Free Republic

Regardless of how well Sarah Palin does in Thursday's debate, conservatives would be astounded if the major media acknowledged her success.For the most part, the media have decided the appropriate response to the governor is to sneer, and sneering at great conservative leaders, from Ronald Reagan to Rush Limbaugh, has been a liberal pastime for decades. What makes Gov. Palin unique from the other three candidates in this race is she seems so normal. She worked her way through college, married a good local guy, stayed home with her children for several years and has an impressive professional resume as...

Thatcher: Still fanning passions By Sarah Lyall (NYT) Wednesday, May 14, 2003 LONDON: The best-known artistic depiction of Margaret Thatcher in recent years is a huge marble statue showing her standing magnificently erect, gripping her famous handbag. This work was decapitated last year at the Guildhall Art Gallery by an anti-Thatcherite Londoner ("We can ill afford to ever lose our sense of humor," he said, before being sentenced to three months in prison), which is as telling a comment as any on the passions this former prime minister still stirs up here. Those feelings are on full display at the...

quot;Violence,quot; said Isaac Asimov, quot;is the last refuge of the incompetent.quot; In a democratic society, this is certainly so. Democratic government depends on the rule of reason rather than the rule of force, and whenever one side of a political issue resorts to violence rather than persuasion to gain its way, democratic government begins to collapse.But there is a warning sign just before a society gets to the violence stage. The political conversation changes tone. Words cease to be tools of reason and become weapons. And then we get the next to the last refuge of the incompetent: the sneer.Now...