Free Republic

Is it possible that Justice David H. Souter has sensed what I have sensed in reading the liberals' dutiful adieus to him, their judicial Benedict Arnold? They are all snickering behind their hands. Sure, he pleased them enormously by his 19 years of tergiversations against conservative jurisprudence, after being President George H.W. Bush's "conservative" Supreme Court nominee. But through all Justice Souter's years here in Washington he revealed himself to be a stupendously self-absorbed oddball and not much else. He fell far short of the liberals' conception of a progressive Supreme Court dissenter, to wit: a charismatic, outspoken, slightly outre...

In N. Korea, Eccentricity Well Off the Scale Nothing Seems Too Big When the Kims, Father and Son, Celebrate Themselves By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, February 29, 2008; A14 PYONGYANG, North Korea -- In closed communist dictatorships, land-use planning often edges toward the far side of eccentricity. In Albania under Enver Hoxha, the countryside was pimpled with more than 700,000 concrete bunkers. Built to ward off invaders, most became outhouses. In Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu, a historic quarter of old Bucharest was bulldozed to build a Parisian-style boulevard, an artificial river and a 13-story neo-Stalinist palace that...

he Dying Mother Card October 14, 2004 I mean, like, seriously weird, dude. After managing to appear a more or less human being throughout three 90-minute debates, John Kerry played the dying mother card. Asked to name “the most important thing” he’d learned from the “strong women” in his life, he didn’t mention the one he’s married to. Instead, he spoke of visiting his mother in the hospital “a couple years ago.” He told her he was thinking of running for president. Then came the most important thing he’d learned, mind you, from any of the strong women in his...