Free Republic

The man the GOP loves to hate tiptoed out of hiding Sunday - if only to blast Fox News and the rest of the media for his predicament. William Ayers, the '60s radical who is one of John McCain's talking points in his criticism of Barack Obama, told a Manhattan panel discussion audience he was tired of being used as cannon fodder in America's political wars. "[Fox host] Bill O'Reilly comes on his show and first thing he says is, 'Why won't this Ayers story die?'" Ayers told well-wishers. "And then he spends 10 minutes talking about it." Ayers, a...

A video purporting to show an American being beheaded in Iraq has been posted on a militant Islamic website.      The hostage said he was from San Francisco and urged American troops to leave Iraq, it is reported.The al Qaeda-linked group led by the Jordanian Abu Musab al Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the killing.    The man named himself as Benjamin Ford on the video.   "My name is Benjamin Ford. I am from San Francisco, California," he says, dressed in a plain beige T-shirt as he sat on a chair.   "We need to leave this country right now. If we don't, everyone is gonna be killed...