Free Republic

Senator Barack Obama fought back Saturday against accusations from his rivals that he had displayed a profound misunderstanding of small-town values, in a flare-up that left him on the defensive before a series of primaries that could test his ability to win over white voters in economically distressed communities. For a second day, Mr. Obama sought to explain his remarks at a recent San Francisco fund-raiser that small-town Pennsylvania voters, bitter over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations. Acknowledging Saturday that “I didn’t...

A funny thing happened over the weekend to the big "Cops Gone Wild" video scandal in San Francisco -- it started getting very quiet. Apparently, Mayor Gavin Newsom and his handlers realized that while the videos were bad, they didn't quite prove -- at least in the public's mind -- Newsom's charge that they were evidence of a "deep-seated" culture of sexism, racism and homophobia running through the department. By Sunday, the message was going out that Newsom -- having made his point and formed a "blue-ribbon" commission to look into the department's culture -- was now ready to get...

Written apologies will be sent to a fallen Marine's relatives angered by Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll's uninvited appearance at the soldier's funeral and her criticism of the war in Iraq, Gov. Ed Rendell said Sunday. Rendell said he will send a personal letter to the family of the late Marine Staff Sgt. Joseph Goodrich, of Westwood, and will ask Knoll to do the same. Goodrich, 32, a police officer and infantry unit leader, died July 10 in a mortar attack in Hit, Iraq. Rendell said he hadn't spoken with Knoll about the incident, but was disturbed by the family's...

The Tancredo Blunder Donald Sensing has all the links that really matter on the Tancredo blunder. (HT: StonesCryOut.) Pastor Sensing notes that I corrected the first post to specifically note that Congressman Tancredo talked of "bombing" Mecca, not "nuking" Mecca. The actual audio is available to anyone now at the website for WFLA 540 in Orlando. Note two things. First, Congressman Tancredo said that if we determined that "extremist fundamentalist Muslims" attacked the U.S. with nukes, then we should bomb Mecca. Why, he should be asked, if "extremist fundamentalist" Muslims are guilty would we declare war on all Muslims? Why...

In more evidence that the effort to blame Karl Rove for "outing an undercover CIA agent" was coming unraveled, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee retracted her claim on Sunday that she knew Rove obtained the agent's name from government sources. Asked about a letter she sent the White House demanding that Rove's security clearance be suspended, Rep. Jane Harman first insisted she was certain that the top Bush's aide's source was someone in the administration. "There's no other way that he would know [Plame's name]," Harman argued to "Fox News Sunday's" Brit Hume. The California Democrat theorized...

<p>MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan. 14 -- Shortly after the new year, Wesley K. Clark told the editorial board at a local newspaper here that no terrorist attacks would occur in the United States if he is elected president. The next day, the retired Army commander scaled back his promise. "Nobody can guarantee anything in life," he said.</p>

Tuesday morning on NBC’s Today, Paul O’Neill backtracked from some of his more incendiary comments as recited by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind in a new book. But while the NBC Nightly News, as well as CNN and FNC picked up on O’Neill’s backpedaling, neither ABC or CBS did so on Tuesday night. CNN’s King highlighted how “others in those early national security meetings took issue with suggestions Mr. Bush was predisposed to war,” but ABC’s Peter Jennings ignored what O’Neill said on Today and cited how an “official in the meetings,” whom Jennings did not identify, “confirmed...

<p>It will be interesting to see whether the liberal media, having slobbered all over former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's "red meat" attacks on President Bush, will pay as much attention to the fired Cabinet official's follow-up remarks.</p> <p>Interviewed yesterday on NBC's "Today" show, O'Neill said that despite the harsh criticism of his former boss, he will "probably" vote for Bush in November. "I don't see anyone who is better prepared or more capable," he said.</p>

Noam Chomsky: You Ask The Questions 04 December 2003 Professor Noam Chomsky, 74, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, into the only Jewish family in a lower-middle-class neighbourhood. He took a degree and then a PhD in linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. At the age of 29, he published Syntactic Structures, which revolutionised the study of language. In 1964, he began openly resisting the Vietnam War, and published his first collection of political writings five years later. He has remained a major authority on both linguistics and political theory ever since. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife, Carol,...