Free Republic

If there is any among you who still thinks the mass media isn't in the pocket of the Left, you merely have to compare how the Plame affair went from being the biggest scandal since Capt. Dreyfuss to a non-story once the crime couldn't be laid at the feet of Karl Rove or Dick Cheney. Of course, inasmuch as Valerie Plame was not an undercover operative, it was never a big deal. But once it turned out that Clinton colleague Richard Armitage was Shallow Throat, the media buried the story back among the classified ads. Liberals who are aware that...

As I sit here, Mark Foley has just checked himself into rehab for, of all things, alcoholism. Which strikes me as very peculiar, seeing as how he wasn't forced to resign from Congress for drunk driving. If he's trying to suggest that he isn't a pervert, I'm afraid most of us will remain unconvinced. Heaven knows that when I was younger, I often got awfully goofy when I drank, but the booze never made me hanker after 16-year-old guys. But I guess you can't blame Foley for trying to bamboozle us. After all, he's just another in a long line...

Whenever I hear my fellow conservatives talk about sitting out the election in November, I want to grab them and shake them until their teeth rattle. Anything that puts Democrats even an inch closer to appointing federal judges should be more than enough reason to get every right-winger off the couch and down to his polling place. In case you think I'm engaging in election year hyperbole, consider Judge Stephen Roy Reinhardt. He has been the mainstay of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit for the past quarter of a century, ever since Jimmy Carter foisted him...

Recently, I posted a piece "Jihad This!" in which I stated that the time for political correctness had long since passed and that, at least so far as I was concerned, America’s entire Muslim population was suspect. For one thing, large numbers of them continued to wire funds to terrorist organizations even after 9/11, and instead of speaking out against their fellow Islamics or placing a reward on Osama bin Laden’s head, they bellyache about racial profiling. Frankly, I expected that a lot of people were going to take me to task for denouncing millions of our fellow Americans. That...

I no longer accept that we are only at war with Islamic fascists or Islamic fundamentalists or whatever the heck we’re calling them this week. I believe that we in the West are at war with Islam, period. I have heard any number of politicians, up to and including President Bush, claim, contrary to all reason and evidence, that Islam is a religion of peace. If you buy that load of malarkey, I’ve got a Brooklyn mosque I’d like to sell you. This is the religion that was founded by the violence-prone Mohammed fourteen hundred years. It was he who...

I hate bullies. Always have, always will. Because I was younger and smaller than my classmates in grammar school, I have been aware of them for a great many years. You might even say I’ve made a study of them. One of the things I’ve uncovered is that occasionally size isn’t the determining factor; meanness is. In some families, for instance, it’s the smallest person who turns out to be the biggest bully. Lacking size and strength, he depends on guile. What he does is provoke his larger sibling by constantly annoying him, knowing full well that if his big...

People are always writing books about the fall of great civilizations. The historians point to various things as indicators that a bad end was inevitable. Everything from over-extension of the military to corrupt politicians to all-male bathhouses have been credited with bringing on the collapse of various powerhouses. In the case of America, I think our decline began with the rise of the euphemism...

Pat Buchanan's Rampage By Burt Prelutsky Pat Buchanan, not satisfied merely looking like a Herblock depiction of a bigot, a man who never allows an opportunity to slam Israel slip through his fingers, has been on a rampage because Israel has finally gone after the murderous thugs and sadists of Hezbollah. The fact that the terrorists don't wear uniforms means that every time the Israelis kill one of them, Buchanan and his ilk get to insist that Israel is targeting civilians. Buchanan's concern for civilians isn't nearly so evident when it's Jews who are targeted by Hamas, Hezbollah and the...

Ann Coulter certainly stirred up a hornet’s nest when she accused the so-called Jersey Girls of wallowing in their widowhood. Tim Rutten, the resident media critic for the L.A. Times, accused Coulter of being cruel and tasteless. He was so outraged by what she had written and said about the quartet that, in a frenzy of self-righteousness, he then went on to describe her as a gaunt 45-year-old, an “ingénue with fangs,” and summed up her appeal as pornographic, likening it to “black leather and Nazi paraphernalia” which “have a kind of iconic status in the sadomasochistic subcultures inclined toward...

Not too long ago, David Irving was sentenced to three years in an Austrian jail for claiming that the Holocaust never happened. Although I am usually in favor of harsh sentences even for those people who insist on honking their car horns while driving through tunnels, I was against throwing Irving's butt in the slammer. For some time now, the shmoe has made his living by writing and speaking on the subject. One of his goonier notions is that the concentration camps were erected after the end of World War II to serve as tourist attractions. Irving isn't the only...

understand that George Bush and his Republican colleagues think they can have it both ways with this so-called guest-worker program. Well, they can't. Gussy it up any which way you like, it's still amnesty. And like Reagan's amnesty program of '86, it will be another disaster for America. Either the GOP is for more and more Mexicans coming across the border or they're not. But they should be warned that, if it's the former, they run the very real risk of eliminating themselves as a major political party. Even though I realize that taking a strong, principled stand on this...

The way that so many people, especially politicians, went nuts over the ports deal reminded me once again what a difference party designation makes. One only has to compare how harshly Sam Alito was treated during his confirmation hearings with the way that the ACLU’s chief counsel, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, sailed through hers. Getting back to the matter of the ports, I’m still not sure if it was a good idea or a bad one to allow the United Arab Emirates to manage those installations on the east coast. But I’m awfully curious why some of those same people who...

...Having been divorced twice, I recognize that all marriages are not made in heaven. Some, in fact, seem to have been cobbled together in Dr. Frankenstein’s basement. Speaking from experience, there are perfectly good reasons for certain unions to be dissolved. But, for the life of me, I can not come up with a single decent excuse for adultery. Frankly, I regard adulterers as lying, contemptible sleazebags. I can’t begin to imagine how they live with themselves, let alone their mates. Even the terminology is distasteful, unless, unlike most of us, you don’t mind being a cheater...

Back when Bill Clinton was leaving his mark on history by leaving his mark on Monica Lewinsky's dress, one of the most aggravating aspects of the entire shabby episode was having our nation being patronized by the European media. As usual, the snidest commentary came to us courtesy of the French. They were like 80 million cats lapping up cream. Our alleged lack of sophistication is like food and drink to them. They couldn't stop snickering over our bourgeois value system. After all, their premier had a mistress. What real man didn't? It's to be expected. Only people as backward...

The other day I was listening to a talk radio show, and heard a caller announce that there’s no freedom of speech in this country, that, because of the fascistic administration in Washington, people are afraid to criticize the government. His proof was that Cindy Sheehan had been rebuked for merely exercising her constitutional right to mouth off against authority figures. The show’s host correctly pointed out that the 1st Amendment guarantees her freedom to speak her mind, such as it is, but that doesn’t in any way curtail the right of other Americans to call her an idiot. What...

Those poor, poor perverts By Burt Prelutsky Mar 25, 2006 I can nearly, but not quite, understand why some people object to capital punishment. After all, if they’re unaware that Thou Shall Not Kill is a bad translation of Thou Shall Not Murder, you can see where they might wind up believing that the execution of a serial killer is as sinful as the original crime. Of course I happen to think that, at this late date, there’s no excuse for a grown-up not having bothered to find out what the sixth commandment actually says. That’s especially the case if...

I can nearly, but not quite, understand why some people object to capital punishment. After all, if they're unaware that "Thou Shall Not Kill" is a bad translation of "Thou Shall Not Murder," you can see where they might wind up believing that the execution of a serial killer is as sinful as the original crime. Of course, I happen to think that, at this late date, there's no excuse for a grown-up not having bothered to find out what the sixth commandment actually says. That's especially the case if he's going to carry on as if he has dibs...

...Frankly, I think there’s a lot to be said for hatred. For one thing, it’s a very honest emotion. And unlike, say, love, it’s usually hard-earned and completely deserved. Love, on the other hand, can be as brief and fleeting as a snow flake. Bars and taverns, especially right around closing time, are full of people making declarations of deep and abiding love...

For years, I've hated listening to the infantile blathering of America's leftists. All that was required for me to come down with a splitting headache was to hear John Kerry, Robert Byrd or Joseph Biden insist that if only they were running things, gas would cost 25 cents-a-gallon, peace would reign in the Middle East, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg would be the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court. However, not too long ago, I had an epiphany. It's not just that the liberals are annoying because of what they say, but because of the way they say it. Have...

I never thought I'd live to see the day that Christmas would become a dirty word. You think it hasn't? Then why is it that people are being prevented from saying it in polite society for fear it will offend? Schools are being forced to replace "Christmas vacation" with "winter break" in their printed schedules. At Macy's, the word is verboten even though they've made untold millions of dollars from their sympathetic portrayal in the Christmas classic, "Miracle on 34th Street." Carols, even instrumental versions, are banned in certain places. A major postal delivery service has not only made their...