Free Republic

Months ago, I was asked to give a lecture at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention. It was a surprising invitation for a number of reasons. First, I am not a lawyer. Second: I am not a member of the Federalist Society—the libertarian and conservative legal organization. (If the name rings a bell it’s probably because you’ve heard of it in the context of the hearings of any of the conservative justices who currently sit on the court.) Third: if you look at the people who previously gave this particular lecture—Supreme Court Justices, attorneys general, people like Bill Barr, Don...

Barbara Olson, a conservative commentator and lawyer, wasn't panicked when hijackers took over her flight on Sept. 11, 2001, from Washington Dulles airport to Los Angeles, where she was heading for an appearance on Bill Maher's TV show. She managed to call her solicitor general husband, Ted Olson, twice from the back of the plane where the terrorists, armed with knives and box cutters, herded the passengers. She reported the hijacking aboard American Airlines Flight 77 and asked what she could convey to the captain.

We all have our memories and thoughts of that not so long ago day, 9/11. Today is another anniversary, and yes, the 13th isn't somehow as memorable as the 10th, or the 15th. On 9/11/2001, Free Republic lost two wonderful people, Barbara Olson and John Moran. While the events of that date fade into history, it is important that we never forget the people involved. Free Republic is many things, but above all it is a community of those who cherish and hold dear a set of core beliefs, values, and principles. And it is thus right and proper that...

OMG, the airplane that went into the Pentagon, had Barbara Olsen on board....I think I'm going to be sick...

We all have our memories, and thoughts, of 9/11. It's another anniversary, and yes, the 12th isn't somehow as memorable as the 10th, or the 15th. On 9/11, FR lost two wonderful people, Barbara K. Olson, and John Moran. While the date, and those events, fades into history, as do all seminal events, it's important that we never forget the people involved. Free Republic is many things... but above all it is a community of those who cherish and hold dear a set of core beliefs, values, and principles. And it is thus right and proper that we remember and...

Among the victims on 9/11 was Barbara Olson, the beautiful and brilliant author and political commentator who perished when American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Many here will recall that she was an avid Freeper ( her screen handle was "bko" )...and many who are new to FR may not have known it. It was because of FR that I had the very good fortune to get to know Barbara..indeed, the week before she died we'd spoken on the phone, to talk about actually meeting in NYC for the first time later that month. She was an absolute...

Our hero Barbara Olson who died while calling for advice and help in the crash into the Pentagon (we assume she must have been fighting to the last) is certainly the most prominent casualty of the September 11, 2001 terror attack. (By the way, I find it nauseating when people, and the networks in particular, refer to it as a "tragedy." In this context, "tragedy" might be appropriate to deaths due to an accidentally set fire, or a plane crashing due strictly to mechanical failure. It is not merely a tragedy when Arab fanatics turn airplanes into missiles, crash into ...

I’ve been writing for publication for 50 years. I have never before referred to a fellow citizen as “scum.” Growing up, I was taught that all human beings have worth, and that even “bad” people have some virtues. So, what could possibly make me call Charlie Sheen and Rosie O’Donnell, scum? These two people are backing an effort to recut, with Sheen narrating, an existing video about 9/11 called “Loose Change,” and distribute it through Magnolia Pictures. In addition to the sitcom actor and the talk show hostess, the other player may be Mark Cuban, an eccentric and sometimes out-of-control...

How can anyone be a bystander while someone is stabbed? By Mark Steyn (Filed: 13/09/2003) On September 11, 2001, the first individual to be named among the dead was the wife of the US Solicitor-General, Barbara Olson, whom I'd sat next to at dinner a couple of months earlier. On September 11, 2003, I woke to the news of the death of the Swedish foreign minister, Anna Lindh, whom I also sat next to a couple of months ago, at a conference. I can't claim anything other than the most casual acquaintance with either lady, but even an accidental proximity...

Top Washington lawyer Ted Olson and his fiancee, Lady Booth, tied the knot yesterday in Napa Valley, Calif., starting a happy new chapter in Olson's personal life. "She's a Southern girl," he told us. "She's just a marvelous person." Olson shot to national fame when he successfully argued the 2000 election case for George W. Bush in the Supreme Court, and was named solicitor general by the grateful president. On Sept. 11, 2001 -- his 61st birthday -- his wife, conservative commentator Barbara Olson, was killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. His personal loss became part...

Just wanted to give thanks on this day for our great Solicitor General, Ted Olson, as he endures more than almost anyone can imagine, rmembering his dear wife, Barbara, on his birthday. Happy Birthday!!!

As part of the U.S.'s heavy bombardment against Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan, B-52s dropped at least one 500 lb bunker-buster in honor of the late heroine-author Barbara Olson, who was killed in Osama bin Laden's 9/11 kamikaze plane hijackings. Fellow author and American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Michael Ledeen, who's also a close friend of Olson's husband, Solicitor General Ted Olson, told San Francisco radio host Melanie Morgan this week that the bomb, emblazoned with Olson's name on it, was dropped on Sunday. Morgan shared news of the Pentagon's tribute to Barbara Olson with the Washington Times on Wednesday, saying, ...

BARBARA K. OLSON MEMORIAL LECTURE FEDERALIST SOCIETY NOVEMBER 11, 2005 A. RAYMOND RANDOLPH CIRCUIT JUDGE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE D.C. CIRCUIT It is good to look out and see so many old friends. But one is missing. This is for Barbara. It is well-known that Henry J. Friendly was one of the greatest judges in our nation’s history. Along with Holmes and Brandeis and Learned Hand, he was certainly one of the most brilliant. What is not known is that in 1970, three years before Roe v. Wade, Judge Friendly wrote an opinion in the first abortion-rights...

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At long last, what the media wouldn't tell you about...BILL AND HILLARY'S 11TH-HOUR CRIME SPREE Final Days by Olson, Barbara "Disgraceful." That was former president Jimmy Carter's word for the final days of the Clinton administration. But as the late Barbara Olson shows in this riveting book, it was worse than disgraceful; it was well-nigh criminal. Here's the whole shocking story of a manic Clinton White House consumed with self-enrichment, gifts, pardons, federal land grabs, and an orgy of spending and regulating. If the Clinton administration was the most corrupt in American history, here was its most obscenely corrupt moment....

Books on NRO Weekend Major Barbara Reviewing Barbara Olson’s Final Days. By Noemie Emery, a writer on American politics and history. November 3-4, 2001   The Final Days: A Behind the Scenes Look at the Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House, by Barbara Olson (Regnery, 258 pp., $27.95). he 1990s, as a political era, began on September 10, 1991, with the hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas, and ended abruptly ten years and one day later, with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. A key figure in both of these events ...

Who Killed Barbara Olson? Her many killers. September 13, 2001 12:00 p.m. ay before yesterday there were three Barbaras, close as sisters, joined by their zest for life, their volcanic passions, their total commitment to their loved ones, their fearless work for freedom. Barbara Olson, Barbara Comstock, Barbara Ledeen. All three chose to fight for their convictions. All three were singled out by the Left for slanderous attacks, dehumanizing slogans, the usual stereotypes. Had there been a feminist movement worthy of the name, they would have been its heroines; instead, because they rejected the fashionable causes, insisted on traditional virtue,...

For an accurate gauge of America's mood, log on to Amazon.com's list of best-selling books. In the days after September 11, Amazon's top 10 provided a snapshot of how strong the public's sudden thirst was for reason amid the madness. People scrambled for books about the Taliban, the Koran, Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan's history - even Nostradamus. Echoing shifting events, these were soon joined by books on anthrax and military strategy, but in the last week a new book - not even published yet - has shot to number one on advance orders alone. On first glance, an insider's account ...

  Hillary's Secret WarThe Clinton Conspiracy to MuzzleInternet Journalistsby Richard Poe Foreword by Jim RobinsonFounder of FreeRepublic.com   "Hillary Clinton is one of the most important political players in the last decade, and she's been nothing but trouble. Hillary's Secret War by Richard Poe is required reading." ANN COULTER Bestselling author of Treason, Slander and High Crimes and Misdemeanors   "Hillary's Secret War chronicles the lonely battle many of us waged to expose Clinton corruption. As one who took part in that struggle, I am impressed by the accuracy and insight of Richard Poe's account. He has brought to...

Print Article         Close Window     Gorelick Licked By Published 4/14/2004 12:05:12 AM His testimony is likely to be overshadowed by the president's news conference, but Attorney General John Ashcroft served notice yesterday that he is one administration player not afraid at all to go on offense against the Democratic louts on the so-called 9/11 commission. The full effect of the bombshell he dropped yesterday afternoon will take some time to settle. "The single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents," he said in his stirring and air-clearing opening remarks....