Free Republic

The WOT has been replaced by the WOTC, the War on Tax Cheats. On '60 Minutes' tonight, President Barack Obama will announce that he is planning to indefinitely detain American Timothy Geithner, on U.S. soil, presumably without trial: Were Geithner to tender his resignation, Obama says he would tell him: "Sorry, buddy, you've still got the job." President Obama released dirty bomber Binyam Mohammed to return back to England. AG Eric Holder says "maybe" Obama will release 17 Uighurs into the United States even though all of them associated with the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, were trained in terrorism by...

Yesterday, I annointed our president Barack “Milhous” Obama. That was in honor of the prez’s reported plan to slap wage controls on financial industry employees, thus following in the footsteps of Richard Nixon, who as president imposed wage-price controls. This morning, we have a new middle name for the President Obama: W. It comes courtesy of the New York Times. Both a NYT editorial and a Frank Rich column draw what they see as worrisome parallels between the Obama presidency and that of his immediate predecessor. First comes Frank, whose very column is entitled: “Has a ‘Katrina Moment’ Arrived?” Rich...

WASHINGTON -- It’s unlikely that the United States will ever live down the shame of torture during the Bush-Cheney administration. It’s history now and all the piety and wit of those former U.S. officials responsible for this horrendous chapter cannot wipe out a word of it. Mark Danner published in the New York Review of Books excerpts of a leaked report by the International Committee of the Red Cross on CIA interrogation techniques used at secret U.S. "black site" prisons abroad and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Red Cross report is based on Red Cross interviews in 2006 with 14 "high...

There is much more to the fact that President Obama now polls lower than President Bush did at fifty days into his presidency than merely what bi-partisan pollsters Schoen and Rasmussen were able to point out this week. In nearly every category of performance, President Obama has adeptly demonstrated that he is in over his head, and sinking fast. "We the people" sense his inability to make sound decisions and thusly, the President has wiped out nearly all of the Republican support he enjoyed not long ago, and Independents are not far behind. When you consider the sector of the...

In one of the epic dust-ups in recent TV memory, former Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleisher repeatedly called out Chris Matthews today for the way the Hardball host twisted Fleisher’s words and Pres. Bush’s record. I’ll provide a more complete transcript later, but for the time being, savor the video, which includes these hightlights: * Matthews begins by asking what Fleisher is doing on the show. Answer: “Chris, you invited me.” * Fleisher asks Matthews “how dare you?” for seeking to blame Pres. Bush for 9/11 and calls Matthews’ comments “shameful.” * At one point, Fleisher asks “Chris,...

You’re traveling from a dimension of raucous applause to one curiously subdued, even tepid. It is a dimension not only of oorahs but one of mild clapping. A journey into a proud land of service and country, if you dare. The next stop up ahead, the Semper Fi zone. Some presidents are welcome in the Semper Fi zone… others…. not so much. Go here and see this revealing video: Publiusforum.com...

Rush Limbaugh took a lot of heat for saying he wants President Obama to fail -- but a lot of Democrats felt the same way about former President George W. Bush during his second term. An August 2006 poll conducted by FOX News/Opinion Dynamics showed 51 percent of Democrats did not want Bush to succeed. Thirty-four percent of independents also did not want Bush to succeed. By comparison, 90 percent of Republicans said at the time that they wanted Bush to succeed, and 40 percent of Democrats said the same. Conservative radio talk show host Limbaugh says he doesn't want...

Yes, Bill Plante did acknowledge that the stem cell issue has “deep moral and political implications.” And yes, we did hear from a representative of the Family Research Council speaking in opposition to Pres. Obama’s decision to lift the Bush-era ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. But that said, was it right for the Early Show to air the most inflammatory possible accusation against Pres. Bush? Recounting the story of a young boy who died of a rare and fatal genetic disease Plante stated that the boy’s parents: “believe their son’s chance of survival ended when President...

Washington has spent the past couple of weeks debating whether Barack Obama's ambitious agenda and political strategy are more comparable to those of Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. Oddly, hardly anyone is talking about the ways in which Obama is beginning to resemble the man who just vacated the White House... The writer is deputy editor of The Post's editorial page.

Speak for yourself, Mr. President . . . Addressing the troops at Camp Lejeune today to announce his plans to withdraw all but about 50,000 troops from Iraq, Pres. Obama praised the success that has been achieved there. Among other things, he said: “The men and women of the United States military have served with honor, and succeeded beyond any expectation.” Any expectation? You, Mr. President, opposed this war from the beginning, claiming it could not succeed. Back in 2006 you called for surrender and withdrawal. You opposed the surge, and even after it succeeded said you still were right...

Here is an interesting interview with the President of Elliott's Hardware in Dallas, Texas, a store that was visited yesterday by former President George W. Bush after offering him a part-time greeter position with them! . . . . . . (Watch Video)

I might be tempted to say that if bad hairstyles were a crime, Margaret Satterthwaite could be looking at a life sentence. But since I’ve renounced petty personal attacks . . . On the other hand, Prof. Satterthwaite and her band of angry lefties have not renounced their obsession with prosecuting members of the Bush administration for allegedly authorizing torture, specifically including waterboarding. During MSNBC’s 11 AM ET hour today, David Shuster interviewed Satterthwaite, the Director of NYU law school’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. There was an air of “let’s give them a fair hearing, then hang...

It’s slightly embarrassing to write about this event two weeks after the fact, but it’s even more so not to bring it up at all: On January 31, there were local elections all throughout Iraq. News of the elections didn’t catch the attention of most of the mainstream media. I myself had heard about it only from a WABC-radio news broadcast. CNN, to their credit, was on it, reporting on the 27th that “About 14,000 candidates will be competing for 440 provincial council seats in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces”. That’s fantastic! As for the rest of the MSM, they...

The heirs of an Apache chieftain whose remains are rumored to be held inside Yale's oldest secret society filed a lawsuit today demanding the return of their ancestor's skull. Twenty descendants of the legendary Apache chieftain Geronimo are suing the federal government, the University and the society Skull & Bones in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to seek the return of his remains as well as punitive damages. One hundred years ago today, Geronimo died of pneumonia at Fort Sill, Okla., but the suit alleges members of the society exhumed his remains in 1918 or 1919 and...

As we go to the polls today, the world around us is quickly changing in new and distressing ways. The challenges the international system will present the government we elect will be harsher, more complicated and more dangerous than the ones its predecessors have faced. Bluntly stated, the world that will challenge the next government will be one characterized by the end of US global predominance. In just a few short weeks, the new administration of President Barack Obama has managed to weaken the perception of American power and embolden US adversaries throughout the world. In the late stages of...

What’s tougher for an American president: 1. Determining the status of highly-secret operations in an enemy state that is one of the world’s most closed societies; or 2. Checking someone’s tax returns submitted to an IRS that reports to you? The answer speaks for itself. But that answer has profound implications. Barack Obama is a president who rode to power in part on excoriating Pres. Bush for getting it wrong on WMD in Iraq. And yet . . .

So far six audience members have stormed out midperformance of the Broadway show “You’re Welcome America. A Final Night with George W Bush,” the comedian Will Ferrell’s lampooning of the 43rd president, according to those keeping count at the Cort Theater. But they haven’t been leaving after a particular Ferrell quip. They’ve been standing up, instead, after the projection of a supersize photo on the backdrop of the stage. A photo of a penis. Specifically, as Mr. Ferrell (who plays President Bush) leads the audience to believe, the president’s penis. Except that’s not quite right. “It’s an anonymous but age-appropriate...

When they write their retrospectives about the era that ended with the 2008 election, economic historians will undoubtedly credit George W. Bush with almost single-handedly moving the country to embrace extremist conservatism. It's a simple storyline: Cowboy president drives bewildered American herd over laissez-faire cliff. What such reductionism will ignore, though, is what we must remember now: namely, that Congress also played a decisive role in the stampede. (snip) If we are lucky and we end up snagging one that saves us - a huge if - it will be one that is strong enough to snap the center back...

And he’s hard-working, too, unlike that previous guy! Sharing with America President Obama’s daily schedule, Diane Sawyer managed to work in a little shot at President Bush’s early-to-bed habits. [H/t FReeper library user] DIANE SAWYER: For the first time, we have details this morning on the new night-owl presidency. We have the president’s schedule: compare it to yours. He hits the gym at 6:45 AM, does weights and cardio. He reads several paper, eats breakfast with the family, sees his daughter off to school, both daughters off to school. Then makes the 30-second commute to work, landing him in the...

The worst economic turmoil since the Great Depression is not a natural phenomenon but a man-made disaster in which we all played a part.In the second part of a week-long series looking behind the slump,Guardian City editor Julia Finch picks out the individuals who have led us into the current crisis Alan Greenspan, chairman of US Federal Reserve 1987- 2006Only a couple of years ago the long-serving chairman of the Fed, a committed free marketeer who had steered the US economy through crises ranging from the 1987 stockmarket collapse through to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, was lauded with...

It’s almost as if Frank Rich is trying to school himself when he writes this morning: "We can’t keep blaming 43 for everything, especially now that we don’t have him to kick around anymore." But try as he might, Rich just can’t shake his very bad case of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Check out this line from the opening paragraph of his column today, describing the former prez and VP at the inaugural: "Bush and Cheney . . . in black hat and wheelchair, looked like the misbegotten spawn of the evil Mr. Potter in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the...

(Yeah, yeah, I know, Dana Priest is a female. But whoda thunk there are only images on the web of men with heads up their ass. Someone’s gonna have to get on that. That’s sexist!!!) Hear ye! Hear ye!Bush’s ‘War’ on Terror Comes to a Sudden End! Or at least so says the dangerously obtuse Dana Priest in yesterday’s Washington Post. That’s right, folks. Priest has declared: Ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead. George W. Bush is out of office, and so the “war” on genocidal jihadists that he and his neo-con cronies concocted, so that Dick Cheney can...

In her new article today, my girl Ann (Coulter) has a collection of comments from the New York Times about the inauguration [slightly edited]. They’re quite eye-opening: - The American public is bemused by the tasteless show-biz extravaganza surrounding Barack Obama’s inauguration today.- There is something to be said for some showiness in an inauguration. But one felt discomfited all the same.- This is an inauguration, not a coronation. - Is there a parallel between Mrs. Obama’s jewel-toned outfit and somebody else’s glass slippers? Why limousines and not shank’s mare? - It is still unclear whether we are supposed to...

Leftists are always lecturing Republicans and conservatives on the importance of civility and bipartisanship yet revealing, whether winner or losing, that they are the ones who need lessons in manners and collegiality. If you aren't convinced of the left's nonpareil arrogance and nastiness from observing their behavior toward President Bush and Vice President Cheney for the past eight years, then contrast the behavior of Mr. Bush's staff leaving office and that of Mr. Clinton's, who literally trashed the White House like juvenile delinquents. Fast-forwarding to this week, did you see Obama supporters booing President Bush at the inauguration, singing, "Na,...

George Bush may be gone as president, but BDS is apparently forever. Deep in the throes of derangement, Chris Matthews this evening labelled America under George Bush an “aggressor” akin to the regimes of Hitler and Stalin. The Hardball host was David Shuster’s guest on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It was Shuster’s playing of a clip of Pres. Obama talking about reclaiming the “moral high ground” on issues like torture that set Matthews off. CHRIS MATTHEWS: I grew up with the idea that we were the good guys all the time in foreign policy. Maybe that’s naive, but when we use...

We have discussed both on the dose and privately via freepmail as to what we may do in the future of the dose. It is suggested that a thread is posted where anyone can post photos or news of George W Bush and if you so wish any other member of his administration as to what they are doing or hope to do in the future and the idea is that this thread will cover January 2009 news and photos as well as being a recap of the last few days of the George W Bush Presidency plus events that...

This week, Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States. So now the governing begins -- along with the resurrection of George W. Bush's reputation. Candidate Obama promised to pull all the troops from Iraq within the first year to 16 months of his administration. President Obama intends to retain Bush's secretary of Defense, Robert Gates -- a man who supported Bush's courageous decision to "surge" and send 30,000 troops, an action that then-Sen. Obama opposed while predicting its failure. When, post-surge, violence in Iraq dramatically declined, candidate Obama refused -- for a long time -- to credit...

Prior to Katrina, George W. Bush was a relevant President, with decent approval ratings, a Republican majority in Congress and at least a limited legislative agenda. Post-Katrina, Bush was a failed President, unpopular with the voters, incapable of passing legislation in a Congress controlled by the opposition party. After the incompetent response to Katrina and the public relations debacle shown on national television, President Bush clearly lost not only his stride, but his support. Regardless of what the President said in his final news conference, the federal response was slow and inadequate. The coordination between the various levels of government...

Here is Bush's speech after stepping down from being President. The speech is ongoing at the time of posting

Outgoing US President George Bush telephoned President Shimon Peres bidding him farewell on the occasion of the end of Bush's term as president Tuesday. Peres said to Bush, "If the world had acted against Hitler the way you acted against Saddam Hussein, the lives of millions would have been saved." The president added, "You made a historic contribution to the entire world and to the Jewish people in particular. We will treasure this forever and will never forget it."

“Whoever mentions Nazis or Hitler first, automatically loses the argument.” — venerable Usenet rule. Looks like Keith Olbermann’s a loser. In his Special Comment tonight calling for the prosecution of Pres. Bush for war crimes, the Countdown host broke out the Nazi analogy, throwing in the Ku Klux Klan and even Citibank for good measure. I’ll spare you the whole of Olbermann’s Special Comment, which seemed to go on longer than the two Bush terms. His gist was that if Barack Obama fails to prosecute Pres. Bush and others for their supposed crimes, he’ll be taking the same path of...

Today is the last full day that George W Bush spent in the White House as President he telephoned current and former world leaders from Oval Office. Also in his last full day as President he commuted the sentences of two former US border guards facing more than 10 years in prison for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler. Secretary of Defense Roberts Gates will will sit out Barack Obama's inauguration at an undisclosed location as the "designated successor" in the event of a catastrophe, the White House announced Monday. Pray for President Bush - Day 3050. Enjoy Sanity Island on...

I am thoroughly confused as to how folks continue to try to prop up George W. Bush's failed government. Months ago, surveys indicated 81 percent of Americans felt the country was going in the wrong direction. Of that 81 percent, there must be Republicans who feel the same way; it cannot be just Democrats. Historians are already writing that Bush did not possess the intellect, discipline or basic interest in governmental politics to make a good president. The failures are for all to see. We do not need pundits to point out Bush's failures. How about the current economy? Who...

And no, I'm not referring to the coming inauguration of the chosen one, but rather the last day of gratuitous Bush bashing. It's been a long time coming. What started before the man was even sworn in, with the debacle in Florida in 2000, is now finally---yes finally---over. Or at least it will be when today's final editions hit the newsstands. Feel free to go to any newspaper website today to witness all the editorial writers getting the vitriol out of their systems. I'm not going to link them here, but they're fairly predictable in what they have to say:...

We all heard it repeatedly over at least the last 5 years. The moonbat conspiracy theory that Bush would "suspend the Constitution" and declare himself permanent president appeared all over the place; Internet, TV, radio, and newspapers and magazines alike. The slobbering left from Washington to California, Texas to Illinois and in every corner of the Earth was sure the evil Bushhitler would never give up power. Why, he was at the same time the dumbest man to ever trod the earf and the most evil, machiavellian schemer that concocted the most intricate web of conspiratorial power grabs in...

I recognize that this particular choice as one of the most memorable moments from the George W. Bush presidency may appear painfully cliche and wholly predictable.I accept that.That it has been seen many times makes it no less powerful or less stirring.It is from September 14, 2001 at Ground Zero.It is the third of three moments I have chosen to commemorate as the Bush presidency draws to a close.

With less than two days before Barack Obama takes the oath of office, and with seemingly every square inch of American humanity and culture consumed with all things messianic, I wanted to recall a few memorable moments of the George W. Bush presidency.I've already posted one - a powerful moment from George W. Bush's speech before a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001.Not surprisingly, for me, the three clips I have chosen to share all center around 9/11.This is the second of those three. It comes from the night of September 11, 2001 - just about twelve hours...

This is the fourth and final part of the 2008 review and as was true for parts one and two and three the following photos may not necessarily be the best photos or the most important but they are chosen because they appeal to me and hopefully to you as well. It maybe because of the content, the expression on the face(s) or just an unusual photo. As I explained there are so many photos I have split this thread into 4 the first one being January - March, the second April - June, the third July - September, and...

It is a great disservice to any person to sum up the totality of one's career in a few short words, using mere sound bites as a pretext to label it either a tremendous success or an abject failure. This is especially true of our presidents. Writing about the legacy of any president must, almost by definition, be an exercise in contrasts. One can find errors in the decisions of President Washington. By the same token, good intentions have frequently propelled the actions of our worst presidents, and even the worst of this group can be credited with accomplishments that...

This is the third part of the 2008 review and as was true for parts one and two the following photos may not necessarily be the best photos or the most important but they are chosen because they appeal to me and hopefully to you as well. It maybe because of the content, the expression on the face(s) or just an unusual photo. As I explained there are so many photos I have split this thread into 4 the first one being January - March, the second April - June and this one the the third one July - September,...

The media has gone beyond condemning when it comes to President Bush. The media has picked President Bush apart from being an alcoholic to being unintelligent to being uncaring and a warmonger. The media started this before President Bush got into office and have never ceased. Throw the wonders of Hollywood in the mix and one wonders how President Bush carried it all without a whimper. President Bush is an honorable man?

Today George W Bush visited the State Department for the last time as President where he presented the Medal of Freedom to Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice presented the President with a memento displaying the flags of European nations that entered NATO during his time as President during the ceremony to commemorate foreign policy achievements at the State Department during his Presidency. Later this evening the President will address the nation for the final time. The Vice President took part in a mock swearing-in ceremony for Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and United...

Tonight, President Bush will give his final address to the nation, ending a rocky eight years in the White House. According to the Dana Perino, the president's press secretary, this will be Bush's final appearance in public until the Obama's come knocking on Tuesday morning. Already this morning, Barack Obama and his family will officially be welcomed into the White House 'bubble' by moving into Blair House, a stones-throw from the executive mansion. The transition, of course, has reached its end stages. I, like many Americans that have supported this president have mixed feelings about the history that we are...

In a sense it should never have come to this. George W. Bush should never have been permitted to complete two full terms in the role of president of the United States for so many reasons. Attaining the highest of offices by unsavory means — it took the Supreme Court stopping the legitimate counting of votes in Florida, disrespecting the will of the people across this country along with the spirit of the Constitution. That was only the beginning of the contempt Mr. Bush would show for the document he couldn’t even remember swearing an oath to protect and defend...

An Unreflective Man With his public approval where Harry Truman's stood when he left office, George W. Bush gave his last press conference yesterday. And like that predecessor he often identifies with, Bush showed a Trumanesque defiance of his critics -- and a Trumanesque failure to understand what ruined his presidency. He denounced protectionism, as he has with dismissive contempt since he went to New Hampshire a decade ago. But nowhere in his defense of free trade was there any explanation for how Middle America lost 3 million manufacturing jobs in his first term and a million more in the...

Far be it from me to sow discord in MSNBC ranks, to stir up old animosities between colleagues there. But if Joe Scarborough is going to do a mocking imitation of Keith Olbermann in full Special Comment rant, well then, blogging ethics compel me to report it. The jumping-off point on Morning Joe today was Eugene Robinson's current WaPo column. After claiming that he didn't want to kick the president on his way out the door, Robinson proceeded to do just that. The columnist described a variety of measures adopted by the president in prosecution of the war against terror...

Leadership: George W. Bush was pegged as a hate figure even before being sworn in. Yet he resisted bitterness, stuck to principle and became what history will judge to be one of our better presidents.We may have witnessed in the last eight the Anti-Watergate. Richard Milhous Nixon never forgot a slight, used federal law enforcement powers against his political enemies and infuriated the Republican Party's conservative base with policies ranging from wage and price controls to detente with communists to Supreme Court appointments. Soon-to-be-ex-President Bush, on the other hand, has taken at least as much personal abuse, yet his graciousness...

Today the President held his last formal news conference at the White House in Washington DC. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice released the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief 2009 Annual Report to Congress. Pray for President Bush - Day 3036. Enjoy Sanity Island

**An ongoing collection of quotes from Bush about faith, his relationship with God, religion & politics, gay marriage, and more.** ### President Bush is a Methodist and has been very open about the role of faith in his life. Below are selections from recent speeches and interviews in which he mentions his faith or religious topics. ~~~ On God, War, and Freedom "Freedom is on the march in this world. I believe everybody in the Middle East desires to live in freedom. I believe women in the Middle East want to live in a free society. I believe mothers and...

President George W. Bush will give a farewell address to the nation Thursday night, billed by the administration as a chance to reflect on his tenure and welcome Barack Obama without fighting old battles one last time. Bush will deliver the speech, expected to run 10 to 15 minutes, from the ornate East Room of the White House. He will have a small audience of people in the room, chosen for their stories of personal courage. White House press secretary Dana Perino said Monday that Bush will "uphold the tradition of presidents using farewell addresses to look forward — .......