Free Republic

TAC would have prospered had it given its readers straight talk about race, and laid out that “humbler” approach to foreign affairs that George W. Bush had promised the electorate in 2000. On Saturday, I learned it is very likely that The American Conservative magazine is shutting down. This is a shame, because: 1. It was the first major conservative magazine since National Review, almost fifty years earlier, that was founded not to curry favor with the powerful, but to criticize them, and seek to change their minds. NR had long since turned largely into a coven of neocon court...

Do you think it would be possible to have President Bush arrested, say for spitting on the sidewalk? When the cops want to get a guy really badly, that’s what they do – follow him around until he spits on the sidewalk. Then they arrest him. Or they just lie, and say they saw him spit on the sidewalk. And that’s how I feel right now about the Ivy Leaguer (Yale and Harvard) currently occupying the Oval Office. Hell hath no scorn like that of a voter betrayed. I don't think that Harriet Miers nomination was such a dramatic...

Today, the terms "the West" and "Western" can refer to America alone, to America and her former European allies, or even simply to white folks. The terms are successors to the terms "Europe" and "European."Most Americans under the age of 40 know little about Europe, and have only the most tenuous relation to the Old World. What they do know, however, is that we bailed the Western Europeans out of two world wars, and then saved them from communism.And yet, today our relationship to Europe, even the concept of "Europe," is typically exaggerated here at home. American socialist writers...

The New York Times is not pleased with New York City Mayor Michael ("Mayor Mike") Bloomberg. In a March 11 house editorial, "Mayor Bloomberg's Commitment Issue," the newspaper in so many words demanded that Bloomberg embrace same-sex marriage, and begin personally officiating at same-sex weddings in the mayoral residence of Grace Mansion, forthwith. Or else. "He doesn't officiate at weddings at Gracie Mansion, a previously time-honored tradition for mayors of New York. And it seems that he has a problem committing on the issue of gay marriage. "In the month or so since performing same-sex marriages became a point of...

The vicious circle of weakness dominating European thought is countered by the virtuous circle of strength that George W. Bush has expressed. I am not a European. Lee Harris argued, "The world changed on Sunday," March 14, with the Spanish elections, but the real problem is that Europe failed to change. If Europe cannot rouse itself to fight back, after it has been attacked on its own soil, we may conclude that the cowardice we saw after 9-11 was not merely the expression of anti-Americanism and opportunism, but of a deeper paralysis, which is now in its terminal stage. And...

I am not a Spaniard. Somewhere, on March 12, I saw the headline, "We are All Spaniards Now." It was an allusion to the Le Monde headline from 9/12, "We are All Americans Now."As we now know, that initial French (and German) sympathy for America was short-lived. In no time flat, the Old Europe of France and Germany sought to appease Islamism, and while claiming to be our allies, to betray us at every step of the way.Not so, the Spaniards. The 1,300 troops they sent to Iraq were largely a symbolic matter, but the symbolism was powerful.After 911, when...

The New York Times is outraged that President Bush failed to breach his own heavy security, and inform its reporters and editors in advance of his secret Thanksgiving trip to visit with American G.I.s in Baghdad. The President also failed to inform the al Qaeda and Baathist leaderships, respectively, of his trip. Security was so tight for the trip, since otherwise Saddam-loyalists and terrorists active in Iraq would surely have attempted to assassinate the President. On November 22, enemy fighters armed with shoulder-fired missiles hit an A-300 DHL Express freight plane in the left wing, as it took off from...