Free Republic

Former Pentagon aide Guy Snodgrass would neither confirm nor deny Monday that he is the anonymous administration official who wrote "A Warning" during an evasive appearance on Fox News amid speculation that he was indeed the writer of the controversial anti-Trump book. Gallagher then asked if he was denying writing “A Warning” or simply declining to make the announcement at this time and Snodgrass – who sent a cryptic message “the swirl continues” earlier in the day – continued to sidestep the question. Gallagher asked, “Why not just deny it outright?" Snodgrass offered a vague response that it was “the...

Sixty-one percent of Americans polled, who watched President Obama's prime-time speech, told CNN that they support his policy towards Syria. Since some surveys showed as much as two-thirds opposition to military action against Syria in the days before the speech, the poll suggests that he did what presidents rarely do: change people's minds, if only temporarily. How did he do it? In only 15 minutes, President Obama made his points, simply and straightforwardly. Anyone arguing a controversial case in the court of public opinion can learn from what he said and how he said it:

It doesn't have the cachet of Ronald Reagan's "It's Morning in America," and probably will never go down in the history books next to "A chicken in every pot" as one of the more memorable campaign slogans. But if Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has anything to say about it, the phrase "America Can Do Better" will become a familiar part of the Democratic message in next year's elections. The Nevada Democrat has been routinely dropping the slogan into speeches and interviews, and his communications staff has used it liberally in press releases, even slapping it into the subject lines...

Barack Obama's rousing oration at the August 2004 Democratic convention established America's favorite son of a goatherd as the shining hope of his desperate party. After humiliating the hapless Alan Keyes in November, he took his seat in Washington as the junior Senator from Illinois and set himself immediately to the thankless service of the workingman. On June 4, Obama appeared in Galesburg to deliver a commencement address at Knox College that has liberal scribes writing love poems and doodling hearts inscribed "Obama 2008." In a valentine that appeared on the New Republic website, David Kusnet says that "All Obama...

Bush's second inaugural speech was magnificent rhetoric of the sort that White House wordsmiths love to write but presidents are usually reluctant to recite. Being eloquent is easiest when you're being emphatic, and this speech was chock-full of certitudes: Tyranny produces terrorism; Americans can only be secure when we have replaced dictatorships with democracies throughout the world; we must use our "considerable influence" to help overturn oppressive regimes; and (implicitly) those who doubt this believe that "dissidents prefer their chains." Any speechwriters worth their dog-eared memoirs by Theodore Sorensen and Peggy Noonan would want to write this speech, but no...

Mine came in the mail today...... Have you seen what MoveOn is sending out? Clearly Soros' big bucks are being spent on a first class marketing tool. It contains a DVD, a (small) Kerry/Edwards Sticker, two articles, Kerry's liberal voting record, Kerry's (outlandish) promises and instruction cards on how to spread the word on the 'real John Kerry'. The DVD contains footage from the upcoming documentary on Kerry by George Butler 'Going Upriver: the Long War of John Kerry'. (Does this movie have film that Kerry himself shot in Vietnam?) The articles praising Kerry are by David Kusnet, speechwriter for...

In his opening efforts at developing an economic policy, John Kerry is all fiddle and not much thrustTHE partisan eruptions over the testimony given by Richard Clarke before the commission investigating September 11th may have given the impression that the presidential contest is going to be fought chiefly over foreign-policy matters, particularly George Bush's record in Iraq and on the war on terror. Yet this week, the ground shifted quietly back to the domestic issues of jobs, taxes and the economy that may, in the end, prove to be what the election will actually be all about. On April 2nd,...

It's been a long time since George W. Bush could address a national audience with the quiet confidence that he would benefit from the soft punditry of low expectations. After an eloquent inaugural address and two well-written and well-delivered State of the Union messages, Bush's oratorical skills can no longer be "misunderestimated," to borrow his term. So there's no mistaking that Wednesday night's State of the Union address was more partisan and pedestrian than any other major speech Bush has given. Still, it was more than adequate as a kick-off for Bush's reelection campaign--and as a preview of the rhetorical...