Free Republic

George W. Bush in 2001 declared war on a tactic (terrorism), and empowered Big Brother to tap phones, launch drones and indefinitely imprison people without due process. Barack Obama in 2008 declared those Bush policies an overreach, and pledged to curb drone strikes, protect media freedoms, and close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Instead, he escalated drone strikes and spied on the media. Gitmo is still open for its grim business. These are facts. And yet, they are distorted by extreme and narrow-minded partisans, supporters of both Bush and Obama. Conservatives contend that Bush single-handedly prevented a major terrorist strike...

The president has a base of loyalists that won't quit and, at least for now, there's no evidence he was involved in any scandals. Another day, another poll showing that President Obama's job-approval rating is not collapsing under the weight of scandals and controversies. Why is he holding steady? Will it last? And will Republicans take any cues from his staying power? Given the noise level on Capitol Hill, cable TV, and social media, Obama's 50 percent-plus showings in recent polls from CNN, Pew, and ABC/Washington Post seem somewhat surprising. But two veteran political pollsters, one from each party, say...

A recent picture in Time magazine showed an Obama staffer leaning casually against a column in the White House portico. The caption read, “This White House chief of staff has been working to neutralize Washington’s toxic political environment.” The picture is of Denis McDonough, President Barack Obama’s new chief of staff. There is not a trace of irony in Time’s presentation, even though many Americans would wonder from which planet the editor came. The picture couldn’t have been more ironic if it had been taken in 1943 showing a German functionary at the Reichstag with a caption reading, “This official...

The thing people often forget about the story of the boy who cried wolf was that, at the end of the day, there was a wolf. For the past six years – since Barack Obama announced his presidential intentions – Republicans have been crying themselves hoarse. Obama, if they were to be believed, was a Kenyan-born communist Muslim with a forged birth certificate who stole the election by registering millions of ineligible voters. "A lot of information about Obama's background is missing," said Abigail Billings, at a meeting of a 9-12 group (organised by the conservative former Fox host Glenn...

James C. Goodale, the so-called “father of reporters’ privilege” and the author of a new book called Fighting for the Press (CUNY Journalism Press, 255 pp., $20), was in his office at the Debevoise & Plimpton law firm, where he’s a partner, comparing Barack Obama to Richard M. Nixon. “Nixon and Agnew were like listening to a Fox News program all day long, every day,” he said. “In their eyes, the Eastern establishment press were against them and they were against it and they were going to destroy it as best they can.” But, he said, “Obama has all these...

I never thought that I would be saying this, but it’s time we started addressing Joe Biden as “Mr. President.” The U.S. Constitution stipulation of “high crimes and misdemeanors” is vast, but abuse of power and serious misconduct in office certainly fits this category. Andrew Johnson, the 17th President of the United States, was impeached for challenging the Tenure of Office Act (1867) which prohibited the president from dismissing office holders without the Senate’s approval. Johnson tested this federal law by acting alone and firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, thus his action was the basis for impeachment. However, the...

That’s the revelation made by California Congressman Devin Nunes, who sits on the House Ways And Means Committee on Hugh Hewitt’s Show Wednesday night. Here’s the key part of that transcript: HH: The idea that this might be a Geithner-Axelrod plan, and by that, the sort of intimation, Henry II style, will no one rid me of this turbulent priest, will no one rid me of these turbulent Tea Parties, that might have just been a hint, a shift of an eyebrow, a change in the tone of voice. That’s going to take a long time to get to. I...

In Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, he ran to the left of Hillary Clinton as a moral reformer. Obama promised to transcend the old politics and bring a new era of hope-and-change transparency to Washington. Five years later, those vows are in shambles. True, the murder of four Americans in Benghazi has become a mess of partisan bickering. But the disturbing facts now transcend politics. The Obama administration -- the president himself, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney -- all at various times blamed an obscure video maker for the "spontaneous...

A Democratic strategist emails: "The AP phone records thing just sealed the deal for what the newest narrative around the Obama administration is going to be. They are the new Nixon admin when it comes to bullying, withholding info and targeting enemies. The right won't probably call him directly Nixon because you know, Nixon was a Republican, but it will be the basic idea. You will hear claims that there has never been an administration who reached so far to suppress information and dissent." "While I don't think this is actually the full truth, it is hard to not realize...

Jay Leno did not waste anytime before digging into President Obama for his sudden barrage of scandals during his Tonight Show monologue last night. The host tied together the controversies over Benghazi, the IRS targeting conservatives and the Justice Department wiretapping the AP into one larger narrative, asking, “Remember the old days when President Obama’s biggest embarrassment was Joe Biden?” “They’re warning this could be a long, hot summer,” Leno began, supposedly referring to the California heat wave. “They’re telling everyone to cover up. And believe me, you don’t have to tell the Obama White House twice. They know about...