Free Republic

WASHINGTON -Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will be a tough act to follow, even for the Kennedys. His death, coupled with the decision by family members not to seek the seat he held for nearly five decades, has prompted predictions that the family's long-running political dynasty is over. There's talk the Kennedy political bloodlines are running thin. Some say the younger brood lacks the grit and zest for political combat that drove the liberal Democrat to become one of the leading politicians of the last 40 years. Yet it's probably too early to write off one of America's most powerful and...

Death Does Wonders for a Legacy By Michael Reagan FrontPageMagazine.com | December 29, 2006 Saddam Hussein is a lucky man – in no time at all he can expect to have his reputation vastly improved. And he can thank the hangman who awaits him on the gallows. Prior to that moment when he breathes his last, his reputation will be in shreds. He has, rightly, been seen as a monster. The mere act of his dying, however, will enable his supporters to smooth over his role in those troublesome times when he was slaughtering his own people by the hundreds...

With the election of Benedict XVI and the evident jubilation at his reign in many Catholic quarters, the intellectual elite has again returned to its habit of bashing the intelligence of Catholic laity. To be fair, this is hardly a new phenomenon. For centuries, non-Catholic Christians have remarked on the evident sheep-like ignorance of Catholics. The papists have a robot-like obedience to a pontiff that thinks for them because they are too ignorant to think for themselves. Stereotypes It is often remarked that stereotypes do not arise out of nothing. No matter how slanderous the stereotype, at least some small...

Conservatives oppose Affirmative Action because it offends their idea of justice and fairness. But there is one form of preferences that conservatives never seem to oppose - Legacies. In the 1990s, the state of California outlawed preference programs that favored certain racial groups, but left legacy-based preference programs intact. Less qualified students are able to get into the top colleges, Berkeley and UCLA, not because of any special talent they have, but because they are the sons or daughters of wealthy donors to the college, or because their parents were alumni of the college. As a result of preference programs...