Free Republic

Heh. Socialized medicine at its best.

Via Legal Insurrection: We are in REAL trouble. He can't figure out how to get it through:

Press Release: Election Study Finds Media Hit Hillary Hardest Obama, Huckabee Fare Best; FOX Is Most Balanced (not a typo) TV election news has been hardest on Hillary Clinton this fall, while Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee have been the biggest media favorites, according to a new study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University. The study also found that Fox NewsChannel's evening news show provided more balanced coverage than its counterparts on the broadcast networks.

So what do you do if you're an old and washed-up, or not-so-old, but increasingly forgotten actor anxious to regain the spotlight of celebrity? As a rule, you look to associate yourself with a project that might jump-start your career. It is nice to be asked to participate in a project popular with the public. You jump at the chance for a supporting role in a Steven Spielberg movie. It's even better when the show is the rage of Hollywood itself and generating the all-important "buzz" among Tinseltown's sycophantic critics. If you're desperate enough, you'll latch on to this project,...

...Benedict XVI’s initial plans did not include making the announcement as early as he did, with an official statement last June 22. But the resistance he encountered within the curia convinced him to nip the opposition in the bud.

We all know that lefty trolls can be a real inconvenience at times, but a very special troll named Deborah Frisch has taken trolling down a very dark road. Jeff Goldstein is the very insightful conservative blogger who writes at Protein Wisdom and Dr. Frisch (did I mention she's a psych[o] professor at the University of Arizona?) has repeatedly and quite disturbing levied DEATH THREATS against Jeff's 2 year old child.

Some thoughts on the Murtha madness. First, Democrats have truly gone insane. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Democrats lost the 2002 elections arguably because of Iraq. They lost even bigger in 2004, again arguably because of Iraq. Now they’re determined to lose the 2006 elections because of Iraq. Second, why couldn’t Murtha have had his epiphany a month ago? It would have yielded huge GOP victories in the November 8 elections. Third, Jean Schmidt: I’ve written some mean things about her - “Hackett was a much better candidate than...

There’s been a lot of complaining this week, from the victims and from a lot of what Michelle Malkin calls “armchair first-responders”. Polipundit readers with experience have tried to explain how successful the actual effort has been, but the facts are competing against an entrenched desire to pursue a story which drives the emotions, and the emotions chosen by the media to build on, are anger and envy. Others try to avoid dwelling on the negatives, but are overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the disaster. The first task, reaching people to get them out, was complicated by the destruction...

Barone was just on Fox and nicely fisked the Karl Rove teapot tempest.

Rove breathes easier: The New York Times reports that Karl Rove learned the name of outed CIA operative Valerie Plame from columnist Robert Novak.

Plame - Plame - bo-Plame, banana-fana-fo-Flame, fee-fie-fo-mo mame Plame ... Blame game!

I'm confused. Libs are screaming about an anti-Rove conspiracy designed by Karl Rove that somehow resulted in reporters for a left-leaning glossy rag and a certified liberal ink-shedder (the NYT) getting in trouble with the law. I'm so confused.

Chrenkoff offers biweekly updates of good news from Iraq. I found this via postwatchblog.com.

Your editor returned to Iraq in April and May of 2005 for another embedded period of reporting. I could immediately see improvements compared to my earlier extended tours during 2003 and 2004. The Iraqi security forces, for example, are vastly more competent, and in some cases quite inspiring. Baghdad is now choked with traffic. Cell phones have spread like wildfire. And satellite TV dishes sprout from even the most humble mud hovels in the countryside. Many of the soldiers I spent time with during this spring had also been deployed during the initial invasion back in 2003. Almost universally they...

I fell asleep at about 0200 in the recliner at peace that Ohio AND Florida were in the president's column. I awakened at 0545 and saw John Thune on Fox discussing his victory. Praise God! Thank God! Praise Jesus!

Debate ratings seem pretty high This means many more than originally thought saw the president Thursday night. Very good news.

[snip] Saturday's vote was an exception: Prime Minister John Howard, a strong ally of America in general, was committed to supporting the United States in the Afghan and Iraq wars. Labor's leader, Mark Latham, had committed his party to bring home most Aussie troops in Iraq by Christmas. If Labor had won, the world would have seen the result as a dramatic erosion of international support for George Bush's Iraq intervention... [snip] At risk was a splintering of the English-speaking alliance (America, Australia and Great Britain) that has been the moral and military core of the war on terrorism. [snip]...

Mario Cuomo was glowing after John Kerry's Iraq speech Monday at New York University: "Great! Excellent! Masterful!" raved the former New York governor, who sat near the front. "He's never been clearer. He's turning this thing around."

[snip] Kerry wants this issue to go away, but Rather keeps doing whatever will keep it going. By now, Kerry knows he can’t win on this point, no matter what he says (he could have gained a bit last week, by demanding CBS come clean, but instead kept quiet, hoping Rather would win his bluff. Oops) . So, the longer this goes on, the worse Kerry suffers. * Bush is now innoculated, as I said before, against personal attacks. If anything remotely like this comes up between now and November, he or his staff will just shrug and say something...