Free Republic

"Aloof." "Cool." "Above the fray." These are all characteristics that have been used to describe President Obama and likely characteristics he would use to describe himself. President Obama came to Washington promising to end the partisan rancor that has come to define lawmaking in the nation's capitol. But instead of addressing it, he just pretends like he never has to get his hands dirty. A New York Times article today reveals that lawmakers in the President's own party are fed up with his refusal to actually work with Congress: With Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, sitting a few feet away,...

Sen. Barack Obama's pastor says blacks should not sing "God Bless America" but "God damn America." The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's south side, has a long history of what even Obama's campaign aides concede is "inflammatory rhetoric," including the assertion that the United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own "terrorism." In a campaign appearance earlier this month, Sen. Obama said, "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial." He said Rev. Wright "is like an old uncle who says things I...

The Democrat was surging ahead but now revelations about the men who helped shape him are putting voters off Long before Barack Obama launched his campaign for the White House, when he was considering a run for the US Senate in 2003, he paid an intriguing visit to a former Chicago sewers inspector who had risen to become one of the most influential African-American politicians in Illinois. “You have the power to elect a US senator,” Obama told Emil Jones, Democratic leader of the Illinois state senate. Jones looked at the ambitious young man smiling before him and asked, teasingly:...

  Suddenly the big news is about exaggerated earnings, disguised liabilities and the deception of all sorts of fraudulent, off-budget shenanigans. But, this time they were not talking about government. The topic was misdeeds by the captains of corporations. Businessmen! What's going on here? Don't these guys understand that only governments may violate the law with impunity? The answer is both yes and no. If publicly traded businesses kept their books like the federal government does, few of the corporations on our stock exchanges would be worth much of anything. But, if "generally accepted accounting practices" are what the law...