Free Republic

While Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, Putin in his own style, sent a gift to the Turkmen who killed his pilot: hell, fire and brimstone coming from all directions; land, air and sea.

DENVER—President Barack Obama, stung by bad reviews in his first debate of the 2012 White House race, joked that the "very spirited fellow" onstage with him was "not the real Mitt Romney." Obama also mocked the former Massachusetts governor's pledge to cut government subsidies for PBS as "finally getting tough on Big Bird." "When I got onto the stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney," he told cheering supporters here. "But it couldn't have been Mitt Romney, because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5...

The president responded to charges of racism in the health care debate by going on five Sunday talk shows and, in classic Clintonian fashion, gently disagreed with the sentiment being expressed without harshly condemning it. This was a missed opportunity. A real leader would have stopped this nonsense immediately.

In clinching the Democratic Presidential nomination, Barack Obama is now the leader of his party. The first test of his leadership as a potential President will be his response to the extraordinary campaign already underway to bully him into choosing Hillary Clinton as his running mate. Mrs. Clinton's tenacity in the primaries deserves credit, and she has earned the respect that Mr. Obama's remarks on Tuesday night gave her. But as he prepares for November, and perhaps for January, he has earned the right to choose a Vice Presidential nominee with whom he's comfortable, and on his own timetable. On...