Free Republic

Dear Readers, Newspapers serve many important roles. We report on the most important stories in our market, we publish the top news from around the region, nation and world, and we present information that helps you make wiser decisions about how to invest your time and money. Every day, in our @issue opinion pages, we also publish commentary, analysis and opinions from our editorial columnists and your neighbors. Our opinion pages serve as a public forum for differing views and lively debate. For more than 20 years, one of the most well-read columns on our opinion pages has been written...

How to destroy Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin? That’s the quandary of the left, of the campaign Democrats and the bloggers and other commentators who camp with them. She sailed through the first two tests — her introduction to the nation as John McCain’s running mate and her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention — with an easy self-confidence that alarmed adversaries expecting a deer-in-the-headlights revelation of the former small-town mayor’s unpreparedness for the duties ahead. One of her greatest tributes came from an independent-thinking feminist and Democrat, Camille Paglia, a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia....

Not in more than 40 years has the face of Georgia politics so dramatically changed so quickly. In one redistricting map, delivered last week by a special master working for a three-judge federal panel, the brutalization of Georgia by incumbent politicians determined to maintain party domination fell asunder. Whoosh. Gone. An era ended. The drawing of a fair map that treats voters equally, regardless of where they live, is as significant as the 1962 Supreme Court decision that ended the county-unit system in Georgia politics. The county-unit system, passed into law in 1917, decided elections on a county voting basis....

Notice how many proponents of same-sex unions find it necessary to point out the infidelity, divorce rate and abusive relationships in heterosexual marriages? After denigrating the institution, they argue that it should be redefined to include same-sex couples. On this issue, defenders of the institution find themselves shouted from the public arena by those who indignantly scream that a proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage in Georgia is either gay-bashing or a sleazy political maneuver to get social conservatives to the polls. That is one point of view -- and a not surprising one. Conservatives are accustomed to having their ideas...

"Perhaps," says U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), "the promiscuity of teenagers should not be condoned, but youthful indiscretion should not be punished in Georgia by 10 years in jail . . . " The promiscuity of teenagers? The victim in the Marcus Dixon case had no such history. She testified, in fact, that she had never spoken more than a few words to him before the day of the assault, which occurred while she was working as a student custodian cleaning a classroom trailer on school grounds. She testified, furthermore, that until the assault she was a virgin, in a...

Thinking Right on the week gone by: • Hide the car keys. Max Cleland is beginning to sound like road rage. Or Cynthia McKinney. The Baghdad-Tikrit area does have its Viet Cong. But there's no resupply line or invading army to keep them going. Personal experiences can make us wiser, but they can also imprison. • Bush tax cuts. Three words that send liberals off the deep end. • Prescription drug entitlement. Three that send fiscal conservatives off. • With the comptroller general's view that the nation won't grow itself out of a deficit, Congress should first kill new entitlements...

Viet Cong sappers cut through the wire in the dead of night, determined to destroy the scores of 55-gallon drums stored in the open. Three of them, in setting the satchel charges, killed themselves in the resulting explosion. The fire was huge. It burned for days, billowing dense black smoke that could be seen for miles. It burned. And it burned. The South Vietnamese, who occupied most of the base near the demilitarized zone, let it burn. They didn't lift a finger to guard it or to put out the fire. And why should they? The drums held arctic asphalt,...