Free Republic

An instant classic, possibly even superior to their interview with that imbecile in San Francisco who wants to ban Happy Meals. Let me tweak the headline, though, since it’s not quite accurate. Better version: “Liberal columnist destroys herself as ‘Daily Show’ cameras roll.” It’s Froma Harrop, whom you’ll remember from her column in August comparing tea partiers — unfavorably — to terrorists who want to blow up the power grid. How they managed to pull off this goof without her wising up, I simply can’t imagine. She must have wised up but, for reasons known only to her, decided to...

This was hours before Democrats got their heads handed to them in a New York district for the first time since 1923 and by 20 points in Nevada. Via Projo.com: Froma Harrop: Disapproval: It’s all relative I do not think this alone. Their debt-ceiling hijinks were no doubt immensely amusing to the Tea Party fringe, but to those of us not getting the joke, they were an appalling attack on a fragile economy. The Tea Party is turning from the voice of anger to its target, and the GOP has it hanging around its neck. The first trumpet blast of...

Let's cut the baloney about jobs and rich people's taxes. If corporate profits automatically turned into jobs for the little folk, the unemployment rate would be plummeting. It happens that company earnings now exceed their lofty peaks of the housing boom. And big-business balance sheets are sloshing in cash. Corporate America's decision to stick with its current workforce is not for a lack of dough. Companies don't create jobs because they have extra money jingling in their pockets. They take on new workers when they want to expand, and right now the demand's not there to warrant that growth. Corporations...

GREENWICH, Conn. -- You know you're in a different kind of town when the signs against drunk driving show a line drawn through a Martini glass to which the artist thoughtfully added a stirrer. Greenwich, Conn., is one such town. Greenwich is home to billionaire hedge-fund managers, private-equity kings and corporate chieftains, as well as ordinary multi-multimillionaires. Interviewing people here requires leaving phone messages with au pairs and catching folks between board meetings. You'd think that Greenwich would be solid Bush-loving turf -- what with all those tax cuts for the rich. It is not. The voters are roughly 40...

About that bolt of lightning that missed Rudy Giuliani last week: Frankly, Rudy would not have been my first choice for divine retribution on that Republican stage. Was the crackle -- which stopped the former New York mayor from fully responding to a Rhode Island bishop's highly personal criticism of his pro-choice views -- really meant for him? One doubts it. Messages from above tend to get delivered. Giuliani laughed it off, and that is the political message. Like Giuliani, many Catholics say they personally oppose abortion, but don't want to outlaw it. Poll after poll, test case after test...

<p>WASHINGTON — A group of 26 former senior diplomats and military officials, several appointed to key positions by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) and George H.W. Bush, plans to issue a joint statement this week arguing that President George W. Bush (news - web sites) has damaged America's national security and should be defeated in November.</p>

News Advisory: Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, a group of retired ambassadors and senior military officers, will hold a Morning Newsmaker news conference Wednesday, June 16, at 8 a.m. EDT at the National Press Club (Zenger Room), 13th floor, 529 14th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. The topic will be "The Need for Change in U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy." The group includes former ambassadors Jeffrey Davidow, William DePree, Charles Freeman Jr., William Harrop, Arthur Hartman, H. Allen Holmes, Samuel Lewis, Princeton Lyman, Jack Matlock Jr., Donald McHenry, Richard Murphy, David Newsom, Phyllis Oakley, John Reinhardt, Ronald Spiers, Nicholas Veliotes...