Free Republic

In May, President Bush spoke in Chicago and gave a characteristically upbeat forecast: "Years from now, people will look back on the formation of a unity government in Iraq as a decisive moment in the story of liberty, a moment when freedom gained a firm foothold in the Middle East and the forces of terror began their long retreat." Two days later, the intelligence division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff circulated a secret intelligence assessment to the White House that contradicted the president's forecast. Instead of a "long retreat," the report predicted a more violent 2007: "Insurgents and terrorists...

A top GOP strategist and pollster for newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning that New York Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, "will pay a heavy price" at the polls next year if they don't break with President Obama's policies on Israel and reject any deal he makes with Iran. "Hillary Clinton, [Sen.] Chuck Schumer, [Reps.] Nita Lowey, Steve Israel, Jerry Nadler, Eliot Engel and others are about to get a whole new wave of pressure from Republicans on whether they agree or not with Obama on Israel," New York-based national GOP pollster and strategist John McLaughlin told The Post....

A just-released McLaughlin & Associates poll published in National Review has revealed a truly disastrous trend for national Republicans: one in six of all voters, 18 percent, disapproves of the job that President Obama is doing, but is not voting Republican. Right now both parties remain polarized in their vote for Congress. Republicans vote for Republicans 95 percent to 1 percent. Democrats vote for Democrats 90 percent to 5 percent. Independents are evenly split at 32 percent for each party, with 36 percent undecided. Among McLaughlin’s major findings is that a majority of Americans continue to disapprove of the job...

Hadn't watched the McLaughlin Group in quite some time as they had lost or jettisoned some of the more interesting panelists (and no, Jay Carney wasn't one of them!). The lineup seems to have stabilized although these poor folks are looking O-L-D...perhaps because they are. Felt bad for McLaughlin who apparently was wearing someone else's suit, so baggy was it on his frame. I'm not condemning anyone for aging or illness but it was a bit alarming. In the days before cable news and the internet, the McLaughlin Group were one of the few doses of political candor and a...

PAT BUCHANAN: There are three million ArmaLite rifles, those Bushmaster types, out there right now. And people are buying them like hotcakes, every gun show the sales are up enormously. Forty-one percent, they were up in December -- for last December, which was a record year. John, what is common though, Eleanor [Clift] is correct, the push is going to come on three things. Grandfather in the assault weapons that are here now, to try to outlaw assault weapons, outlaw magazines that carry more than 11 or 12 bullets, and also background checks at gun shows. JOHN MCLAUGHLIN: With no...

A former director of the CIA has been chosen to uncover how the U.S. failed to prevent the Christmas Day bombing attempt on a passenger plane, and the Fort Hood Army base shooting. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said in a statement Friday John McLaughlin is "especially well-qualified" for the task... McLaughlin was the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency for four years, including during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He was also briefly the acting director of the CIA in 2004. He will head a team of national security experts to investigate the series of events that...

How out-of-touch is the D.C. pundit class with the rest country? Look to John McLaughlin for the answer. During part two of "The McLaughlin Group 2009 Year-End Awards," McLaughlin, who has hosted the program since 1982, declared the concept of freedom, at least from a political standpoint in the United States, is overrated. "The most overrated is freedom," McLaughlin said. "When faced with economic uncertainty, people don't want freedom. When they can't see their economic future, they want the nanny state."

Advocates and sympathetic politicians claiming that man-made global warming from use of carbon-based energy sources mandates international controls on economically prosperous nations were already worried that their victory is slipping. Now another blow has been struck against the basic "science" used to support their case. Following an extensive theoretical analysis, two German physicists have determined(pdf) that the term greenhouse gas is a misnomer and that the greenhouse effect appears to violate basic laws of physics. To briefly review, the entire argument for immediate political action on carbon-based emissions rests upon three premises, formulated over the last twenty years by scientists...

WASHINGTON — In a "60 Minutes" interview on April 23, Tyler Drumheller, a former chief of the CIA's Europe division, made a sensational charge. He claimed that President Bush and his White House ignored intelligence before the invasion of Iraq indicating that Saddam Hussein had no had weapons of mass destruction. On the CBS-TV show, and in subsequent media interviews that appeared throughout the world, Drumheller said that the White House was excited about the fact that the CIA was getting information straight from Naji Sabri, the then Iraqi foreign minister. But when the White House found out this source...

The Talk Shows Sunday, May 7th, 2006 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.; Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.; Washington Nationals co-owner Mark Lerner. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Bush impersonator Steve Bridges. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.; Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas; Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean; outgoing White House press secretary Scott McClellan. LATE EDITION (CNN) : Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt;...

Posted Sunday, Jul. 31, 2005 As the investigation tightens into the leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, sources tell TIME some White House officials may have learned she was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration. That prospect increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer. The previously undisclosed fact gathering began...

The Bush administration has been carrying out secret reconnaissance missions to learn about nuclear, chemical and missile sites in Iran in preparation for possible airstrikes there, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday. The effort has been under way at least since last summer, Hersh said on CNN's "Late Edition." In an interview on the same program, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said the story was "riddled with inaccuracies." "I don't believe that some of the conclusions he's drawing are based on fact," Bartlett said. He said his information on Iran came from "inside" sources who divulged it in the hope...

Seldom in my memory has there been such intense controversy about the CIA. Seldom has so much of what is said been so distorted and misinformed. Seldom has there been so little concern about the potential impact on the agency's ability to perform its mission and the consequences that holds for national security. The time has come to turn down the temperature of the debate, take a deep breath and get some balance and thoughtfulness into the discussion.

The nation's new spy chief's management style is alienating some career intelligence officers, and the tensions threaten to impede rebuilding the nation's spying capabilities, current and former intelligence officials say. Two months after taking over the Central Intelligence Agency, Porter Goss, a former Republican congressman, is perceived as a distant figure who has given wide latitude in running the agency to several aides he brought from Capitol Hill. These aides, led by Goss chief of staff Patrick Murray, have clashed with senior and mid-level managers whose support has long been considered vital for a director to gain control of the...

he deputy director of the CIA (news - web sites) resigned yesterday after a series of confrontations over the past week between senior operations officials and CIA Director Porter J. Goss's new chief of staff that have left the agency in turmoil, according to several current and former CIA officials.

WASHINGTON - The veteran intelligence analyst who served as acting CIA director during a wave of criticism of the agency this past summer announced his retirement Friday. In a statement, the CIA's deputy director, John McLaughlin, called his resignation a "purely personal decision" and said it was time to move on to other endeavors. He has worked with the agency 32 years. McLaughlin temporarily took over the CIA in July when former Director George Tenet retired, also citing personal reasons. McLaughlin's ascension put him in line to field criticism from two reports highly critical of U.S. intelligence operations, the Sept....

Mora Bora: Reader D.P. notes that the Kerry Edwards Web site, responding to Bush's charge of Monday morning quaterbacking on Tora Bora, has posted the following citation to a November 16, 2001 television interview Kerry gave to John McLaughlin:[snip] First, I'm not sure this does the trick. Are "rangers" and "Special Forces" what you would use to block escape routes in a large mountainous area? Don't you need lots of troops for that--hence the need for Afghan proxies?Second, the Kerry camp may regret calling attention to that McLaughlin transcript.  Earlier in the interview--which, remember, took place two months after 9/11, in the...

Lawrence O'Donnell let loose, egged on by the anti-Bush John McLaughlin, the most vicious lies against the Bush Administration I've ever heard on the show.

(Washington-AP) July 18, 2004 - The September 11th commission is expected to recommend the creation of a Cabinet-level position to oversee the 15 US intelligence agencies. It would be the most dramatic step in restructuring those agencies since the CIA was created after World War Two. The CIA's acting director says the post is unnecessary. John McLaughlin says the agencies already have made changes to improve the nation's security. McLaughlin says the matter "doesn't relate particularly to the world" he lives in. He says that the CIA director can do that job and is empowered to do so under the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA's acting director said Sunday that a new national intelligence chief, as the Sept. 11 commission is expected to recommend this week, is unnecessary and that intelligence agencies have made changes since the 2001 attacks to better protect the country. John McLaughlin said "a good argument can be made" for a Cabinet-level position to oversee the nation's 15 intelligence agencies and control their budgets. But, he added, "It doesn't relate particularly to the world I live in. I see the director of Central Intelligence as someone who is able to do that and is empowered to...