Free Republic

When Hollywood's movie-makers and docu-dramatists get their hands on American history, accuracy, reality and truth often are tortured beyond recognition. But starting at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 16, HBO Films will be delivering the seven-part, nine-hour mini-series "John Adams." ... it is by all accounts a high-quality, historically accurate and meticulously faithful adaptation of super-historian David McCullough's blockbuster 2001 book of the same name. I talked to McCullough about the making of the HBO series Tuesday by phone from his home in West Tisbury, Mass.

Liberally oriented newspaper editors increasingly wonder why subscription and circulation numbers continue to plummet among the old guard of news media: the printed page. What are they, the dumbest people on earth? Why would any population of any nation that has the slightest modicum of freedom choose to subject itself to the onset of treasonous and vapid judgment with which these editors seem so well endowed? Maybe these editors are bored by the slow news cycle that is the month of August, maybe they fell asleep while sitting at their desk playing sudoku, maybe their consensual sex partners broke pieces...

Go into any women's studies program on the campus of any major university and you will learn that women don't need men for economic provision, physical protection, or to even achieve sexual orgasm. Our daughters are being taught that to believe men are necessary for anything is not only pure bunk, but actually a sign of intellectual weakness. As a result women have shunned personal relationships and sky-rocketed to the top of the business world. Their incomes have increased as they have put off having children, not to mention the thought of getting married till far later in life. They've...

Across western Florida, Tony McCullough is known as the “Blue-collar John the Baptist.” Just as unorthodox with the religious establishment as John was to 1st century Palestine, Tony McCullough’s niche in the radio evangelist genre is that he tells it just like it is. Like it or not. If you need to hear a thinly veiled prosperity gospel along with smoke, mirrors and a hard candy coating, then there’s more than enough outlets, but if you want to hear the Christian Gospel preached, proclaimed, and expounded upon without pretension, reservation or apology then Brother Tony is your man. Listen to...

Unable to compete in the world of free debate with transparent facts, liberals behaved like children this week - proving that in the end national security and even national identity are always subservient to their own ego, reputation, and appearance. It was pathetic, cowardly, and sickening. It is also far too typical. Liberals, who in large part are people devoid of true substance and belief, who also have great contempt for God, morality and truth, are often unable to deal with facts that reflect poorly upon them. And using pathetic, self-serving, cry-baby tactics is how they are commemorating this week...

Common-sense thinking, or its lack thereof, will be the determining factor as to whether or not American society survives. Please understand without clarity there is no common sense, and without moral absolutes there is no clarity. For immoral liberals, it is a vicious cycle. Yet is it too strong a statement to say that the survival of American society depends upon the common sense that moral absolutes give us? In a word – no! For America, we are at present fighting two separate wars. One of them is taking place at and beyond our borders. It is composed of spying...

WMDs: The real scandal By Kevin McCullough Jun 25, 2006 By now much of the nation has finally heard the truth; George Bush never lied about weapons of mass destruction. By now most of America is realizing that the President who has been pummeled mercilessly on the fact that such weapons were missing, is deserving of public apologies from every Ted, Dick, and Harry the Senate can cough up. If you have been living under a rock here's the short measure of it. On Wednesday of this last week, Senator Rick Santorum and Congressman Peter Hoekstra revealed to the press...

 David McCullough was born in 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was educated there and at Yale University. Author of 1776, John Adams, Truman, Brave Companions, The Path Between the Seas, Mornings on Horseback, The Great Bridge and The Johnstown Flood, he has twice received the Pulitzer Prize and twice the National Book Award, as well as the Francis Parkman Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. The following is adapted from a public lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on March 31, 2006, during Mr. McCullough's one-week residency at the College to teach a class on “Leadership and the History...

A year after Patrick McCullough shot teen, Oakland's 59th Street has safer rec center, reduced loitering and fewer drug deals. Patrick McCullough still looks each way whenever he steps out his front door and walks down 59th Street in North Oakland. But it's no longer out of fear. These days, he feels safe enough to take those walks more often with his wife and son. Instead of the cold stares of angry young men, McCullough is greeted by strangers who thank him for taking a stand against the drug dealers who used to rule Bushrod Park and the surrounding streets....

WHEN George Washington, in a spiffy uniform of buff and blue and sitting his horse with a grace uncommon even among Virginians vain about their horsemanship, arrived outside Boston in July 1775 to assume command of the American rebellion, he was aghast. When he got a gander at his troops, mostly New Englanders, his reaction was akin to the Duke of Wellington's assessment of his troops, many of them the sweepings of Britain's slums, during the Peninsular War: "I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me." You think today's red...

John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, "...1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.' He suggested that it be commemorated, as the "Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty.' Furthermore, he said it ought to be celebrated with "Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward for evermore.' Though indefatigable in his efforts to secure loans...

A pro-British account of America's War of Independence topped the United States' bestseller lists yesterday, the day it celebrated its freedom from rule by London. More than one million copies of David McCullough's 1776 are in print already. The book, which concentrates on the country's year of birth, has been acclaimed by critics. McCullough praises George III and Westminster MPs but attacks George Washington as a poor tactician and a snob. The author highlights the American general's condescending attitude to his soldiers and his dismissal of them as "dirty and nasty, and afflicted by an unaccountable kind of stupidity". He...

1776, A Reviewby JD Wetterling Be forewarned. I wouldn't write a review of a book I did not like. I have suffered too much rejection as a writer to ever publicly cast negative aspersions on a fellow scribe’s blood, sweat and tears. I’ve read and raved about David McCullough’s first two Pulitzer Prize winning works—John Adams and Truman—and I think 1776 (Simon & Schuster, 2005) is a cinch for a third. It opened a month ago at the top of the nonfiction bestseller list and is still there. All of the reviews I have read have been laudatory, accept for...

<p>WASHINGTON -- When George Washington, in a spiffy uniform of buff and blue and sitting his horse with a grace uncommon even among Virginians vain about their horsemanship, arrived outside Boston in July 1775 to assume command of the American rebellion, he was aghast. When he got a gander at his troops, mostly New Englanders, his reaction was akin to the Duke of Wellington's assessment of his troops, many of them the sweepings of Britain's slums, during the Peninsular War: ``I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me.''</p>

Sorry -halfway through when I found it, but awesome description of Washington's journey in the struggle for America's freedom, and just how close we came to being British subjects, and the role Providence played. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

I happened to be watching Mr. McCullough being interviewed by Tim Russert on Russert's weekend CNBC program. Several things Mr. McCullough said struck me as odd and sounded like something many conservatives have said of the current conflict we're in. Of note, he said that if the war in 1776 were covered by the media (presuming there were a 'media' then) the way they are covering the current conflict -- he said 'I don't think we would have the (nerve) for it'. I have a question -- is David McCullough a conservative? I've never read his "Truman", nor "John Adams"...

Something struck me today that jolted my thinking on the whole Swift Boat Veterans issue. As I was reading the reports of John Kerry sending campaign staff to Crawford to ask President Bush to denounce (A G A I N ! ! !) the ads put out by 527 something just smacked me in the face. Over most of the campaign year John Kerry has not faced much adversity. From the media pre-ordaining him as "the" candidate earlier in the year, to his sudden and swift winning of the nomination, to his further coronation experience at his nominating convention -...

Thought police in American schools and rotten history textbooks are as great a threat to American freedoms as al Qaeda terrorists, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential biographer David McCullough said yesterday. "Something's eating away at the national memory, and a nation or a community or a society can suffer as much from the adverse effects of amnesia as can an individual," Mr. McCullough, who wrote the best-selling biography of the United States' second president, John Adams, told The Washington Times. "I mean, it's really bad."

OPINION -- It's November 2004. The returns are coming in. President Bush is winning and this time there will be no recount - John Kerry did not prove to be the foe his democratic party thought he would. The returns from South Dakota also look promising John Thune has a slight lead with 97% of the precincts reporting. But in the midst of the President's gains and some setbacks this night - control for the Senate looks like it will be determined by the race in Illinois for the former seat of Senator Peter Fitzgerald. Melodramatic? Maybe...or not. Since Senator...