Free Republic

Two surgeries, two hospitals and more than two weeks later, Gov. Pataki finally went home yesterday. "It's great to feel the fresh air and the sunshine," a pale and thin-looking governor said as he stepped out of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center with his wife, Libby, by his side. "I'm not 100%, but I'm a lot better than I was a few days ago," he said. His surgeon, Dr. Spencer Amory, predicted that it will take the governor six more weeks before he's fully recovered after suffering complications from an emergency appendectomy. "He'll still require some intravenous antibiotics at home," Amory...

The Senate Democrats' #2 compares the American military to Nazis, Stalinists, and Pol Pot's killer, and the story never gets near to the cover of the Washington Post. Karl Rove makes a valid assertion about the behavior of liberals, backed by evidence, and the fake outrage of those Senate Democrats makes page 1, but in a story without the pointed reply of George Pataki which happens to pivot on Durbin's slander. At least the New York Times included a portion of the Pataki quote, which has now vanished from the original Newsday article. But there is no MSM bias, right?...

EVERY now and then, we get to see public officials wrestling with moral conundrums. This is one of those times, and it is a reminder of how political ethics can amount sometimes to an oxymoron. (Some would say the same of journalistic ethics, but let them get their own column.) Over the last few days, leading New York politicians have renounced contributions that they took — eagerly took, one might add — from businesses executives now caught up in corporate scandals. These political figures hoped to show high-mindedness. But if anything, their ethical parsing is a puzzlement. Consider a couple...