Free Republic

In all the years since its purchase by the adventurous Adolph Ochs right down to the present day under the superfluous Pinch Sulzberger, the New York Times has never been noted for levity. Quite the contrary, its rise to preeminence as the Newspaper of Record, the Gray Lady of West 43rd Street, was fueled by gravity. Austere, somber, exhibiting, in the Master's phrase, "a dearth of mirth," nary a jape or jest sullied her grim visage. Even the sports columns are overwhelmingly solemn. (I exempt from the annals of gloom Al Hirschfeld's brilliant theater caricatures abounding in wit and charming...

The application for membership in the Intergalactic Bloggers Association contained a covenant that I would never preach to the choir. There were two buttons, Submit, and Beat it, Bub. What choice did I have? It's a problem all bloggers face, even those of us with wide circulation and considerable reputation like David Horowitz, (DH) of frontpage.com. Who was DH addressing in his article, Alienation in a Time of War? Ostensibly, he was addressing Hendrick (Rick) Hertzberg, a senior editor of New Yorker Magazine who had recently re-avowed in that publication his devotion to socialism and his disdain for America. But,...

When theological questions arose, as they sometimes did, Trentino alternated between saying "It ain't my department--I don't baptize outside my own parish" and "I don't give a good goddamn," so it was a surprise to hear him tell Lorraine he would discuss gay marriage from a Scriptural point of view but only after he had satisfactorily answered a more urgent, though similar question. "I will take up the subject of gay marriage only after I have attended to my favorite theological question: Does God wear shoes?" ... more

I'm referring to The New York Times, the Gray Lady of West 43rd Street, the Newspaper of Record, that one, yes. Of course, it's still publishing every day, a huge newspaper, indeed, whole Canadian forests are sacrificed for Classifieds alone. On Sunday, even bigger, a veritable Nadler of a newspaper. Understand, I'm not predicting the demise of the NYTimes. I am declaring it to be present fact, the Times is dead...more

No one can doubt Charles Krauthammer's intellectual prowess or his humanity. He is a conservative pundit of the first water who always expresses his views with clarity, often with elegance. So, I was delighted, last week, when I came upon what he claimed was a fundamental law of politics: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.My first thought on reading this aphorism was, how neat, how true! A moment later I started thinking of it as Kraut's Law and trying to discover its implications...more

I call upon the Centers for Disease Control, the NIH, the great neurologists at the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and even, to give evidence of my desperation, the ghosts of Lydia Pinkham and Mary Baker Eddy, to solve a recently identified-by me--mystery disease. I've been ruminating about this disease for a number of years, but it was the election of Michael Bloomberg to the office of Mayor of the City of New York and his performance in office this year that focused my attention on it...more

Pssst, mister. Wanna learn about a scandal bigger than Enron and World Com combined? Pssst, lady. Wanna learn about billions of dollars squandered, hundreds of millions of lives diminished by a thirty-year scam? Surprise! It's hiding in plain sight in the New York Times Magazine for July 7. It's the cover story, no less, a huge article, maybe 5,000 words. The title is a coy question because, finally, the NYTimes editors have no more guts than an amoeba, but the facts are all there, diligently answering the question posed, What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? For thirty...

My friend, Ann Coulter--she is my friend in so far as I usually send her congratulations by email when her column appears, and she often sends back a thank you; to date, she has resisted my cordial, even fervent invitations to enjoy a frappuccino with me at the Espresso Café--yes, my friend Ann Coulter just wrote a wonderfully irritating column wherein she scores the chattering classes typified by the nabobs of the New York Times for acknowledging at last the existence of IQ...(more)

July 4th, the glorious anniversary, our national birthday. We call to mind Mr. Jefferson's towering presence and the thrilling phrases of the Declaration. "...the course of human events... a decent respect to the opinions of mankind... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights... life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." We are compelled to remember that the Declaration was a declaration of war, a war which had begun over a year earlier when King George's battalions...