Free Republic

CNN's Candy Crowley asks Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC): "When does the statute of limitations run out on blaming the Bush administration and when is it on you all as the governing -- really in the House and the Senate and the White House. When does the economy your baby, so to speak?"

President Obama and his leftist pals ought to start taking responsibility for the shortcomings of their extreme ideology. The left’s knee-jerk reaction: Blame former President George W. Bush for anything that goes wrong, seems to have no bounds. Bush has been saddled with everything from a bad economy to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Continues... To stem the Gulf oil gusher and clean up the mess, Obama has been mustering all the incompetence his entire administration could manage under the circumstances. His biggest achievement thus far is watching this drag out for over a month before realizing...

NAPLES — The Bush brothers packed the house at the Naples Grande Beach Resort. Former President George W. Bush and his brother Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, spoke Tuesday night as part of the Naples Town Hall Distinguished Speakers Series. They talked issues _ everything from health care and the Iraq war to budget deficits and Social Security reform. George W. Bush, the 43rd U.S. president, has stayed out of the spotlight, limiting his face-time in public since leaving the White House about a year ago. He and his brother – the state’s 43rd governor – addressed a...

HONOLULU (AP) -- President Barack Obama has rejected his first piece of legislation from Congress, a stopgap spending bill that never had to take effect. The White House on Wednesday said Obama exercised his right to send back to the Capitol a temporary appropriations bill that lawmakers passed in case a winter storm about two weeks ago would have prevented them from approving a final measure to fund the Pentagon next year. The Dec. 19 blizzard didn't keep them away from the Capitol and they approved the $626 billion defense spending bill before the previous budget expired. The White House...

Many conservative politicians, radio hosts, and pundits have repeatedly stated their shared belief that the Republican Party “lost its way” prior to the 2008 election. In their minds, the entire conservative movement believed in limited government and low spending and was simply corrupted by absolute power. They may be surprised to learn that this is not the case at all. The fact that party leadership turned its back on limited government and low spending was entirely predictable. In fact, it should have been expected. The conservative movement is not homogeneous. Rather, the movement consists of fiscal conservatives, limited government conservatives,...

(snip) I am concerned, however, that a number of the legislative proposals being circulated would significantly reduce the capacity of the Federal Reserve to perform its core functions. Notably, some leading proposals in the Senate would strip the Fed of all its bank regulatory powers. And a House committee recently voted to repeal a 1978 provision that was intended to protect monetary policy from short-term political influence. These measures are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and they would seriously impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama has irked close allies in Congress by declaring he has the right to ignore legislation on constitutional grounds after having criticized George W. Bush for doing the same. Four senior House Democrats on Tuesday said they were "surprised" and "chagrined" by Obama's declaration in June that he doesn't have to comply with provisions in a war spending bill that puts conditions on aid provided to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. In a signing statement accompanying the $106 billion bill, Obama said he wouldn't allow the legislation to interfere with his authority as...

"The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –8. The President’s Approval Index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week."

KURT Campbell can shoot from the hip and September 11, 2007 was no exception. Writing on a blog on The New York Times that day, having recently returned from a family trip to Australia, Campbell claimed that George W. Bush and "his massive entourage" diverted from a secret trip from Iraq to Sydney the week before just to help out an "old mate" John Howard get re-elected. "While the agenda in Australia also called for a meeting with 21 Asian leaders to discuss weighty policy matters like global climate change and to listen attentively while others opined - just the...