Free Republic

On January 27, 2012, the 6th Circuit issued a landmark opinion in Ward v. Wilbanks. It is the biggest federal court victory for campus First Amendment rights since my own victory before the 4th Circuit last April. What is striking about the Ward opinion is the thread of common sense running through every aspect of its analysis. Even more striking is the eloquence of the 6th Circuit as it defends fundamental religious freedom against a full-frontal assault from the LGBT community. Julea Ward was one of many counseling students being coerced into affirming homosexuality by a state-run institution. She did...

The key questions are these: Do we have the wisdom to distinguish style from substance? Do we have the wisdom to distinguish academic intelligence from practical intelligence? Do we have the wisdom to distinguish glib talk from wise words? Do we have the wisdom to distinguish beautiful-sounding leftist theories from mundane-sounding ideas grounded in reality? Indeed, do we have the wisdom to recognize wisdom when we see it? Time will tell. Do I wish that we conservatives had more eloquent spokespersons? Yes. There are some on the horizon − Republican governors, for example. But in any case, I’ll pay more...

Senate Foreign Relations Chair John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Friday morning applauded President Obama's video address to Iran. "President Obama's eloquent address to the people and leaders of Iran commemorating Nowruz can be a watershed moment in public diplomacy, with a unique president using the powers of persuasion to great effect," Kerry said in a statement.

Must a president be eloquent to be successful? That question has sparked a heated quarrel between the campaigns of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. The senator from New York stresses "results, not rhetoric," while her rival contends that a leader has to inspire Americans in order to produce "a new majority who can lead this nation out of a long political darkness." In politics as in poker, each candidate plays his or her strongest cards and suspects the opponent of bluffing. Yet the importance of this question shouldn't be lost amid the clamor of a hard-fought campaign. Political oratory...

It was sad, watching the two remaining contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination engage in a civil little sparring match Thursday night. Because it was hard not to note, once again, the long slow decline of political debate in this country since Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas thought out and fought out the great issues of their day. Those were real debates rather than a joint press conference. I would rather have heard less from my colleagues in the ever-intrusive media and more from the candidates themselves. It would be a step up if the press weren't involved in...

Bob Kerrey said Fox News could quote him. So they did.

Former Vice President Al Gore was to call for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and several other Bush administration officials in a scathing attack on the president’s foreign policy Wednesday, people familiar with the speech told The Associated Press. In a speech at New York University, Gore was to argue that several officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, CIA director George Tenet and a top military leader should step down because the situation in Iraq is out of control. He was expected to place blame for the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal directly on the Bush administration officials,...

At the end of this summer of our discontent, an array of Democratic presidential hopefuls, along with a number of restless pundits, are seeking to reclaim credibility after their mistaken prognoses about the Afghan and Iraqi wars. These critics now claim that we are in a Vietnam-style quagmire in Iraq and have become estranged from the rest of the world on a variety of fronts from the West Bank to the United Nations. Nothing could be further from the truth, which is immune to spin from both ends of the political spectrum. The facts themselves will not go away, and...

He Had a Dream August 28, 2003 It’s now 40 years since Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech, the highlight of the 1963 March on Washington. Today the speech is widely regarded as one of the great orations of the twentieth century, but even then I found it embarrassing, and I haven’t changed my mind. In August 1963 I was about to begin my senior year in high school. My political views were fairly liberal; I barely knew what a conservative was. I sympathized broadly with King and the civil rights movement. But I...

"People are hurting, unemployment is on the rise, anxiety runs high, investment is chilled, the stock market is stagnant," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) said in urging support for the bill. "This will not stand." Thus the LA Times quotes DeLay today, in its story on the House passing a $500 billion-plus tax cut yesterday. DeLay has the kind of backbone that inspires - - - would that we had more Republicans with his courage and commitment to principle!