Free Republic

The final weeks of the presidential race have brought an outbreak of fear. Both President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry are airing television ads, the gist of which is that if you vote for the other guy you're going to go broke and everyone's going to die. Kerry's turn to fear is understandable. His campaign has little else to offer other than to play on America's lingering fear of Iraq turning into a quagmire like Vietnam. But the fact that Bush has turned to fear is disappointing. After September 11, 2001, Bush captured the hearts of the American...

In a culture that sexualizes women constantly, the line between water-cooler chat and harassment is increasingly thin. Bill O'Reilly, the conservative talk-show host whose "The O'Reilly Factor" is the highest-rated cable news show, has been sued for sexual harassment by his former producer Andrea Mackris. Mackris alleges that on many occasions, both in person and over the phone, O'Reilly engaged in lewd and lascivious conversation against her will. She goes so far as to state that O'Reilly unlawfully engaged in, and gratified himself with, phone sex, with Mackris on the other end of the line. To be sure, O'Reilly enjoys...

2 nations alone: Notes on America and the Jews being the most hated people on Earth Posted: September 16, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com American have become the new Jews of the world. They are not liked much. The United States is experiencing what the Jews have experienced throughout their history: an irrational hatred, unwarranted animosity. The pundits will tell you that this is all due to America-envy. We're the biggest, strongest kid on the block. So everyone hates us. To be sure, we ought never underestimate the role that simple jealousy and envy plays in fuelling...

Friday, September 10, 2004 American Mossad: AIPAC and the World Jewish Conspiracy Posted: September 10, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Jew-haters of the world, rejoice! It turns out – after repeated denials by the world Jewish community for generations – that you were right all along. There really is a conspiracy on the part of the Jews to take over the world. And all the guys who said America went to war in Iraq due to Jewish pressure – august personalities such as Sen. Fritz Hollings, Gen. Anthony Zinni, Congressman Jim Moran and Pat Buchanan – have...

Friday, September 3, 2004 John Kerry's blood libel Posted: September 3, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com John Kerry will lose this presidential election -- guaranteed -- and it will happen because he violated one of the most important religious laws, inculcated within nearly every Jewish child from the youngest age: God commands us not to slander and not to engage in malicious gossip. Even during the Republican convention, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth continued to pummel and hammer John Kerry with negative TV ads about his wartime record in Vietnam, his indictment of the troops as...

Who says that God doesn't have a sense of humor? My regular readers will remember that at the Democratic National Convention, I found myself sitting a few feet from filmmaker Michael Moore. I had been eager to talk with Moore about his positions on Israel, since I had read several negative comments attributed to him. I tried to speak with him, but he turned me away. But last night at the Republican National Convention, I was working on my laptop from one of the press desks when a Secret Service agent suddenly walked in and told me that the empty...

A few months ago I wrote a column criticizing Gov. James McGreevey for silence in the face of outrageous anti-Semitic outbreaks in New Jersey. McGreevey surprised me by calling personally to plead guilty to some of the points I made. After having spoken with him for over an hour, I was impressed by his humility and willingness to acknowledge error. He later invited me to a party he hosted at the Democratic National Convention. There I said to his wife, who was holding his hand, that I had always been impressed with the quiet dignity she brought to the role...

John F. Kerry enjoys being compared with his hero, John F. Kennedy. But for all the superficial comparisons, ideologically they are worlds apart. In Kennedy's 1961 inaugural speech, he uttered the famous words "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." With these eloquent words, Kennedy committed himself to stopping militarily the spread of communist tyranny. He made this point directly to Nikita Khrushchev during their Vienna summit in June...

On the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Boston, from where I was broadcasting my radio show, I found myself sitting 10 feet from Michael Moore. He was chatting with journalists, so I decided to ask if he would agree to be a guest on my radio show. I wanted to debate him about his Bush-hating Fahrenheit 9/11. But when he saw me approaching, he dismissed me with a single, condescending flick of his finger as if I were a bug crawling up his arm. I was initially offended by his arrogant gesture. And knowing of his hatred...

On the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Boston, from where I was broadcasting my radio show, I found myself sitting 10 feet from Michael Moore. He was chatting with journalists, so I decided to ask if he would agree to be a guest on my radio show. I wanted to debate him about his Bush-hating "Fahrenheit 9-11." But when he saw me approaching, he dismissed me with a single, condescending flick of his finger as if I were a bug crawling up his arm. I was initially offended by his arrogant gesture. And knowing of his hatred...

Friday, July 16, 2004 Single women who have affairs with married men should be held accountable Posted: July 16, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Monica Lewinsky has finally apologized – but to the wrong party. In a startling letter to Liz Smith of the New York Post highlighting her desire to take responsibility for her actions in having had an affair with the president, she writes that she took the opportunity in a recent television interview "to apologize to former President Clinton for having betrayed his trust by confiding in my friend Linda Tripp. It's an apology...

The unbearable likeness of being Shmuley Boteach gives us his personal review of what he calls the "shockingly dull memoirs of Bill Clinton." The New York Times eviscerated Bill Clinton's autobiography with a censure that would have finished off any other author. "Sloppy, self-indulgent, and often eye-crossingly dull -- the sound of one man prattling away... self-indulgence and scattered concentration... hodgepodge of jottings... hurriedly written and even more hurriedly edited... psychobabble mea culpas," are just some of the unflattering descriptions used by the paper's veteran book reviewer, Michiko Kakutanito, to describe the presidential memoir. Bill Clinton is a fascinating man...

The New York Times eviscerated Bill Clinton's autobiography with a censure that would have finished off any other author. "Sloppy, self-indulgent, and often eye-crossingly dull – the sound of one man prattling away... self-indulgence and scattered concentration... hodgepodge of jottings... hurriedly written and even more hurriedly edited... psychobabble mea culpas," are just some of the unflattering descriptions used by the paper's veteran book reviewer, Michiko Kakutanito, to describe the presidential memoir. Bill Clinton is a fascinating man of profound contradictions, and it takes a special talent to transform such an intriguing life into such a boring book. But tedium is...

Our pop culture is teaching women that in order to get noticed, you've got to get naked. LOOK AT ME: Madonna performs at Madison Square Garden Wednesday, June 16, 2004 in New York. The recent passing of Ronald Reagan highlighted the death of Marxism and communism. But to the list of "isms" that met their end in the late 20th century, we must surely now add feminism. Any rational evaluation of American culture would have to conclude that the movement that sought to have women taken seriously has failed. For every one positive female role model that uses her mind...

In 1991 I was looking for a high-profile speaker to open our new Jewish student center at Oxford University when I read Ronald Reagan's autobiography. He praised the warmth and small college ambience of Eureka, Illinois, where he had gotten his degree. I wrote to president Reagan about how wonderful it would be if he brought that friendliness to a place that can be as stuffy as Oxford. To my delight, he accepted. We worked for six months on the preparations, only for Reagan to be forced to cancel just days before the event. We scrambled to find a replacement...

Not everyone is impressed that Madonna has re-invented herself, reports MSNBC.com. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the former friend and adviser to Michael Jackson, has attacked the Material Mom, calling her a "slut" and a "vulgarian." In a startling essay for SomethingJewish.Co.UK, the Rabbi blasts Phillip Berg, the head of the Kabbalah Centre, for letting the Material Girl be the religion's highest-profile spokesperson. "Earth to Phillip Berg: Do us all a favor and dump Madonna as your principal spokesperson," Boteach writes. "Sorry to be so crass, but Madonna is a slut. Yes, she may sing, and she may dance. But she is...

The world has long applied an unjust double standard to women. One of the most famous is how a woman who is promiscuous is dismissed as a slut while a man who is equally so is lauded as a stud. But in this election year, it seems odd that few have focused on another double standard that is equally troubling. Many recent reality TV shows have had as an underlying premise that women love money more than romance. First there was "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire," followed quickly by "Joe Millionaire," and "The Bachelor." Women who repeatedly marry rich...

What does one say to a man whose entire family has just been wiped out by terrorists? That was the dilemma that confronted me this week when I visited the Gush Katif settlement block in Gaza, and met David Hatuel, whose pregnant wife Tali and four young daughters were killed two weeks ago by terrorists who shot them at point-blank range in an outrage that shocked the world. I asked him if he felt hatred toward Arab terrorists who could do such a thing. He responded that he was not interested in blame, had barely examined press reports as to...

Supporters and opponents of the war in Iraq finally have something to agree on. Both are justifiably sickened by the abusive photographs coming out of Abu Ghraib prison. Both argue that American credibility has been eroded in the Arab world and that the photographs have inflamed Islamic hatred of America. Get real. The Arabs hate America with or without these photographs. They detested the United States before these pictures were published, and they would detest the United States had these pictures never been taken. They hate us when we liberate them, and they hate us when we are wicked enough...

Islam is losing its way Posted: May 14, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Supporters and opponents of the war in Iraq finally have something to agree on. Both are justifiably sickened by the abusive photographs coming out of Abu Ghraib prison. Both argue that American credibility has been eroded in the Arab world and that the photographs have inflamed Islamic hatred of America. Get real. The Arabs hate America with or without these photographs. They detested the United States before these pictures were published, and they would detest the United States had these pictures never been taken. They hate us when...