Free Republic

After witnessing Governor Chris Christie in action these last 10 months or so, there is one inescapable conclusion that his ardent fans have been drawing. He is the next George Washington. Christie artfully browbeats union reps, hecklers and teachers alike. He has sliced the budget and he is as quick on his feet as anyone in politics since Giuliani in his heyday. Granted, Washington as a young man surveyed huge swaths of often hostile frontier-land and participated in the French and Indian wars as a young soldier and officer, rising to become commander of all Virginia's armed forces. He became...

Sarah Palin may be edging closer to a 2012 presidential run, telling Fox News "I would give it a shot" if the American people think she's "the one." The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee was in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday for the Reagan Dinner, a big GOP fundraiser in the heart of water-testing country for presidential candidates. Palin has remained coy about her ambitions, but she elaborated a bit in an interview with Fox News, attaching several conditions to the possibility of a 2012 presidential run. "If the American people were to be ready for someone...

Editor’s Note: Links to the source material referred to in this piece will only be provided at the original link for which this article is duplicated from.This week, I stumbled across a very thought-provoking headline entitled, “Poll: George W. Bush Still Gets Blamed for Economic Woes, and what is even more interesting is that I believe this story links wholeheartedly with this story regarding Obama’s personal approval rating. Excerpt from the story entitled, “Solving the Problem Posed by President Obama’s High Personal Approval Rating”: Because the liberal media establishment has supported instead of scrutinized him. The liberal media successfully concealed...

The magic of 2008 can't be recreated, and good riddance to it. Not long ago Barack Obama, for those who were spellbound by him, had the stylishness of JFK and the historic mission of FDR riding to the nation's rescue. Now it is to Lyndon B. Johnson's unhappy presidency that Democratic strategist Robert Shrum compares the stewardship of Mr. Obama. Johnson, wrote Mr. Shrum in the Week magazine last month, never "sustained an emotional link with the American people" and chose to escalate a war that "forced his abdication as president." A broken link with the public, and a war...

There seems to be a tactic used by many here and elsewhere to mock Sarah Palin as some kind of messiah figure because she has a lot of fans. This is not only wrong, this is disgusting. Sarah Palin has never presented herself as an Obama type figure that wants to be seen as a savior. She has been polite and decent on the national stage. She has treated people around this country very good in her time on the national stage. Yet, some people talk about her as an object or a piece of trash. We have someone around...

President Obama's Oval Office speech Tuesday marked the end of an era -- an era in which at least half the population believed any crisis could be defused by one man's supposed rhetorical genius and personal charisma. The derisive reception of President Obama's Tuesday night speech from the Oval Office on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill makes it clear that Obama's sweet voice no longer suffices, not even for his biggest boosters.

There was a great band from the late 80's called Living Colour. They had a song called "cult of personality" I went back and found it. Great song, great band. Take a listen to the lyrics or watch the video. What other songs would you list as being prophetic or relevant for our times..? “And during the few moments that we have left, we want to talk, right down to earth, in a language that everybody here can easily understand.” (Malcolm X) Look in my eyes, what do you see? the Cult of Personality I know your anger, I know...

The economics of personality? The concept defies logic not to mention the laws of finance and accounting, but according to Newsweek's Eleanor Clift it wasn't the combination of President Ronald Reagan's attack on inflation and his low tax rates on individuals and businesses - but his personality that rescued the economy from the malaise of the early 1980s. On the "The McLaughlin Group" March 7, Clift declared that Reaganomics was a failure, at least initially. "There's some revisionist thinking going here," Clift said. "Reaganomics did not work, certainly not the first two years. When the midterm elections were held during...

Poland: Your Ché Guevara T-shirt can land you in jail Poland's revised criminal code includes a ban on communist symbols, such as the red star or hammer and sickle, though one artist says "they are no longer meaningful." By Hilary Heuler • A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent. Evocative symbols of Europe’s troubled past, such as the swastika, have long been illegal in countries across the continent. But now Poland has gone one step further, revising its criminal code to include a ban on symbols of communism. Poles can now be fined or even put in prison if...

Admittedly, President Barack Obama is a man of sterling qualities. He has a temperament and charm befitting one probed by the glare of history’s contemplation; an intellect suited to the complexities of a seamless 21st century world; and a big-speech eloquence worthy of the historian’s pen. Yet beyond those familiar distinctions, there is an unfamiliar and remarkable charisma born of race, circumstance, youth and personality that has become the stuff of mass mesmerization. Make no mistake about it, such qualities — as considerable as they are — ought not seduce one into believing the myth which this nation has always...

A bronze statue of a young Barack Obama in shorts and a T-shirt — and what appears to be a Nobel medal around his neck — has been erected at a park in Jakarta, Indonesia, near the school where the future U.S. president studied as a child, according to news reports. The likeness of a 10-year-old Obama — his hand extended with what appears to be a butterfly resting on it — cost $10,600 and now stands in a corner of Menteng Park, according to the Jakarta Globe and AP.

Here is what President Obama said about Springsteen: Finally, we honor the quiet kid from Jersey ... who grew up to become the rock 'n' roll laureate of a generation. For in the life of our country only a handful of people have tapped the full power of music to tell the real American story -- with honesty; from the heart; and one of those people is Bruce Springsteen... It's no wonder that his tours are not so much concerts, but communions. There's a place for everybody -- the sense that no matter who you are or what you do,...

"Barack Runs, so our children can fly!" - Jan., 22, 2009: VIDEOIn another video - filmed shortly after the President delivered his "Back to School Speech" in September - children from the same elementary school say "thank you" to Obama. The teacher also asks one of the students if the President "is like a hero to" her. At about 1 minute and 59 seconds into the video, the children say "Thank You" to Obama while holding a photo with the words, "Extreme Loyalty...." inscribed on the top. Ahem...... VIDEO: "Thank You President Obama" - 'Extreme Loyalty!':

Pencils and notebooks resembling President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign ads have been sold in at least one Columbia school and other public schools, causing the company that distributes the materials to travel around the state yanking the supplies out of machines. “Don’t be mad at us,” said Greg Jones, a sales representative with Pencil Wholesale. “It was a total accident.” Pencil Wholesale distributes supplies to six Columbia schools: Parkade Elementary, Cedar Ridge Elementary, Paxton Keeley Elementary, Mill Creek Elementary, Smithton Middle School and Hickman High School, said Linda Quinley, the district’s chief financial officer. At Mill Creek, at least one...

As Americans, there is a disconnect between our professed regard for liberty and this tendency to seek for ourselves gods among men. On the surface, we love to wrap ourselves in the rhetoric of equality, freedom, and the populist sentiments underlying representative government. On the other, we crave, demand, and ultimately crown royalty. A friend recently told me in reference to President Obama, “The way he speaks, you can just tell he’s intelligent. He’s so intelligent. And you want that in your president, someone intelligent.” The unspoken implication which I find echoed in criticisms of Sarah Palin is we want...

The children of the Nazi party began as a shining hope for the future, but by the end of the war they became reserve soldiers as the Germans faced military defeat. That descent from twisted idealism to cynicism and eventually disillusionment is traced in “Tempted, Misled, Slaughtered: The Short Life of Hitler Youth Paul B.,” an exhibit at the American Jewish Museum of the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. The exhibit, on display in the Kaufmann Building through Dec. 31, is presented with the Holocaust Center of the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh — part of a busy schedule...

Where have all those Obamenthusiasts who were so visible in 2008 been hiding this year? In this New Republic article Lydia DePillis seems to think that the problem is that Organizing For America has been run as a top-down organization, rather than as a bottom-up movement, giving the folks out there no sense of ownership. She asks, “Can a grassroots organization run in the top-down style of a political machine really accomplish much—let alone change the terms of debate on any given issue?” I think there’s something more going on here. Many Obamenthusiasts were thrilled by the idea of putting...

This, from the president's chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Scott Johnson goes to town, in response. Rocco Landesman, the NEA chairman, said, in part: This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists.

Anita Dunn: How We Created Obama's Cult of Personality By Candance Moore Created 2009-10-20 10:45 For months NewsBusters has been reporting [0] how the media aided and abetted the creation of Barack Obama's Cult of Personality leading to his eventual election as the 44th President of the United States. Eight days before his inauguration, Obama's Fox News-hating [0] communications director Anita Dunn and his digital strategist Ben Self, while at a conference in the Dominican Republic hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, confirmed the allegation in a tutorial they gave to President Leonel Fernandez and other government...

A seller on eBay has been offering American flags with the stars removed from the blue field and President Barack Obama's face inserted, and outraged bloggers have promised to track the banners down.