Free Republic

Finished his book late last night – and have to say that while I began reading it with disapproval, I ended with dismay. Here is a once great public servant engaging in the shabbiest kind of name-calling and George Soros-style paranoia. (The “Enemies” of the Constitution in the “Against All Enemies” title refers pretty clearly to George Bush and the Bush administration. Clarke goes on to tut-tut over how the Patriot Act has been interpreted as a fascist piece of legislation – without pausing to point out how crazy that interpretation that is or how essential the Patriot Act has...

In these intensely polarized and paranoid times, more than a few people are like the obsessed Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, of whom Melville wrote, in one of the supreme passages of American literature: "The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung.... All that most maddens and torments; ... all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby...

That was quite an extraordinary statement yesterday by incoming Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. First, he gave the lie to those wishful Americans who have suggested that Zapatero and his voters wished only to appease jihadi terrorism in Iraq while stoutly resisting jihadi terrorism everywhere else: “Fighting terrorism with bombs, with Tomahawk missiles, isn't the way to beat terrorism, but the way to generate more radicalism.” Well of course there’s nobody, least of all in the Bush administration, who thinks that bombs and Tomahawks alone are right way to fight terrorism. And indeed, if the Bush administration did...

That was quite an extraordinary statement yesterday by incoming Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. First, he gave the lie to those wishful Americans who have suggested that Zapatero and his voters wished only to appease jihadi terrorism in Iraq while stoutly resisting jihadi terrorism everywhere else: “Fighting terrorism with bombs, with Tomahawk missiles, isn't the way to beat terrorism, but the way to generate more radicalism.” Well of course there’s nobody, least of all in the Bush administration, who thinks that bombs and Tomahawks alone are right way to fight terrorism. And indeed, if the Bush administration did...

From yesterday’s White House press briefing by Press Secretary Scott McClellan: Q “Scott, you said this morning that terrorists shouldn't be allowed to think that they can influence elections or policy. Do you think that that was the case in Spain?” MR. McCLELLAN: “Terry, we went through this yesterday. There's a lot of analysis about the election. I'll leave the analysis on the election to others. But terrorists want to intimidate. They want to shake the will of the civilized world. And as you heard from the President earlier, they cannot. The United States remains strong in our resolve and...

Terrorism has won a mighty victory in Spain. The culprits who detonated those bombs of murder on 3/11 intended to use murder to alter the course of Spanish democracy – and they have succeeded. In the months since the attacks on the World Trade Center, we have all heard – and ourselves often repeated – much brave talk about how terror cannot prevail, how justice must inevitably win through, etc. etc. etc. The news from Spain suggests how very wrong those hopes were. People are not always strong. Sometimes they indulge false hopes that by lying low, truckling, appeasing, they...

An End to Evil Perle, Richard, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Mr. Perle talks about the book he co-authored with David Frum, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, published by Random House. Mr. Perle says the book provides a blueprint for winning the war on terror. The recommendations are divided into four major sections: what must be done domestically to improve safety and security; what must be done abroad, in order to take the war to America’s enemies; what must change in the realm of thought and ideas; and how U.S. institutions must be reformed...

It is being claimed, ever more widely, that neoconservative policies are determined by the advantages they bring, manifest or putative, to the state of Israel. Patrick Buchanan, in the current issue of American Conservative, believes this ardently, while the most quoted advocates of neocon militancy, Richard Perle and David Frum, go further than merely to deny that neoconservatism is an Israel First worldview. They insist that criticism of neocon policies is, at heart, anti-Semitic. Richard Perle, co-author with Frum of "An End to Evil," old acquaintances remember as being for many years on the public scene as an adamant opponent...

FEB. 29, 2004: PASSIONATA Early Thoughts on the Passion On the Other Hand On the other hand, I have to say I was very disturbed by something Gibson said in his interview with Peggy Noonan in Reader’s Digest. Gibson’s father is of course a notorious Holocaust denier and trafficker in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Noonan offered Mel Gibson an opportunity to separate himself from his father’s views. Here is Gibson’s reply: “I have friends and parents of friends who have numbers on their arms. The guy who taught me Spanish was a Holocaust survivor. He worked in a concentration camp in...

FrontPageMagazine.com | February 18, 2004 Frontpage Interview has the pleasure to have Richard Perle and David Frum, the authors of the new book An End to Evil: Strategies for Victory in the War on Terror, as its guests today. David Frum, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing editor of National Review. Richard Perle, the former assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration, and the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board in President George W. Bush's administration, is a resident fellow at the American...

Since 9/11 a cascade of books purveying instant analysis on the ramifications has hit the bookstores. A deep fault line runs between them. Those with "evil" or "jihad" in the title lie on one side of the divide; those with "empire" or "lies" are found on the other. Their mutually antagonistic readerships snarl at each other across the chasm. So it is with David Frum and Richard Perle's new book An End to Evil: What's Next in the War on Terrorism, in which they reinforce the thesis--now usually described as neoconservative--that American interests and values are best pursued with a...

On his website today, Andrew Sullivan proclaims his support for the concept that a same-sex marriage license issued in Massachusetts could be void in the other 49 states. That would be a welcome compromise, especially if the Massachusetts courts ever managed to persuade the voters of Massachusetts to approve their judicially imposed social experiment - but let’s first test Andrew with some practical questions that follow from his idea. 1) A Massachusetts man buys a condo in Miami. He marries another Massachusetts man. The condo purchaser dies before he can write a new will. Who inherits the condo? 2) Two...

President’s Day weekend may be an appropriate time to note the troubles of the prime minister next door. New Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin is being buffeted by a major corruption scandal. Martin’s predecessor, Jean Chretien, appears to have directed tens of millions of dollars of public funds to supporters in Quebec who then kicked back immense contributions to Chretien’s and Martin’s Liberal Party. The main outlines of the abuse have been known for years, although the full dimensions of the story have only emerged recently. Today’s big political question is: How much did Paul Martin know? Lorne Gunter, the...

Violence breeds violence -- but so can nonviolence. This is often forgotten in the debate over terrorism, as illustrated in some reviews of the new book by David Frum and Richard Perle, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror. Perle and Frum lay out a bold plan to defend America. But more important than their specific proposals, they provide insight into how our leaders are confronting -- or not confronting -- the war on terrorism.As a forensic psychologist, what I found most worthwhile about the book was this unapologetic attitude toward terrorists and terrorism. I believe the...

Colin Powell has from the start been this administration’s most effective – and usually its only – practitioner of the deadly art of warfare-by-leak. What he did this morning, however, was no leak: It was on-the-record full blown act of diassociation from the administration he serves. In an interview with Post reporters and editors, Powell was asked: “If CIA director George Tenet had said a year ago today, if David Kay had said, that there are no stockpiles, would you still have recommended the invasion?” That is of course a very cute question. Powell did not recommend the invasion: As...

Over-Humanizing the Enemy By Dr. Helen Smith Published 02/03/2004 Violence breeds violence -- but so can nonviolence. This is often forgotten in the debate over terrorism, as illustrated in some reviews of the new book by David Frum and Richard Perle, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror. Perle and Frum lay out a bold plan to defend America. But more important than their specific proposals, they provide insight into how our leaders are confronting -- or not confronting -- the war on terrorism. As a forensic psychologist, what I found most worthwhile about the book...

FEB. 2, 2004: WHAT IS THE PRESIDENT DOING? ?Is George Bush a conservative?? My friend Daniel Casse poses that question on the cover of the current Commentary Daniel's answer is that Bush is a new kind of conservative: an advocate of choice and accountability in government rather than of reduction of government. Daniel's article is characteristically perceptive and original, and I don?t want to quibble with it, especially since Daniel has nice things to say about my book The Right Man. Nevertheless, it seems to me very implausible to suggest that President Bush's new programs and policies offer Americans significantly...

I asked yesterday if I had missed anyone from the list of GOP possibilities in 2008 and got a load of interesting replies. Two names stand out from the list: Sen. George Allen of Virginia and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. Romney almost certainly belongs on the “likely” list. What about Allen? His intentions are very heard to read. Certainly he has all the objective qualifications to make a good candidate. But has he been acting like a candidate? He’s certainly been keeping a low profile in the Senate. Let’s call him a “possible” for now. The New Hampshire Democratic results...

JAN. 27, 2004: SAME TIME NEXT CYCLE Watching the Dems undergo their New Hampshire process makes me wonder about the Republican outlook for 4 years from now. Here’s my early quick tally of likely and possible candidates: LIKELY Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani Arizona Senator John McCain Colorado Gov. Bill Owens New York Gov. George Pataki POSSIBLE Sen. Lamar Alexander Florida Gov. Jeb Bush Vice President Richard Cheney Former Speaker Newt Gingrich Sec. State Colin Powell National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice Homeland Security Sec. Tom Ridge Former Gov.Christie Todd Whitman Have I missed anyone?...

Richard Perle and David Frum are taking some heat for their new book, "An End to Evil," with its sweeping demands to ratchet up the war on terrorism and take on any regime the United States finds offensive. "It is victory or holocaust. This book is a manual for victory." Who are these armchair strategists, who never served in the military and never knew battle, to pronounce so cavalierly on war's merits? It is an understandable complaint, with a tangled history behind it. Neither the uniform nor civilian clothes confers special wisdom, skill or stances regarding war. Our greatest modern...