Free Republic

He was the former actor loved and loathed for fighting the unions and championing 'Reaganomics'. . But all eyes in London on Monday are more likely to be on former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher than Ronald Reagan’s new $800,000 (£500,000) statue. The frail Iron Lady, who rarely appears in public, is ‘determined’ to attend the unveiling with around 2,000 people on Independence Day. Baroness Thatcher, 85, declined an invitation to April’s Royal Wedding and could not attend her 85th birthday party last October because she had flu. But her crucial partnership with Mr Reagan, who died in 2004, is...

I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired. I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to...

INDIANAPOLIS -- When the Indiana Republican Party found itself in a bind this spring, unable to lock down a high-profile keynote speaker for its big annual fundraising dinner, it was Gov. Mitch Daniels himself who came up with the solution: He'd get his wife, Cheri, to do it. It was a bold move, considering that she had never given a high-profile speech before and generally has been reluctant to step onto the political stage. At the same time, her husband has been pondering a 2012 presidential bid (pondering it for the better part of 18 months, in fact) and the...

I’m tempted to accuse O’D of trying to build Olby-esque cred with MSNBC’s viewers by being so confrontational with one of Bush’s lieutenants, but that would be unfair. The hallmark of “Countdown” was avoiding confrontation; only the three cameras arrayed around Olby’s desk knew what it was like to receive the “sir” treatment face to face. Credit to O’Donnell for being willing to sit down with her, at least. It was a, er, gutsy call. If you’re thinking you’d rather pass on the umpteen-thousandth Iraq war debate in which neither party has a remote chance of convincing the other, think...

George interviews Condi on Good Morning America: http://www.hulu.com/watch/237911/abc-good-morning-america-osama-bin-laden-dead-condoleezza-rice-weighs-in#s-p1-so-i0

A California Republican official who sent out an e-mail picturing President Barack Obama's face on the body of a baby chimpanzee issued an apology late Monday after a weekend of criticism that ended with a strongly worded public rebuke from the local Republican Party chairman, who also called for an ethics investigation into the incident. Marilyn Davenport, a 74-year-old elected member of the Orange County Republican Central Committee, sent an email Monday afternoon asking for forgiveness for her "unwise behavior," just before the local Republican committee met for its monthly summit at a hotel in Irvine. The email sent on...

Since February is Black History month, I thought it fitting to write about an African-American I admire, Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state under President George W. Bush. She was only the second woman, and the first black American, to hold the position. Rice reveals much about herself in a book published in 2010, "Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family" (Crown Publishing). An adored only child, she was expected to accomplish a great deal. Her mother, a piano teacher, wanted her to have a special name. Condoleezza is from the musical term "con dolce" meaning "with sweetness." Condoleezza grew up...

NEW YORK: As a girl, she vowed that she would marry an American footballer, but she has ended up helping to run the country instead. Now there is speculation that Condoleezza Rice may fulfil both ambitions after she invited a handsome sportsman not once but twice to the White House as her date. The gossip began when Gene Washington, a former player with the San Francisco 49ers, turned up at a formal dinner for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines just over a week ago. Noticeably, Rice, the US national security adviser, had also invited him to dine with the...

Condi's speech in Cairo 2005 is an American Classic! Compare this to zer-O's Cairo speech. http://www.verumserum.com/?p=20976

The WikiLeaks website last week leaked a secret State Department cable from October 31, 2008, directing United States officials to spy on Israel. The cable, dated only days before the 2008 American presidential elections, was signed by then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The recently leaked cable reveals former U.S. President George W. Bush’s foreign policy czar instructing American diplomats in Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA, to conduct a massive espionage operation against the Jewish state. The sought-for information covered all aspects of Israel’s political system, society, communications infrastructures...

The question on everyone’s mind: Why didn’t the United States do more to prevent the progress of North Korea’s uranium-enrichment program? Regrettably, the answer to this question is even more disconcerting than the disclosure itself. Intelligence amassed over the course of nearly two decades on North Korea’s uranium-enrichment program has been an inconvenient truth for most U.S. officials involved in North Korea policy through consecutive U.S. political administrations — but nowhere was this delusion in more abundance than in the latter years of the George W. Bush administration, in which I served as the director for counterproliferation strategy, covering North...

It's now on CBS

In a SPIEGEL interview, former United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discusses America's fight for German reunification, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's woes at the time, Chancellor Helmut Kohl's merits and the later mistakes of his successor, Gerhard Schröder.

In an interview on NBC's "Today Show" this morning, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted she doesn't miss the pressures of her former job, adding that now, when she hears breaking news, she doesn't "have to do anything about it." "It's nice to be out of the pressure-cooker, frankly," she acknowledged to "Today" host Meredith Veiera. Rice, who was on "Today" to promote her new memoir, "Condoleezza Rice: A Memoir of My Extraordinary, Ordinary Family and Me," spoke about her childhood in Birmingham, Alabama, and defended some of the more controversial foreign policy initiatives from the Bush administration. "History...

A little over two years ago I wrote the following:"If Condi Rice displayed the same passionate zeal during UN negotiations over the terms of a cease-fire with Hizbullah in the 2nd Lebanon War, as she does in bullying Israel to make concessions, no doubt there would have been a strong Chapter 7 mandate, instead of the weak 1701 Resolution.""As it was, Secretary Rice appeared eager to give in on the original American position and conceeded to the demands of the Arabs and the Europeans.""With the result being a token UNIFIL force with observer status only. And that's exactly what...

Former Secretary of State is keynote speaker at Convention Center security conference. ANAHEIM Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that the United States must remain vigilant in the fight in Afghanistan and help calm the drug battles along the Mexican border to help prevent the type of failed states that lead to more terrorism. Rice delivered the keynote address to a crowd of more than 2,500 police and security professionals gathered in Anaheim for the 55th annual American Society for Industrial Security International Seminar, billed as the largest security expo in the world. "Nothing has ever been...

Friday, September 18, 2009 1:00 PM PDT Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking at an SAP event Thursday, defended American-style capitalism against charges that it led to the global economic meltdown. The crisis has spurred a backlash against capitalism, Rice said, but she argued that recovery depends upon "a refocusing and reaffirmation of that very model of democratic capitalism that is now under attack." http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/172252/condoleezza_rice_stumps_for_capitalism_at_sap_event.html

What Churchill called 'jaw-jaw' has produced nothing, except more provocations. In recent weeks, North Korea has detonated a nuclear bomb and violated U.N. Security Council prohibitions by launching ballistic missiles. It has threatened war against South Korea, repudiating the July 1953 armistice agreement and thus ostensibly reverting to a state of war with the United States. It has also sentenced two American journalists -- Euna Lee and Laura Ling -- to 12 years in a labor camp. These are extreme provocations. Only a military attack could exceed them. Our response, of course, must be diplomatic. But only a very special...

President Obama will make his promised speech to the Muslim world from Egypt, a White House official said on Friday. Obama pledged during the campaign to address the Muslim world from a Muslim capital within the first few months of taking office. Picking a site proved challenging for a range of reasons -- from diplomacy to security -- and the decision took longer than expected, with Obama commissioning options from a research team. Having settled on Egypt, the White House today announced that he is adding a stop there to his early June overseas trip. That trip will also take...

It's too bad we no longer have adults leading this country: I urge you to watch this fabulous YouTube footage of the magnificent Condoleezza Rice being ambushed by left-liberal students at Stanford University with a series of "difficult" questions about torture, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and US foreign policy under George W Bush. (Hat tip: Andrew Hamilton.) Her coolness under fire is magnificent, but more impressive still is her refusal to duck the issues. "Sorry we have to leave", an official can be heard saying off camera, but Condi isn't going to take the easy way out: she wants to...