Free Republic

April 13, 1953 was a red letter the day in popular culture. It was when Ian Fleming’s debut novel, Casino Royale, was published, and the world was introduced to James Bond. The success of Casino Royale in the U.K. paved the way for subsequent works by Fleming, featuring Bond. In 1961, President Kennedy named 'From Russia With Love' as one of his top ten favorite books in Life magazine. This endorsement made the book a bestseller in the U.S. Some say it was Kennedy's way of linking himself to Bond and projecting himself as a Bond-like heroic leader taking on...

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) recently issued a statement urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. No surprise there. The nation’s largest Latino advocacy organization has long been a vocal proponent of such reform. It is especially fond of a major component — a pathway to earned legal status for illegal immigrants if they make amends for the infraction of entering the country illegally by meeting certain conditions. What was unusual was the marketing behind the plea. The statement came on March 31, and the organization urged that Congress pass comprehensive immigration reform “in recognition of the birthday...

If Ronald Reagan were still in his prime, presidential 1980s form, he’d be saying to Hollywood: "There you go again." There are two kinds of films about presidents. There are documentaries which usually try to dwell in factual examination; and fictional movies which have a habit of wildly making things up to satisfy the demands of making either effective entertainment, or effective propaganda. Now CBS is preparing a dramatic and quite fictional miniseries for November titled "The Reagans." CBS promised reporters it would be "meticulously researched." Researched fiction, that is. The last Reagan-fictionalizing offender was Showtime, whose 2001 film on...