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Memorandum to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: It is now widely expected that you will run for President in 2008, after successfully standing for reelection next year. By all accounts, you will enjoy the strong support of your party's generally left-of-center primary voters. But to win the Oval Office, you will have to overcome a very different challenge — persuading sufficient numbers of independents and perhaps even Republicans that you are the first Democrat in two generations who can safely be entrusted with the presidency in time of active, global hostilities.

Last week, the President of the United States effusively praised Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Arafat's right-hand man for some forty years. In the White House Rose Garden, Mr. Bush described Abbas as a "man of courage," explaining that he takes "great faith in not only [Abbas'] personal character, but the fact that he campaigned on a platform of peace — he said, 'Vote for me, I am for peace.' And the Palestinians voted overwhelmingly to support him." In light of what is actually happening in the proto-state Abbas (a.k.a. Abu Mazen) was elected last January to govern, such characterizations seem at...

The Dems continue to manufacture excuses. Harry Reid’s mediocrity as Senate Democratic leader was on full display in the vote Thursday on the nomination of John Bolton to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In one of the most bizarre political performances in memory, having promised not to filibuster this nominee, he announced — immediately after his party voted to do just that — that Democrats were not filibustering Bolton’s appointment. When, minutes later, Majority Leader Bill Frist made the obvious point that the Democrats’ votes “looked” and “quacked” like a filibuster, Senator Reid reversed himself. He acknowledged that...

So, where are we? After weeks of attacks on John Bolton's character, integrity, temperament and conduct by John Kerry, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and other Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, what do they have to show for it all? Answer: The Nation would be lucky to have Mr. Bolton represent it at the United Nations as President Bush has proposed. As the Foreign Relations Committee prepares for what is supposed to be D-Day on the Bolton nomination — a business meeting of the panel scheduled for Thursday morning — here's a round-up of what has been learned...

Commentary "River Kwai Syndrome" Plays in Law of the Sea Frank J. Gaffney Jr. Proceedings, March 2005 Discuss this article in the eForum. In 1957, Hollywood created the unforgettable image of military men throwing themselves into a construction project, having lost sight of the fact that the result could be used by the enemy to the grave detriment of their comrades and country. Unfortunately, nearly 50 years after The Bridge on the River Kwai entered the public consciousness, the Navy seems afflicted with the same syndrome as it encourages U.S. ratification of the controversial U.N. Convention on the Law of...

With each passing day, evidence grows that two of the world's most dangerous rogue states, North Korea and Iran, will be able to equip their arsenals of ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. The prospect that American forces, allies and interests — and ultimately the United States itself — will be at risk from attack by such weapons offers a powerful validation of President Bush's visionary and courageous determination to deploy defenses against ballistic missile-delivered threats. Last Thursday, the U.S. Navy confirmed that the president's vision can be realized in a near-term and highly cost-effective way — from the sea. For...

Should the U.N. be lord of the oceans? Posted: February 28, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc. "Sovereignty. The issue is huge. The mere mention of Kofi Annan in the U.N. caused the crowd to go into a veritable fit. The coalition wants America strong and wants the American flag flying overseas, not the pale blue of the U.N." So George W. Bush confided to friend Doug Wead before he declared his candidacy. And, twice, President Bush has acted to defend U.S. sovereignty against the encroachments of global government. He rejected both the International Criminal Court, which...

Listen While You Freep! All programs are replayed for 23 hours and again on weekends so tune in when it’s convenient for YOU! Call In Number - 866-884-TALK (8255) Heating the EDGE of a New Media! 1pm EST - Dr. Jerome R. Corsi, the co-author of "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry" will discuss the 2004 Presidential election, his plan to run against Kerry in 2008, and his new book, "Atomic Iran." 2pm EST - Join Curt and Joanna as they take on the legal and political issues Washington insiders are talking about: the Bush...

If all goes according to plan, the House of Representatives this week will take important, if long overdue, steps toward securing the nation's borders and interior. It was outrageous that these steps, which were among the corrective actions identified by the September 11 Commission, were not taken last year. Worse yet, those who prevented what are now provisions of Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner's "REAL ID" bill from becoming law in 2004 are no less determined to block this legislation again in 2005 — and, thereby, to perpetuate America's vulnerability. Click to learn more... The REAL ID Act (H.R. 418)...

The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), has been brought forward again to seek ratification after being rejected by President Reagan in 1982. If enacted, this will be one of the most critical agreements of this century. It would give control to an organization, currently under several investigations for corruption, the power to regulate seven-tenths of the world’s surface area and the power to levy international taxes. This is a treaty you should really know about: Gabrielle Reilly: Frank, has much changed in the Law of the Sea Treaty since President Ronald Reagan refused to ratify it in 1982? Frank...

Listen While You Freep! All programs are replayed for 24 hours and again on weekends so tune in when it’s convenient for YOU! Call In Number – 866-884-TALK (8255) 1pm EST – Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., is the President of the Center for Security Policy. His organization has been a longtime opponent of the Law of the Sea Treaty because it would give the United Nations the power to tax and it would also give the U.N. control over most of the world's sea beds. Gaffney calls the treaty a, "bad idea." Twenty years ago the Reagan Administration rejected this...

“There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.” George W. Bush, January 20, 2005. As noteworthy as what President Bush said in this and similar passages of his remarkable second inaugural is what he did not say. In particular, he did not declare the force upon which we must increasingly depend for “the survival of liberty in our land” to be the United Nations or multilateralism or supranational government....

Now that Kerik and Lieberman are out, who would be a good choice to head the Department of Homeland Security? How about Frank Gaffney? He's well informed on foreign and domestic security issues, and is well connected in Washington. Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.President & CEO, The Center for Security Policy In April 1987, Mr. Gaffney was nominated by President Reagan to become the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, the senior position in the Defense Department with responsibility for policies involving nuclear forces, arms control and U.S.-European defense relations. He acted in that capacity for seven months during...

Why is an associate of groups sympathetic to radical Islamists a policy director at the Department for Homeland Security? Readers of this e-zine may recall a troubling warning issued on these pages last November by David Horowitz and me (an editorial entitled “Why We Are Publishing This Article” that accompanied a long essay entitled “A Troubling Influence”). What made the warning so troubling was not just that its subject -- a political influence operation being mounted during wartime by Islamist organizations against the Bush Administration and U.S. government. Of particular concern was the help it documented that such entities have...

Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy Frank Gaffney is urging President Bush and other top administration officials to stop issuing public apologies for the mistreatment by U.S. military police of suspected Iraqi terrorists at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. "There is a point beyond which apologizing sounds an awful lot like groveling," Gaffney told WABC Radio's Monica Crowley on Saturday, as President Bush prepared to issue his fourth apology for the Iraqi prison scandal during his weekly radio address. "That's not appropriate, it seems to me, especially when the danger of doing so is to feed the impression...

John Kerry wants a world in which the United Nations calls the shots and U.S. freedom of action, in the absence of the U.N.'s permission, is sharply circumscribed. Most Americans recognize that this would be a formula for disaster — a world in which the lowest-common-multilateral-denominator would routinely trump, and often jeopardize, our security interests. President George W. Bush's supporters believe that he rejects this Kerry-Clinton worldview. They look forward to a national election in which voters get to choose between his Reaganesque philosophy of peace through American strength and Kerry's U.N. uber alles. So why would the Bush administration...

The United States and four other nations will soon sit down in Beijing with representatives of Kim Jong-il’s Stalinist North Korea. They will thus resume the so-called “six-party negotiations” that currently pass for a U.S. strategy for contending with the yawning danger of a North Korean regime armed with – and prepared to sell – nuclear weapons. Dealing with Pyongyang The best that can be hoped for is that this new round of diplomacy will go the way of the last one – with Pyongyang’s delegation behaving badly and refusing to disarm. That will, of course, do nothing to prevent...

Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney blasted Gen. Wesley Clark on Saturday, saying the general's claim that he could guarantee America wouldn't be hit by another terrorist attack during a Clark administration renders him unfit to be president. "I think it's a disqualifying statement, frankly," Gaffney told WABC Radio's Monica Crowley. "I think it's that serious." "Either the man is completely out of touch with reality or he is prepared to say anything to get elected," Gaffney continued. "The idea that anyone could promise that there will be no more terrorist attacks on America if you vote for me...

History will likely record December 13, 2003 as the tipping point in the liberation of Iraq. Of course, much of importance preceded that moment - the U.S.-led invasion of the country, the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime and the beginnings of an expensive and time-consuming reconstruction. Still, there is reason to believe that, when American forces dug the former Iraqi dictator out of his rathole in Tikrit on Saturday night, the beginning of the end of the nightmare he inflicted on so many for so long had arrived. To be sure, as with the turning points of most military...

Hugh Hewitt has posted links to several reviews of Tuesday's debate between Frank Gaffney and Grover Norquist, about Gaffney's recent Frontpage.com expose of Norquist's Islamist ties which has gotten so much attention at Free Republic the past few days. I checked them out, and thought they were worth a read here... December 09, 2003 Gaffney versus Norquist On his show tonight Hugh Hewitt led with a full hour devoted to a joint interview of Frank Gaffney and Grover Norquist regarding Gaffney's Frontpage article (discussed below earlier today): "A troubling influence." The thesis of Gaffney's article is that Norquist has worked...