Free Republic

Few presidents in modern times have been as interested in gun control as Richard Nixon, of all people. He proposed ridding the market of Saturday night specials, contemplated banning handguns altogether and refused to pander to gun owners by feigning interest in their weapons. Several previously unreported Oval Office recordings and White House memos from the Nixon years show a conservative president who at times appeared willing to take on the National Rifle Association, a powerful gun lobby then as now, even as his aides worried about the political ramifications. “I don’t know why any individual should have a right...

At a ceremony commemorating the late U.S. President Richard M. Nixon’s 100th birthday, politicians, a military official and Nixon’s eldest daughter on Sunday remembered him as an underappreciated president and a foreign policy genius. Nixon, the Cold War-era Republican stalwart who opened U.S. relations with communist China, was the only American president to resign from office, leaving the White House in disgrace over the Watergate scandal. “He looked at (the world) as a world with 200 countries and 200 leaders, and he studied every one of those leaders, and he knew most of them,” said Bruce Herschensohn, a friend and...

Political consultant Dick Morris, who rose to prominence as a key adviser for President Bill Clinton and then fell from grace after a scandal involving a prostitute, has surfaced as a political consultant in an unlikely place -- Kenya. Leading presidential candidate Raila Odinga has brought Morris on as a consultant to help him beat incumbent President Mwai Kibaki in next month's elections. Last week Morris arrived in Kenya on a tourist visa and held a press conference saying he believed Odinga was poised to win the election. "I think the reason is he has a clear reputation for courage...