Free Republic

HANOI - The lake into which John McCain parachuted after his Navy plane was shot down is now surrounded by chic restaurants, cellphone stores and motorcycle dealerships. The prison camp where he confessed to being a "black criminal" has been turned into a multiplex cinema showing garish American movies. A five-star hotel occupies the site of the "Hanoi Hilton" jail, where he spent more than three years. The surface-to-air missile sites that once circled Hanoi have been replaced by sprawling industrial parks churning out sneakers and television sets for the U.S. market. Hanoi and Vietnam have changed dramatically since the...

9:21 p.m. John McCain kicked the evening off with a wild exaggeration by describing the allied invasion of Normandy as "the greatest invasion" in history. Such historical comparisons are always dangerous. In scale, the D-Day landings were far exceeded by Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, in June 1941, and the Soviet invasion of Germany at the end of World War II.

Here is the LEAD PARAGRAPH from a Washington Post article published July 17, 2008:"Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case's D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters." See FR post, "On the Outside Now": http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2085965/postsTODAY, the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" (HA!)column by Michael Dobbs, entitled "Obama's Fannie Mae 'Connection'" makes an attempt for the world's record in backpedaling with...

"A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There's a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year. If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it's not surprising that would happen." --Barack Obama, Palm Beach fundraiser, May 22, 2008. The presumptive Democratic nominee for president needs to be more careful in his use of statistics. If he is going to blame Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh for "ginning up" hate crimes against Hispanics, he needs solid data to back up his allegation. The hate crimes statistics that he...

The Senate has unanimously declared John McCain a natural-born citizen, eligible to be president of the United States. That is the good news for the presumptive Republican nominee, who was born nearly 72 years ago in a military hospital in the Panama Canal Zone, then under U.S. jurisdiction. The bad news is that the nonbinding Senate resolution passed Wednesday night is simply an opinion that has little bearing on an arcane constitutional debate that has preoccupied legal scholars for many weeks.

Addressing civil rights activists in Selma, Ala., a year ago, Sen. Barack Obama traced his "very existence" to the generosity of the Kennedy family, which he said paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and thus meet his Kansan mother. The Camelot connection has become part of the mythology surrounding Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. After Caroline Kennedy endorsed his candidacy in January, Newsweek commentator Jonathan Alter reported that she had been struck by the extraordinary way in which "history replays itself" and by how "two generations of two families -- separated...

Addressing civil rights activists in Selma, Ala., a year ago, Sen. Barack Obama traced his "very existence" to the generosity of the Kennedy family, which he said paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and thus meet his Kansan mother. The Camelot connection has become part of the mythology surrounding Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. After Caroline Kennedy endorsed his candidacy in January, Newsweek commentator Jonathan Alter reported that she had been struck by the extraordinary way in which "history replays itself" and by how "two generations of two families -- separated...

I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." --Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008. Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Clinton, could not go because they were "too dangerous." When her account was challenged by one...

The Washington Post is aligning its Fact Checker with Rich Noyes of NewsBusters. On Saturday's front page, the Inside box reads: "Four Pinocchios! Hillary Clinton has talked of coming under sniper fire during a 1996 trip to Bosnia. Our Fact Checker shoots that tale down." In the Michael Dobbs "Fact Checker" feature, four Pinocchios means not just fact-shading or exaggerating, but "Real whoppers." (It wasn't prominently featured on the washingtonpost.com home page.) Dobbs wrote on Saturday that "Clinton's tale of landing at the Tuzla airport "under sniper fire" simply is not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, complete...

The speed with which it all happened seemed like a scene from the Bible -- a natural phenomenon unlike anything I had experienced before. As the waters rose at an incredible rate, I half expected to catch sight of Noah's Ark.

The day after the House voted to halt all aid to rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras John D. Negroponte urged the president's national security adviser and the CIA director to hang tough. The thrust of the envoy's "back channel" July 1983 message to the men running the contra war against Nicaragua was contained in a single cryptic sentence: "Hondurans believe special project is as important as ever." "Special project" was code for the secret arming of contra rebels from bases in Honduras -- a cause championed by Negroponte, then a rising diplomatic...

The largest earthquake in the past 40 years and the resulting deaths of thousands from 33-foot tidal waves are being compared by an American reporter to descriptions of disaster from Holy Scripture. "The speed with which it all happened seemed like a scene from the Bible – a natural phenomenon unlike anything I had experienced before," said Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs, who was swimming off a Sri Lankan island when the disaster struck this morning. "As the waters rose at an incredible rate, I half expected to catch sight of Noah's Ark. Instead of the Ark, I grabbed hold...

WELIGAMA, Sri Lanka, Dec. 26 -- Disaster struck with no warning out of a faultlessly clear blue sky. I was taking my morning swim around the island that my brother Geoffrey, a businessman, had bought on a whim a decade ago and turned into a tropical paradise 200 yards from one of the world's most beautiful beaches. People look at debris in Madras, India, one of several areas hit by a massive tidal waves that slammed into several countries in Southeast Asia on Sunday. (AP) I was a quarter way around the island when I heard my brother shouting at...

It was December 1968, and the United States was in turmoil. The number of U.S. troops in Vietnam had reached a peak of half a million. Antiwar protests were paralyzing American campuses after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. In Vietnam, a gangly U.S. Navy lieutenant named John F. Kerry steered his Swift boat up a river in the Mekong Delta, deep into enemy territory, witnessing firsthand a war he would soon conclude was no longer winnable. More than 8,000 miles away, in Valdosta, Ga., another son of privilege, George W. Bush, took off in...

In the early-morning hours of Sept. 8, Dan Rather was preparing to fly to Washington for a crucial interview in the Old Executive Office Building, but torrential rain kept him in New York. White House communications director Dan Bartlett had agreed to talk to "60 Minutes," but only on condition that the CBS program provide copies of what were being billed as newly unearthed memos indicating that President Bush had received preferential treatment in the National Guard. The papers were hand-delivered at 7:45 a.m. CBS correspondent John Roberts, filling in for Rather, sat down with Bartlett at 11:15.

In e-mails to a discussion group for Texas Democrats in recent months, Burkett laid out a rationale for using "down and dirty" tactics against Bush. Burkett said he had passed on his ideas to the Democratic National Committee but that the DNC seemed "afraid to do what I suggest." In another message, dated Sept. 4, Burkett hinted he might have had advance knowledge of some details contained in an explosive segment on CBS News' "60 Minutes" one week later. In addition to an interview with former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes claiming he helped Bush get into the Guard, CBS...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

The former Texas National Guard officer suspected of providing CBS News with possibly forged records on President Bush's military service called on Democratic activists to wage "war" against Republican "dirty tricks" in a series of Internet postings in which he also used phrases similar to several employed in the disputed documents. Retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, who earlier said he overheard Bush aides conspiring with the commander of the Texas National Guard to "sanitize" the president's military records, has refused to comment on reports that he could be CBS's confidential source. In e-mails yesterday to The Washington Post, he said...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

In a related development, White House press secretary Scott McClellan hinted that more documents regarding Bush's National Guard service may soon be released. Asked whether officials in the White House have seen unreleased documents, McClellan called that "a very real possibility." Other officials with knowledge of the situation said more documents had indeed been uncovered and would be released in the coming days.