Free Republic

The Bush Administration has discovered what liberals have known all along: the Constitution is a mighty comprehensive document, giving the federal government powers over the minutest aspects of our lives. Case in point: apparently Bush & Co. have discovered that there is a right to miniature golf defined in the U.S. Constitution. That’s the upshot of a new set of rules updating the Americans with Disabilities Act being released for public comment this Tuesday. Other new rights include easier access to light switches in hotel rooms by moving them 6 inches lower, wheelchair lifts in courtrooms to provide easier access...

The real 'options on the table' that should worry Europe and the world lay elsewhere - in the likelihood of moves by Iran's Arab neighbours to develop nuclear weapons of their own. He said the 'time is now' for the outside world to put in place 'diplomacy with consequences' to bring Iran's uranium-enrichment activities to an end, not least because he believed that a new group of European leaders had 'gone beyond the Iraq period' and were engaged with the US in multilateral efforts on a range of other issues. In London, however, Iraq inevitably will be back on the...

[snip] Anyone who knows me is aware that I am a proud American and a proud Jew who, while not religiously observant, fiercely loves and defends his faith. It has become fashionable for Americans in general, Jew and gentile, to hold President George W. Bush up to derision. As I believe many readers and listeners of my commentaries know, I crossed party lines in 2004 to support the President's reelection, saying at the time that I did not agree with him on a single domestic issue, but I did believe he was the only one running who appreciated the threat...

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian West Bank, besieged by Israeli occupation, political division and weak leadership, got a boost on Monday: the announcement of a plan, led by the American government, to help tens of thousands of people buy homes. The plan, which establishes a $500 million mortgage company, aims to build 10 new neighborhoods over the next five years and, in the process, create thousands of jobs in construction and real estate. In doing so, it could improve the depressed local economy and the political prospects of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, of the relatively pro-West Fatah party.

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com — A tough new video montage shows footage of Clinton from 1992 through 2008 from her first 60 Minutes interview to her lies about sniper fire, NAFTA, and Iraq. At this point, Hillary Clinton has no one left to lie to.

President George W. Bush is fond of comparing himself to Ronald Reagan. But as he meets with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington this week, his policy regarding North Korea's nuclear weapons program looks more like something out of Bill Clinton's or Jimmy Carter's playbook. In dealing with the Soviet Union on arms control, Reagan was famous for repeating the Russian phrase, "Doveryai, no proveryai" (trust, but verify). Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev reportedly once complained to Reagan, "You use that phrase every time we meet." To which Reagan smilingly replied, "That's because I like it so much." This administration...

When Charlton Heston died, not only did Hollywood lose an icon, the world witnessed the passing away of a man worthy of respect outside of his acting credentials. With the exception of a few extreme loon bloggers, the much-deserved tributes poured in. Heston will be remembered by many for his legendary performances. A rule at my uncle’s house every year around Easter is, “Thou shalt watch 'The Ten Commandments.'" The fact this Cecil B. DeMille-directed movie still plays on television on a regular basis more than 50 years after its release is a testament to Heston’s powerful on-screen presence and...

The reason he's working so hard on his wife's behalf is that he sincerely believes she would make a good president, better than he was, if daughter Chelsea's word is taken to heart. He's also doing penance for how much he humiliated her when he was president, and even for some of his missteps in this campaign, mostly having to do with race. But perhaps most important, Clinton understands that if Barack Obama is elected, his presidency becomes an asterisk. Clinton was forced to play defense, too often settling for mainly symbolic gestures like advocating school uniforms when only two...

SPITZER'S LEGACY: A $3.6M PROBE TABBy BRENDAN SCOTT April 13, 2008 -- Eliot Spitzer's political and sexual shenanigans are costing taxpayers upwards of $3.6 million. **SNIP** This month, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo launched his second look at the Dirty Tricks saga: a far-reaching probe into whether Spitzer ordered the State Police to gather intelligence on Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. It should double the estimated $150,000 the attorney general's office spent on the initial report that sparked the Spitzer's troubles last year. Meanwhile, the State Investigation Commission has launched an investigation of the investigations - those by the attorney general,...

In this final year of the Bush presidency, what was once a doctrine of preemption has given way to a weird presumption that threats that Washington doesn't officially acknowledge somehoe won't hurt us. It's an alarming sign when CIA director Michael Hayden says, as he did on NBC that, personally, he believes Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, but officially he stands by the NIE report that maybe they aren't. So America sails on, under the fiction that nothing dramatic need be done, despite Hayden's further warning that in Iran, "the development of fissile material, the development of delivery systems, continue...

Gen. Petraeus’ Place in History by Col. Ken Allard (US Army, ret.) Gen. David Petraeus and FSM Contributing Editor Col. Ken Allard were fellow instructors at West Point in the mid-80’s. Close friends ever since, Gen. Petraeus was a key source for Allard’s 2006 book, Warheads, describing the re-creation of the Iraqi Army and how American forces were adapting to counter-insurgency warfare. What were Allard’s reactions to the General’s Capitol Hill testimony this week? There he was, this generation's equivalent of George Marshall, the brilliant proconsul testifying before Congress to underline the improbable but now indisputable victory over al Qaeda....

Checkpoint Condi   By P. David HornikFrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, April 03, 2008 A new Hamas TV production for Palestinian children shows a puppet stabbing President Bush to death after telling him the White House has been turned into a mosque. The Palestinians elected Hamas as their leadership by a wide margin in January 2006, and in a poll two weeks ago a majority of Palestinians said they would vote for current Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh for president if there were new Palestinian elections. After the massacre at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem on March 6, Bush called Israeli...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush left on Monday for his farewell NATO summit and a final heads-of-state meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin as he tries to salvage a foreign policy legacy frayed by the Iraq war. Seeking to reassert himself on the world stage in the twilight of his term, Bush will press NATO for more troops in Afghanistan, try to keep up momentum in the alliance's eastward expansion and attempt to ease strains with Russia. But with Bush even more unpopular overseas than at home, he could have a hard time swaying world leaders at this...

Crusaders 'left genetic legacy' The genetic signature can be traced to Europe Scientists have detected the faint genetic traces left by medieval crusaders in the Middle East. The team says it found a particular DNA signature which recently appeared in Lebanon and is probably linked to the crusades. The finding comes from the Genographic Project, a major effort to track human migrations through DNA. Details of the research have been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The researchers found that some Christian men in Lebanon carry a DNA signature hailing from Western Europe. The scientists also found that...

The long-term implications of Buckley's stands were enormous. By remaking the conservative movement in his own image, in which the emphasis was on anti-communism and a libertarian skepticism of government power, he ensured that it, and the Republican Party, which it came to dominate, would be a place where Jew-haters were unwelcome. That enabled liberal Jews, such as Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz, to feel comfortable making common cause with the right on a host of issues as he began his own journey away from the left. Though expectations that the Jews would ditch liberalism en masse were always unrealistic, the...

Salvaging Our North Korea Policy.... By JOHN R. BOLTON There are signs, albeit small ones, that the Bush administration may be reaching the end of its patience with the Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program. These signs could prove illusory. But as it nears its end, the administration has a serious responsibility: It must not leave its successor with an ongoing, failed policy. At a minimum, President Bush should not bequeath to the next president only the burned-out hulk of the Six-Party Talks, and countless failed and violated North Korean commitments. Since they were conceived in spring 2003,...

The retirement of Dennis Hastert, the former Speaker of the House, has led to the loss of his seat from the Republican ranks. In a low-turnout special election, political newcomer Bill Foster beat Jim Oberweis to win the seat for the Democrats. The loss leaves the GOP looking even more impotent in Illinois than ever before (via Memeorandum): In a stunning upset Saturday that could be a sign of trouble for Republicans this fall, a little-known Democratic physicist won the special election for a far west suburban congressional seat long held by former GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert.Rookie candidate Bill...

Was there any major American personality in the last half-century who seemed more remote from the sensibilities of most American Jews than William F. Buckley? Buckley, who passed away last week at the age of 83, was the fervent Catholic patrician whose work helped create the modern American conservative movement in the 1950s at a time when nothing could have been more removed from the thinking of most Jews in this country than his National Review. Though much has changed in the 53 years since NR's debut, given that most Jews are still, at the very least, reliable supporters of...

JOHN Howard has broken his post-election silence from the other side of the world, defending his ousted government and attacking his successor before an audience of leading US conservatives. The former prime minister was in Washington DC to receive a top conservative honour, and used the platform to say he was "disappointed" Australia was withdrawing combat troops from Iraq. He said now was not the time to abandon the Iraqi people, who needed space to capitalise on the advances made by the US troops' surge strategy in Baghdad. "It would be a tragedy if those gains were surrendered now by...

For Conservatives, the Buckley Doesn't Stop Here By Donald Lambro Monday, March 3, 2008 WASHINGTON -- William Buckley's pioneering influence in the creation of the modern American conservative movement has been well documented since his passing last week. But little if any attention has been given to the influence and impact he had upon a younger generation of foot soldiers in that movement in the 1950s and 1960s, when he burst upon the political scene with the publication of his indictment of liberal academics, "God And Man At Yale," and with the founding of National Review magazine. The movement he...