Free Republic

Calling Former Senator Edward W. Brooke's life an "unlikely" journey President Obama today honored the first popularly elected African American senator for receiving the highest honor Congress can bestow, the Congressional Gold Medal. "I think today's honor bears a unique significance," Mr. Obama said in an afternoon ceremony in the Capitol rotunda, "bestowed by this body of which he was an esteemed member; presented in this place where he moved the arc of history; surrounded by so many -- myself included -- who have followed the trail that he blazed. " The President said that Brooke spent his life "breaking...

Article: Good Intentions, Bad Idea HONOLULU: Some unsolicited advice to professors, congressmen, former diplomats and anyone seeking a Nobel Peace Prize nomination: If you really want to help resolve the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula, stay home. Such delegations are always well intentioned but generally not very helpful in actually resolving the crisis. True, former President Jimmy Carter's mission to Pyongyang in 1994 did help save the day, moving the Clinton administration and Kim Il Sung, father of North Korea's current leader, back from the brink of sanctions and possibly war. But 2004 is not 1994 and heads...

Is Co-Opting the Big Spending Agenda Sound Strategery? If you missed Wednesday's program, you missed a watershed moment in American history: the detailing of the once-great Democratic Party of Jefferson, Jackson and FDR's collapse. (See: The BIG Theory) I praised a caller named John in Pennsylvania, who did something rare: he used his brain to think about the examples of the trend of co-opting the liberal big-spending agenda as a way to GOP victory. John rightly pointed out that if Tom Daschle had "co-opted" our agenda in the 90s, we'd have claimed victory for the conservative movement. In fact, we...