Free Republic

John McCain For President: A Hero Leader Editorial Pittsburgh Tribune-Review February 10, 2008 You have to hand it to John McCain. He has an impeccable sense of timing. At the very moment that a dangerously fractured Republican Party could have disintegrated -- Thursday, when Mitt Romney, the darling of the anti-McCain crowd exited the race -- Sen. McCain delivered a stunning speech to the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. Certainly, there was a measured sense of rebuke in the words of the Arizona senator who now has a virtual lock on the GOP presidential...

Stop this donkey-&-elephant show By Colin McNickle TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, January 15, 2006 Heavenly fire, Joe Biden has a great idea. And given the subject matter, it's pretty much assured that he didn't nick it from Neil Kinnock, as he did portions of that infamous campaign speech that scotched his 1988 presidential aspirations. But, and as unwittingly is the case sometimes with liberals, the senior Democrat U.S. senator of Delaware is right for exactly the wrong reason. On NBC's "Today" show Thursday, Mr. Biden, a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Supreme Court nominations should go straight to the...

From the reaction of many conservative commentators, you'd think George Bush nominated not Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court but Teddy Kennedy, Dick Durbin or Chuck Schumer. Or serial killer Ted Bundy. George Will, supposedly the qui vive of all things conservative, ripped the president for, among other things, asking the American people to "trust him" that he knows Ms. Miers possesses a constitutionally conservative heart. -snip- What should be most embarrassing for conservatives is not that President Bush nominated a relative dark horse who happens to be a trusted adviser whom he thinks has fealty to the Constitution —...

Never mind that it grows more certain by the hour that John G. Roberts Jr., easily will gain Senate confirmation as the 109th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. A small gang of some of the most liberal senators in the history of the republic are hell-bent on delaying that inevitability.

Convolution is not conservatism By Colin McNickle TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, June 26, 2005 The headline and guts of a Wall Street Journal commentary took on a wholly buffoonish patina as the week progressed. Fast on the heels of last Sunday's commentary here (and by others elsewhere) that real conservatism is in danger of dying of ignorance, neglect and perversion, The Journal on Tuesday offered an essay from John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge. These two highly respected British chroniclers of conservatism write for the equally respected Economist magazine. And they chided other conservative annalists for their dour assessments. Federal spending is galloping...

A brief and steamy walk on the streets of Pittsburgh with the chairman of the Republican National Committee succinctly affirmed what affliction has stricken many of today's conservatives: They don't know what conservatism is. It was on the evening of June 9 that a behind-schedule but very gracious Ken Mehlman and I took a brisk stroll from one political fundraiser to another. "What's the future of conservatism?" I asked.

A hint of GOP spunk By Colin McNickle This just in to the... newsroom: Republicans are doing some things right! We've spilled barrels of ink over the last few weeks chastising members of the Grand Old Party... It is widely expected that Republicans this week will use the Constitution to counter the Democrats' obstruction of President Bush's judicial nominations. snip And with the move, the constitutional mandate of "advice and consent" will be honored and fulfilled instead of mocked and perverted. Democrats were exposed for what they are -- reprobates of the republic -- when they refused the Republicans' offer...

Rick Santorum will not be elected to a third U.S. Senate term. But it's not because Pennsylvania's junior senator is "too conservative." He is anything but, as a succinct National Journal analysis shows. No, Mr. Santorum will lose his 2006 race for re-election to presumptive Democrat nominee Bob Casey Jr. because he has thumbed his nose and furiously waggled his fingers at a large cross-section of his conservative base. How can this be? Santorum is an unwavering abortion foe, right? Sure. And to him homosexual marriage is an abomination that will open the door to legally sanctioned man-canine matrimony, right?...

In politics, goes the proverb, a man must learn to rise above principle. Republicans certainly are doing a good job resembling that maxim -- and with bad results assured. President Bush's political savant Karl Rove was the cock-of-the-walk this month bragging that conservatism has become "the dominant political creed in America." Surely it must be one of those off-brands because what's been passing for conservatism these days is quite troubling. Let's start with Rick Santorum. Pennsylvania's junior U.S. senator this week is planning to introduce a bill that would raise the minimum wage.

The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby wrote for Thursday the column that I intended to write for today. I'll go a bit further. Mr. Jacoby offered a wonderfully accessible explanation of how 60 years of federal tuition aid only has served to increase the cost of a college education. That's daft, you say. How can that be? Actually, it's not that unhinged at all. And as Jacoby notes, it's quite elementary: "Every dollar that Washington generates in student aid is another dollar that colleges and universities have an incentive to harvest, either by raising their sticker price or reducing the financial...

President Bush says he wants to revamp an immigration system that is "not working" and is "not compassionate" through a program that can't work and would be anything but "compassionate" to Americans forced to pick up the tab.During his end-of-the-year news conference, the president formally revived his expanded "guest worker" proposal first laid out as a set of "principles" a year ago. But the Bush plan is quite unprincipled and, by any other name, another in a long line of amnesty programs. Bush confidante and former Montana Gov. Mark Raciot disputed that characterization to me during the fall campaign. But...

There are two sides to every story. Unfortunately, the stories liberals usually tell are fairy tales masquerading as history or the cleverest fear-mongering and double-talk designed to preserve, protect and defend collectivism. To wit: In a Thursday letter to the editor of The Washington Post, Philip B. Lacovara of Tucson, Ariz., writes that the Schwinn bicycle he received as a child in 1992 "was a symbol of a better America, since outsourced to countries with poor working conditions." Ah, yes, the "good 'ol days." Which the ever-sharp Donald Boudreaux, chairman of the economics department at George Mason University, seized upon...

With 10 you get egg roll. With presidents you get first ladies. And we've had some mighty nice first ladies in this nation's history. We've also had some kooks. We may get yet another on Tuesday. A very rich and snotty one at that.

Kerry's wife told journalist to 'shove it' after he asked about remark in speech -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: August 2, 2004 5:00 p.m. Eastern -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com The journalist whom Teresa Heinz Kerry told to "shove it" after rejecting a question he asked her after a speech says he has received death threats in the aftermath of the incident. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial page editor and columnist Colin McNickle says the reports of the confrontation with the wife of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry were used by liberals to "demonize not only me but the Trib," he wrote in a column yesterday....

The journalist whom Teresa Heinz Kerry told to "shove it" after rejecting a question he asked her after a speech says he has received death threats in the aftermath of the incident. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial page editor and columnist Colin McNickle says the reports of the confrontation with the wife of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry were used by liberals to "demonize not only me but the Trib," he wrote in a column yesterday. Teresa Heinz Kerry As WorldNetDaily reported, in a speech July 25 to her home-state delegates to the Democratic National Convention, Heinz Kerry used the term "un-American"...

Colin McNickle, the editorial-page editor of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review became an insta-celeb this weekend after Teresa Heinz Kerry told him to “shove it” after she denied using the word “un-American” in remarks on — ironically — civility. NRO editor Kathryn Jean Lopez checked in with McNickle earlier today. National Review Online: Teresa Heinz Kerry told you to "shove it" this weekend. Did you deserve that? COLIN MCNICKLE: No. She's a public figure who made a public statement. I deserved an answer to my question. NRO: What was going through your head during "the incident"? MCNICKLE: There was a point —...