Free Republic

Joe Biden has a point. “I’m finding that former administration officials, as soon as they leave, write books, which I think is inappropriate,” Biden said this week. He went on to add, “At least give the guy a chance to get out of office.” I’m with Joe here, and I say this as a man who believes you’d be hard-pressed to find a single national-security or foreign-policy issue where Biden has been right. The vice president’s snark was aimed at Leon Panetta, the most recent of his former administration colleagues to publish memoirs that highlight the faculty-lounge fecklessness of the...

When Barack Obama secured his party's nomination for president in 2008, one group of Democrats had special reason to cheer. These were Democrats who were reliably liberal on policy but horrified by the party's sometimes knee-jerk animosity to faith. The low point may have been the 1992 Democratic convention. There the liberal but pro-life governor of Pennsylvania, Bob Casey Sr., was humiliated when he was denied a speaking slot while a pro-choice Republican activist from his home state was allowed. With Mr. Obama, all this looked to be in the past. In 2006, the Illinois senator delivered a speech declaring...

William McGurn addresses the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life. Credit: The Observer South Bend, Ind., Apr 29, 2009 / 03:41 pm (CNA).- William McGurn, former speech writer for George W. Bush, spoke at Notre Dame on April 23, to affirm and be a witness to the “sacredness of life.” He noted that no human right is safe when the right to life is denied, and that the unborn belong to no political party.The lecture was sponsored by the Center for Ethics and Culture as well as by the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life and was...

"A Notre Dame Witness for Life" William McGurn April 23, 2009 Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture http://ethicscenter.nd.edu/ The Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life http://ethicscenter.nd.edu/lifefund.shtml Good evening.          It is an honor to be with you on this campus. It is a joy to be here under the auspices of Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture – and the Notre Dame Fund for the Protection of Human Life. This date has a special resonance for me: 13 years ago today, in a hotel room in a far part of the world, Chinese officials put...