exactly on message with John Kerry......

Paul Johnson jnr was butchered for you. Pictures of his decapitated body, with his severed head on his chest, were posted on the internet in the early hours of Saturday (Sydney time) for your benefit. So was the message that "the infidel got his fair treatment". You were the target. The symbolism was carefully considered. The 49-year-old American civilian, kidnapped in Saudi Arabia, was dressed in an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by prisoners of the US military in Guantanamo Bay. The method of execution was also considered for maximum impact. The images were quickly placed on the internet...

Insightful and entertaining column, as usual, on the Canadian debates. The most depressing conclusion to be drawn from the debates, and this federal election in general, is that most conservative or libertarian values are now considered by politicians to be so unpalatable to the Canadian public that they can't even be discussed. The widely held perception is apparently that it's impossible to be elected if you argue, or even state, any of the following: • that the health care system should be reformed to allow substantial involvement by private companies, where they can provide services more efficiently and cost-effectively (even...

Dublin, Ireland – When President Bush visits Ireland June 25-26, he will be confronted by a gaggle of leftist loonies coalescing under the banner, "When Bush comes to shove." They're against the war in Iraq, you see. They held no demonstrations to protest the torture and murder by Saddam Hussein over three decades; neither have they managed to get upset about human rights violations in China, the atrocities committed by various African dictators, or a host of other "evildoers," as Mr. Bush likes to call them. In fact, memory fails to recall any protests against military actions by the Irish...

In today's hectic world, it's often hard to keep abreast of the fast-paced developments on Planet Andrew. As a service to time-challenged Daily Dish fans, Iowahawk Labs is beta testing Andrew Sullivan MemeCrawler 1.0. Report all bugs to the email link on the left. ************************* BEGIN FEED INSANE DITTOHEADS crucify another truthspeaker. Read, weep. ABU GHRAIB GATE: Heartbreaking Bush scandal ruins the most just war ever. Grrr! Release fishy memos, can Rumsfeld. RAINES AWARD NOMINEE: media biased against Bush. INCOMPETENCE: NR boys blind to incessant Bushie fCENSOREDups. CHIRAC V. BLAIR: friction. CHENEY V. NYT: Zing! DEEPER POINT: Cheney right, must...

Q: Why do you think is the Bush administration so reluctant to publicly call out the U.N. on the humanitarian crisis in the Sudan? Why is there no major media attention to this disaster? Hanson: They tried. But look, the world cares not about the dead, but whether the United States or Israel can be blamed for them. … Q: Could you address how organized crime and the subsequent corrosive effect it has on the fabric of a society may have led to the demise of a great many civilizations? Hanson: Well, when such crime permeates down to the mundane — bribes for...

There will be a great deal of blanket praise written about Ronald Reagan in the next few days. Yet I don't think his legacy will be judged by his unwavering ideological purity. After all, as a realist he once raised taxes and signed liberal abortion legislation in California, as well as pre-selected as his Vice-President running-mate a liberal Governor Schweiker in 1976 to appeal to Republican moderate delegates. Despite his "evil empire" speech, he was not the preeminent American Cold War Warrior. Far earlier Truman and Eisenhower had both fashioned the policy of containment of and deterrence against the Soviet...