Free Republic

Even today, Turkey does not allow dead Armenians to rest in peace. What is the most at is the most horrible crime against humanity in history? To Henry Morgenthau Sr., who served as the US ambassador to the Ottoman Empire between 1913 and 1916, it was the Armenian genocide. Morgenthau wrote in 1919: “I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.” Up to 1.5 million Armenians were wiped...

The new Christian Bale film 'The Promise' won't be out in theaters until Friday, but it's IMDB rating has already been tanked by tens of thousands of one-star reviews. In the film, set at the end of the Ottoman Empire, Bale plays an Associated Press reporter covering the Armenian genocide. While the atrocities are largely considered to be the first genocide of the 20th century, Turkey still refuses to use the term in reference to the mass killing. After hearing the topic of the film, trolls organized on a Turkish message board similar to 4Chan or Reddit to protest the...

the Armenian genocide, an event Turkey does not recognize. “One and a half million people were killed in the most brutal fashion, and I knew nothing about it, and that’s not uncommon ... The fact that this Armenian genocide happened and no one was ever held accountable may have provoked other genocides since.” At least 26 countries recognize the deaths as genocide, but in Turkey it is reportedly illegal to bring up the event.

Progressive Jonathan Alter is outraged that everyone is ready to “fire” Obama. “I want to know,” wrote a snippy Alter on Bloomberg.com, “on a substantive basis, why you think he deserves to be in a dead heat with Mitt Romney and Rick Perry and only a few points ahead of Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann in a new Gallup Poll. Is it just that any president -- regardless of circumstances and party -- who presides over 9 percent unemployment deserves to lose?”I was tempted to treat Alter with the “What? You got to be kidding,” routine. Any Republican should be...

“Tell me again why Barack Obama has been such a bad president?” Jonathan Alter writes in his column.Alter tells us he’s not talking here about Obama as a tactician and communicator, and he’s not interested in hearing ad hominem attacks or about people’s generalized “disappointment.” (Neither am I.) He wants to know on a substantive basis why Obama should be judged to have failed so far.In Alter’s words, “Your mission, Jim [or anyone else for that matter], should you decide to accept it, is to be specific and rational, not vague and visceral.”Consider the mission accepted.In one sense, the answer...

“Tell me again why Barack Obama has been such a bad president?” Jonathan Alter writes in his column. Alter tells us he’s not talking here about Obama as a tactician and communicator, and he’s not interested in hearing ad hominem attacks or about people’s generalized “disappointment.” (Neither am I.) He wants to know on a substantive basis why Obama should be judged to have failed so far. In Alter’s words, “Your mission, Jim [or anyone else for that matter], should you decide to accept it, is to be specific and rational, not vague and visceral.” Consider the mission accepted. In...

Tell me again why Barack Obama has been such a bad president? I'm not talking here about him as a tactician and communicator. We can agree that he has played some bad poker with Congress. And let’s stipulate that at the moment he’s falling short in the intangibles of leadership. I’m thinking instead of that opening sequence in the show “Mission Impossible,” the one where Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves, gets his instructions.

Three days after he decried the lack of civility in American politics, President Obama is quoted in a new book about his presidency referring to the Tea Party movement using a derogatory term with sexual connotations. In Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” President Obama is quoted in an interview saying that the unanimous vote of House Republicans vote against the stimulus bills “set the tenor for the whole year ... That helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.” Tea Party...

President Obama may cultivate an image as the unflappable Mr. Cool, but he can get hot under the collar too, according to a new book. In "The Promise: President Obama, Year One," by Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter, the author recounts a series of private blow-ups - including a particularly fiery one involving the nation's top military brass. "A presidential dressing down unlike any in the United States in more than half a century," is how Alter describes the October 2009 eruption. [Snip] But it's often the flashes of anger, not amour, that shine through Alter's tome, including: Asked...

Rest of Title: in Interview With Newsweek Editor White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he did not know and could not imagine asking President Barack Obama whether he used the vulgar sexual term “tea baggers” to describe Americans active in the Tea Party movement. “I can’t imagine I would ask the president that,” Gibbs said at Thursday’s White House press briefing. According to Newsweek senior editor and columnist Jonathan Alter in his new book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, the president used the slur to describe the largely conservative activists of the Tea Party movement, which has been...

Last Saturday, Americans were again instructed on their political manners by their Moralizer in Chief. While delivering a commencement address to the University of Michigan's graduating students, President Barack Obama's comments were really meant for the nation's political class. His speech dealt with the importance of "a basic level of civility in our public debate." "We cannot expect to solve our problems if all we do is tear each other down," Mr. Obama said. He spoke against "demonizing" political opponents or "questioning their motives or their patriotism." It is "not the hurt feelings or the bruised egos" such rhetoric causes...

The term "tea-bagger" is like uttering the "n" word, some say. Though he aspires to promote civility, evidence has surfaced that President Obama has added "tea-bagger" to his public lexicon, though it's considered a cheap and tawdry insult by "tea party" activists. Watchdogs at Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) barked when they saw the proof, tucked in a sneak peak of Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter's new book, "The Promise: President Obama, Year One," to be released May 18. Indeed, it appears the president joined certain partisan critics and the liberal media, and took the tea-bag plunge.

Unbelievable! Obama tells the truth!… From Aaron Wiener at The Washington Independent… I’m just starting to dig through an advance copy of “The Promise,” Jonathan Alter’s new book on President Obama’s first year in office, set for publication on May 18. But there are some great nuggets right at the start. Alter describes the chaotic scene at a Sept. 25, 2008, meeting on the impending Wall Street bailout at the White House with Obama, John McCain, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, President Bush and congressional leaders from both parties — a meeting at which Obama decisively took the upper hand in...

Doubtless the defense here will be that The One wasn’t aware of the sexual connotation and therefore had no idea that the term offends tea partiers. Funny thing, though: Offhand, I can’t recall a single instance of him saying “teabaggers” publicly. Not in speeches, not in interviews, not at town halls, not even at that fundraiser a few weeks ago when he goofed on protesters by saying they should be thanking him for cutting their taxes, i.e. for running up gigantic deficits. If he doesn’t know the term’s impolitic, how come he hasn’t innocently used it on camera yet? He...

The term "tea-bagger" is like uttering the "n" word, some say. Though he aspires to promote civility, evidence has surfaced that President Obama has added "tea-bagger" to his public lexicon, though it's considered a cheap and tawdry insult by "tea party" activists. Watchdogs at Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) barked when they saw the proof, tucked in a sneak peak of Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter's new book, "The Promise: President Obama, Year One," to be released May 18. "This remark is the equivalent of using the 'n' word. It shows contempt for middle America, expressed knowingly, contemptuously, on purpose, and...

Three days after he decried the lack of civility in American politics, President Obama is quoted in a new book about his presidency referring to the Tea Party movement using a derogatory term with sexual connotations. In Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” President Obama is quoted in an November 30, 2009, interview saying that the unanimous vote of House Republicans vote against the stimulus bills “set the tenor for the whole year ... That helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the...

As if allowing Jay-Z into the Situation Room wasn’t enough, now our esteemed, class act, President is dropping the term “tea-bagger” to describe members of the Tea Party, via Jake Tapper: Three days after he decried the lack of civility in American politics, President Obama is quoted in a new book about his presidency referring to the Tea Party movement using a derogatory term with sexual connotations. In Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” President Obama is quoted in an interview saying that the unanimous vote of House Republicans vote against the stimulus bills “set the tenor for...

NEW YORK (AP) -- President Barack Obama reprimanded top Pentagon officials last year for pressing publicly for a troop increase in Afghanistan. That's according to "The Promise," a book on Obama's first year in office by Newsweek writer Jonathan Alter.

In his new book on President Obama's first year in office, "The Promise," Jonathan Alter includes a quote from the president's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, illustrating just how opposed Emanuel was to the president's push for comprehensive health care reform. "I begged him not to do this," Emanuel told Alter, as detailed by the Washington Post's Greg Sargent, writing off advanced excerpts put out ahead of the book's release Tuesday. (Hotsheet just got its copy of the book and is planning to dig into it this weekend.) The president overruled Emanuel, telling him, according to the book, that he...

The battle over the Pentagon's billions has traditionally been fought between two forces - those who want more new planes and ships and tanks, and those who want more money for troops. Now there is a third: military health care. The cost of the main military health care plan, Tricare, has doubled since 2001 and will soon reach $50 billion a year, more than a tenth of the Pentagon's budget. At least 75 percent of the benefits will go to veterans and retirees. Over the next decade, a new plan for military retirees, Tricare for Life, will cost at least...