Free Republic

<p>I'm afraid I can't get too excited about the Newt Gingrich boomlet.</p> <p>The field general of the Revolution of 1994 is suddenly out in front of the Republican presidential primary polls, but I can't help thinking that he will soon go the way of Rick Perry and Herman Cain.</p>

Chris Matthews, the voluble host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” has written a compelling blueprint for President Obama’s reelection. But it doesn’t mention the current president. Matthews’s new book, “Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero,” adds another volume to the already groaning shelf of Kennedy biographies, but this one, happily, isn’t just about Camelot or conspiracies. It’s also about the Machiavellian Kennedy, the political street fighter who with his brother encouraged opponents to believe they were “dangerous enemies” who preferred to be feared rather than loved. “Bobby was the one who’d gained the reputation for ruthlessness,” Matthews writes, “but Jack could be pitiless.”............ “They...

There is no lack of antisemites today. But it is very hard to talk about the identity of the vast majority of them. Indeed, Yale University has just revamped its institute on antisemitism, apparently because it spent too much time talking about the overwhelming problem with antisemitism today–Islamic and especially Islamist antisemitism. In other words, the real antisemites are whitewashed, while those fighting antisemitism are called antisemites. The supporters of Israel are called enemies of Israel by those who themselves are generally enemies of Israel. The truth is the exact opposite of what Milbank wrote. Beck is the leading purveyor...

You can tell Michele Bachmann had a great debut at the Republican primary debate in New Hampshire last night, because swarms of liberal writers are breaking off from their pursuit of Sarah Palin’s tour bus to dive-bomb her. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post decided to headline a basically complimentary assessment of Bachmann’s debate performance as “Bachmann assumes the position.” He was riffing on CNN moderator John King’s instruction for the candidates to assume their positions at the lectern, which he turned into a rather tortured metaphor for the entire debate. (Milbank was watching a different debate than the rest...

Even for DC's worshipful press corps, Washington Post scribe Dana Mil bank's latest column was a doozy. Hoping to explain why the president appears to be an indecisive waffler, Milbank whelped this whopper: Obama's too smart for his own good. That's a new one. But is it true -- is Obama too bright to be president? Milbank consulted his tea leaves -- and a few social scientists -- to help diagnose Obama's malady: Genius in the extreme! "I put Obama on the couch," Milbank wrote, "and came away with a reasonably coherent diagnosis: There's too much going on in the...

I admit there were doubts in those early days about whether I could make it through all of February without invoking her name. The tremors and sweats were manageable. But I couldn't overcome an abiding terror: What if Sarah Palin announced her presidential bid, right in the middle of my self-imposed, month-long moratorium? The turning point came when I watched Fox News on Feb. 11. A banner flashed on the screen: "FOX NEWS ALERT." Dramatic music played. Stuart Varney, in for Neil Cavuto, delivered the bulletin: "Sarah Palin has issued a tweet." This was news? It was then that I...

Did Arianna Huffington just sell out her fellow progressives? In the literal sense, she undoubtedly has: The sale of Huffington Post to AOL for $315 million (including a large pile of cash going to Huffington herself) means this powerful liberal voice is formally joining the "corporate media" its writers have long disparaged

Tonight, January 31, 2011, only hours away from a media boycott, or blackout of Sarah Palin -- pledged and proposed for all mainstream media by Dana Milbank -- Sarah Palin's volunteer internet army, of nearly 30 major online Palin blogs, is organized and ready to fight back. They are going on offense, launching their own full cyber-throated effort to make certain that Dana Milbank FAILS and Sarah Palin OWNS February. Organized, with their keyboards poised for a "shock and awe" battle against the proposed liberal Palin black-out, social media warriors intend to push stories about Palin every day for the...

A couple of weeks ago Washington Post clown Dana Milbank, in a desperate bid for attention, pleaded with his fellow moonbats to cool it with their Sarah Palin obsession and to avoid reporting on her for the month of February. Well, that lasted less than nine hours. At his own newspaper. Milbank really has some clout, huh? Needless to say, the bulk of the comments are the typical, rehashed anti-Palin screeds. Imagine my surprise. Meanwhile, MSNBC today offers you the Sarah Palin Guide to Style. Apparently they're trying to be funny.She's no Michelle Obama when it comes to style,...

The Washington Post is engaging in online political activism by encouraging its readers to boycott news coverage of Sarah Palin. The Post has picked up the call initiated this morning by Post columnist Dana Milbank, adding a Twitter link on the column page. The link generates a message to be sent from a Twitter member’s page that reads, “I’m making February a Palin-free month. Will you join me?” The Post added the Twitter link to Milbank’s column this afternoon, several hours after running and pulling a Washington Post online poll about boycotting Sarah Palin news coverage. The poll initially accompanied...

In the book Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America, Milbank says that line is a veiled reference to an obscure Mormon prophecy that Latter-day Saints will rescue the country from certain doom. It's known as the White Horse Prophecy.Barlow, the Utah State professor, agrees that Beck's use of "hanging by a thread" is likely not coincidental. But is he trying to deliver a secret coded message to his followers that an uprising is nigh? Barlow says Beck is making conservative arguments by "drawing on this element that runs through Mormon consciousness."

Curious, I contacted Lowell and asked him if he was willing to talk to Milbank. Here's what Lowell said: "I would be happy to talk to Dana Milbank and, in fact, I would like to invite him to a picnic. We could walk a mile or so up Peck Canyon from the Atascosa Ranch headquarters past where the body was found, which is being autopsied to the place where five (or more) innocent Mexicans (who claim they had broken only a few Federal laws) were fired on about two weeks ago by gentlemen in black camo shooting AK 47’s, he...

World leaders arriving in Washington for President Obama's Nuclear Security Summit must have felt for a moment that they had instead been transported to Soviet-era Moscow. They entered a capital that had become a military encampment, with camo-wearing military police in Humvees and enough Army vehicles to make it look like a May Day parade on New York Avenue, where a bicyclist was killed Monday by a National Guard truck. In the middle of it all was Obama -- occupant of an office once informally known as "leader of the free world" -- putting on a clinic for some of...

World leaders arriving in Washington for President Obama's Nuclear Security Summit must have felt for a moment that they had instead been transported to Soviet-era Moscow. They entered a capital that had become a military encampment, with camo-wearing military police in Humvees and enough Army vehicles to make it look like a May Day parade on New York Avenue, where a bicyclist was killed Monday by a National Guard truck. In the middle of it all was Obama -- occupant of an office once informally known as "leader of the free world" -- putting on a clinic for some of...

World leaders arriving in Washington for President Obama's Nuclear Security Summit must have felt for a moment that they had instead been transported to Soviet-era Moscow. They entered a capital that had become a military encampment, with camo-wearing military police in Humvees and enough Army vehicles to make it look like a May Day parade on New York Avenue, where a bicyclist was killed Monday by a National Guard truck. In the middle of it all was Obama -- occupant of an office once informally known as "leader of the free world" -- putting on a clinic for some of...

World leaders arriving in Washington for President Obama's Nuclear Security Summit must have felt for a moment that they had instead been transported to Soviet-era Moscow. They entered a capital that had become a military encampment, with camo-wearing military police in Humvees and enough Army vehicles to make it look like a May Day parade on New York Avenue, where a bicyclist was killed Monday by a National Guard truck. In the middle of it all was Obama -- occupant of an office once informally known as "leader of the free world" -- putting on a clinic for some of...

A Knife in Obama’s Back?Maybe Rahm Emanuel is guilty of disloyalty, but he might be the only thing keeping Obama tethered to the reality-based community.  The president is surrounded by acolytes of the Cult of Obama. They consider him to be a “transformational figure” who need not sully himself with the usual rules of politics. The president agrees, rejecting suggestions that he recalibrate his Olympian ambitions. That’s not me saying that, nor one of my knuckle-dragging, baby-eating right-wing brethren. It’s Dana Milbank, the liberal Washington Post writer widely seen by most conservatives as Maureen Dowd in drag. Milbank wrote a...

Republicans had been hesitant to accept President Obama's invitation to participate in Thursday's White House health-care summit. Their hesitance turned out to be justified. An equal number of Democratic and Republican lawmakers assembled around a table at Blair House, and each had a chance to speak during the seven-hour televised talkathon. But members of the opposition party may not have fully understood that they were stepping into Prof. Obama's classroom, and that they were to be treated like his undisciplined pupils. Obama controlled the microphone and the clock, and he used both skillfully to limit the Republicans' time, to rebut...

On Tuesday, I learned that I am a right-wing hack. I am not a journalist. I am a Republican flack. On Thursday, I realized that I am a media pimp with my lips on Obama's butt. I discovered all this from the helpful feedback provided to me in the "reader comments". The vitriol of last year's presidential campaign has outlasted the election. For the right, this isn't terribly surprising; their guys lost the White House in 2008 and control of both chambers of Congress in 2006, so lashing out in frustration is to be expected. The left, however, is more...

Dear Reader: I wish to apologize to you for my behavior last week. On Tuesday, I learned that I am a right-wing hack. I am not a journalist. I am typical of the right wing. I am why newspapers are going broke. I write garbage. I am angry with Barack Obama. I misquote Obama. I am bitter. I am a certified idiot. I am lame. I am a Republican flack. On Thursday, I realized that I am a media pimp with my lips on Obama's butt. I am a bleeding-heart liberal who wants nothing more than for the right to...