Free Republic

As President Obama prepares his State of the Union Address and the nation looks forward to a Presidents Day holiday, Americans should consider the warning examples of our worst chief executives. While few of Washington and Lincoln's successors could hope to replicate their epic achievements, every president can — and must — focus on avoiding the appalling ineptitude of John Tyler, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and their feckless fellow travelers on the road to presidential perdition. The common elements that link our least successful leaders teach historical lessons at least as important as the shared traits of the Rushmore Four:...

February 6, 2013 This is my favorite Ronald Reagan speech James Pethokoukis | February 6, 2013, 1:43 pm The Gipper’s November 1979 presidential candidacy announcement is one of his less well-known speeches, but a crackerjack nonetheless. If you are short for time, cut right to 1:50 in. It’s like he’s speaking to 2013 America across space and time: Reagan: To me our country is a living, breathing presence, unimpressed by what others say is impossible, proud of its own success, generous, yes and naïve, sometimes wrong, never mean and always impatient to provide a better life for its people in...

Ronald Reagan’s birthday will be commemorated this week. He took office just a few weeks shy of his 70th birthday in 1981 making him the oldest man elected to serve as our Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief, that is until he stood for re-election in 1984. In fact, one of the most well-known lines in Presidential debate history came in response to Reagan being questioned whether his age would be an important factor in his re-election campaign. Reagan, in his famous Irish wit, said, “I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience,” which drew...

One of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch's last interviews before his death on Friday came in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire. The most interesting part of the Q&A came when he was asked who was what living person he "most despise[s]." ... Which living person do you most despise? Former president Jimmy Carter.

The Historic Arkansas Museum will have two of George Washington's Bibles on display beginning Feb. 8. According to the museum's website, the Bible from the first president's inauguration will be on display for only two days, Feb. 8 from 5:00-8:00 p.m. and Saturday, Feb. 9 from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. The George Washington Family Bible will also be exhibited, but will be on display for a longer period of time.

CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama averaged a 49.1 percent job approval during his first term in office, among the lowest for post-World War II presidents, according to a new Gallup poll.

<p>The "legacy thing" may be harder than Barack Obama imagines. Beginning his second term, Obama has a focused, though unstated, agenda: to achieve presidential greatness in the eyes of historians and Americans. In this, he will almost certainly fail. He is already a historic president as the first African-American to be elected, but there is a chasm between being historic and being great.</p>

Former President George H.W. Bush was released from Methodist Hospital in Houston on Monday after being admitted in November. An illness and complications stemming from a bronchitis-related cough extended his stay. The 88-year-old spent a week in intensive care.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has signed into law a bill granting lifetime Secret Service protection to former presidents and their wives. The measure Obama signed Thursday applies to presidents elected after Jan. 1, 1997, specifically Obama and former President George W. Bush. It reverses a 1994 law that ended Secret Service protection 10 years after a president leaves office. Under that law, the Homeland Security secretary could extend such protection on a temporary basis. A sponsor of the bill, Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, says increased terrorist threats and the greater mobility and youth of former presidents...

Wednesday is the 100th anniversary of Richard Nixon's birth. He remains a controversial figure, and not just on the political left. Last year, I was covering the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington when I came across a stall selling old political pins. Unable to resist, I bought one with a picture of Tricky Dick giving his best crocodile smile beneath the classic slogan "Nixon's The One!"

For five years, he was known as the leader of the Free World. But for the first several years of his life, Richard Milhous Nixon had a more modest title: farm boy. Wednesday will mark the date, 100 years ago, of a winter day so cold that Hannah Nixon was advised it would be better to bear her fifth son at home than risk traveling in the chill to a hospital. That was the day a small, kit-constructed home surrounded by citrus trees saw the birth of the man who would become the 37th president of the United States.

The American Revolution was over. The United States of America was finished. The Continental Army was all but finished in December 1776 as the British and their Hessian (German) mercenary allies settled in for a long winter rest. In those days, it was customary that armies rest and refit in the winter months in preparation for the campaign seasons of spring and summer. And the British were all about custom and tradition. No matter, thought the British. They saw little need to move directly against Washington's army and risk further casualties. The Continental Army was disintegrating. Unpaid, ill-equipped, cold, and...

It's been 14 years since President Bill Clinton was impeached. Free Republic played a key role.On October 31, 1998, Free Republic held the first online-organized national protest to call for Clinton's impeachment and removal from office. The rally was broadcast live on C-SPAN for over four hours. Speakers included a who's who of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.The rally can be viewed in its entirety online at C-SPANAs the Senate trial drew to a close in Feburary 1999, FReepers came together online to design and fund a full page ad in the Washington Times urging the Senate to do its...

THOMAS JEFFERSON is in the news again, nearly 200 years after his death — alongside a high-profile biography by the journalist Jon Meacham comes a damning portrait of the third president by the independent scholar Henry Wiencek. We are endlessly fascinated with Jefferson, in part because we seem unable to reconcile the rhetoric of liberty in his writing with the reality of his slave owning and his lifetime support for slavery. Time and again, we play down the latter in favor of the former, or write off the paradox as somehow indicative of his complex depths. Neither Mr. Meacham, who...

Former President George H.W. Bush is in the hospital, the Houston Chronicle reported Thursday. Bush, 88, is at Houston’s Methodist Hospital receiving treatment for a “chronic cough,” his chief of staff, Jean Becker, told the Chronicle.

New Movie Propagates Lincoln Historical Myths If you are planning to see the new, Steven Spielberg directed, Lincoln movie you might want to invest in an accurate history book instead. While it is successfully dramatic, the movie rehashes several 150 year old myths about the Lincoln presidency and America’s most horrible war. First, to the movie’s credit, the script avoids a key, blatant lie that is currently being taught throughout American public schools today. The script focuses correctly on explaining how slaves were freed by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, not the Emancipation Proclamation. Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation did...

If George Washington was alive today he would dress down the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for cowardice. The man from Chicago exhibited dastardly behavior by the abandonment of Americans at the hand of Muslim Terrorists. The American tradition of never abandoning those under his command on the battlefield while hiding in lofty comfort several thousand miles away. Standing by and doing nothing while watching your men being murdered by uneducated savages is criminal. Only a man who never defended this country can show total disregard for his fellow Americans. If Thomas Jefferson was alive he would berate the...

We're not far away from the presidential election. You will inevitably hear over the coming days that this will be one of the most important elections of our lifetimes. I'm not sure that's the case. One of my favorite election quotes comes from bank lobbyist Andrew Lowenthal: "Every election I've ever been involved with has been 'the most important election in history.' At some point, it's not. It's just the path of history."In general, presidents get too much credit for the economy when things are good, and too much blame when things are poor. We tend to imagine every blip...

This is the story of two very different American presidents and how they each answered their emergency Libyan phone calls. First, the story of Ronald Reagan. When he got a call about trouble with Libya it was in August of 1981 and I happened to be having dinner with him and Nancy in Los Angeles. We had just finished eating and were having coffee when Ed Meese phoned. Meese was my father's top policy adviser, and there was a serious military crisis brewing in the Mediterranean. At the time, the United States Navy was conducting war exercises in international waters...

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter condemned Israel on Monday, saying the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are fading into a crisis. Carter told a news conference in Jerusalem on Monday said the Israeli-PA peace process has reached a crisis point and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government was not interested in pursuing a two-state solution. Carter arrived here this week with other members of “The Elders” – group of former world leaders who are in the region to visit Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Egypt. He claimed that continued construction in Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and...