Free Republic

Michael Goodwin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Post columnist, wrote an article today, entitled, "Dreading Our Future." An admitted Barack Obama voter, Goodwin expresses much more than just buyer's remorse. The anger, frustration, disappointment, shock, and fear he feels is communicated very clearly. The closest Goodwin comes to paying President Obama a compliment is, "he (Obama) has become an insufferable bore."

A toothbrush, TelePrompTer and the nuclear football - they are the essentials for a traveling President. But as Barack Obama packs for this week's historic trip to the Mideast and Europe, there is something he definitely ought to leave at home: grating apologies for America's past. None is needed. Genuine pride in representing America will do just fine. Our nation has no peer in liberating people from the grip of tyranny, especially in the regions Obama will visit. That's a fact of history and the President of the United States ought to take every opportunity to say so. He certainly...

Everybody makes mistakes, and I made a beaut the other day. I was wrong to call members of Congress blow-hards and buffoons and declare them worse than useless. I was too kind. I should have said our representatives are gangsters in pinstripes and pearls. They are petty tyrants and the more power they grab, the more at risk we are. Homeland Security should flash Code Red any time this Congress is in session. It is twilight in America now. The House vote to use the tax code to retroactively punish bonus babies was an act of sheer madness. What started...

Not long ago, after a string of especially bad days for the Obama administration, a veteran Democratic pol approached me with a pained look on his face and asked, "Do you think they know what they're doing?" The question caught me off guard because the man is a well-known Obama supporter. As we talked, I quickly realized his asking suggested his own considerable doubts.

Here is video of a discussion historian Doris Kearns Goodwin had with NBC's David Gregory about what may be President-elect Barack Obama's model for assembling a Cabinet. Goodwin wrote a book called "Team of Rivals," which details how President Abraham Lincoln brought some of his fiercest rivals and opponents into his Cabinet to govern with him. Obama has actually cited Goodwin's book, and Lincoln's example. The talk of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and Obama's meeting scheduled for Monday with Sen.John McCain is fueling speculation that he may be trying to assemble such a governing team. . . ....

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) At least four journalists were among those detained during violent protests outside the Republican National Convention in St. Paul today. They include Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke and Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, a nationally syndicated public radio and TV news program.

he 20-year-old man wanted in connection with the killing of a University of North Texas sophomore has been arrested in Mexico, Carrollton police said Tuesday.Ernesto Reyes was named as a suspect a day after Melanie Goodwin, 19, was found dead in Carrollton about 11:30 a.m. Sept. 25.Police said Goodwin, of Arlington, was last seen talking to Reyes at a Denton gas station about nine hours earlier. A clerk said he asked her for a ride, according to police. The two didn't know each other, police said.U.S. marshals and Mexican authorities arrested Reyes about 1 p.m. today as he left a...

Lots of True Crime including a few local crimes. We've got updates on the Delaware Univ. shooting and the strange case of the Delmarva lady with a yard full of dead babies. The Spector mistrial, a family living in squalor, illegal aliens killing Americans and, of course, the saga of the smuggled iguanas. Her trial's coming up...lots of links and info on the lady who stole an unborn baby from her mother's body-Lisa Montgomery.

Apparently, being a former Kennedy speechwriter doesn’t carry quite the same cachet as actually being a Kennedy -at least when it comes to drunken-driving arrests. Because Richard Goodwin, longtime family retainer who advised JFK, RFK and Ted Kennedy, was arrested in his hometown of Concord and charged with drunken driving after he plowed his car into a police cruiser. Ooooops! Goodwin, 74, the hubby of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and a legendary political player, was not given a ride home, a la Patrick Kennedy. Oh nooooo. He was arrested and taken to the Concord PD where he was charged with...

EXETER, ME – Today, Maine Farm Families for Bush-Cheney ’04 State Chair Walt Whitcomb, state Sen. Betty Lou Mitchell, state Rep. Jeff Tardy and local farmers gathered to announce the Central Maine leadership members of the statewide Bush-Cheney ’04 farming coalition. “Maine farmers work hard day in and day out to earn a living, and they know President Bush is working hard to support our industry and our way of life,” Whitcomb said. “President Bush’s strong record and steady leadership is rallying farmers across the state who are eager to support President Bush and work together for his re-election...

"It was a hard book to write. Parts of the book were very painful to write. If there was a fury, it was a fury at all the lies that are used to justify war, all the myths of war -- all of the things we're told about war that I had to find out the hard way and very painfully are not true. And if there's a fury at that, it's the mendacity of the entire enterprise." - C. Hedges This book is not about military war, as it pretends. It's about political war, and is the opening salvo...

Historian to explore Lincoln's Cabinet John Andrew Prime Posted on October 18, 2002 Historian and writer Doris Kearns Goodwin never walked a mile in the big shoes of Abraham Lincoln, but she's eager to explore - in print and in Shreveport next week - the prickly brambles the Civil War president trod dealing with the men who formed his cabinet. She'll speak on Lincoln and his cabinet at 8 a.m. Thursday at the LSU Shreveport University Center Theater as this year's Frank and Virginia Williams Lecture speaker, sponsored by the school's International Lincoln Center for American Studies. The talk is...

<p>In a move to demonstrate his seriousness about declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alfred T. Goodwin will change his name to Alfred Not-so-bad-win.</p> <p>"Too many people subscribe to the notion that God is Good," the judge said. "So to maintain true separation of church and state it behooves me to change my name to set a good example. Keeping my name as it is may be construed as a further endorsement of religion."</p>

Fox News's decision to display the office telephone number of the San Francisco federal judge who struck down the use of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance on Wednesday has raised eyebrows among some broadcast journalists. Bob Roberts, a reporter for WBBM Radio news in Chicago, commented in the industry newsletter Shop Talk: "Where I come from, that's harassment. There are plenty of ways to air the story without stooping to that level." Other news organizations focused on how the ruling by Judge Alfred Goodwin of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had touched off...

Feinstein Link to Attack on Pledge West Coast's 9th Circuit Court May Face Break Up Los Angeles Times 09-22-97 WASHINGTON - The judges of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have called it "idiotic," "silly" and "very odd." No, they were not referring to their usual nemesis, the U.S. Supreme Court. Rather, the target of their complaints was a plan by Senate Republicans to break up the West Coast's large and liberal-leaning judicial district. In July, shortly after the 9th Circuit suffered a rapid-fire round of reversals in the Supreme Court, the Republicans pushed through the Senate a...

Almost three months ago, bestselling popular historian Doris Kearns Goodwin was a frequent guest on News Hour with Jim Lehrer, had dozens of speaking engagements and was a celebrated recipient of the Pulitzer Prize as well as a member of the Pulitzer board. Today, she rarely appears on television and is the subject of intense media scrutiny about a controversy that strikes at the heart of the historian's profession: plagiarism. The 2002 Pulitzer Prizes, announced yesterday by Columbia University President George Rupp, were decided without Goodwin's input. While the recent controversies about academic honesty in the historiographical profession took center...

It’s not likely that many people are taking pleasure in Goodwin’s ordeal. She is, by most accounts, a nice person who works hard on her books. A Concord resident, she is also a local celebrity, someone in whom Bostonians have justifiably taken some pride. She has essentially admitted to plagiarism in the case of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. But though her Pulitzer-winning 1994 opus on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, No Ordinary Time (Simon & Schuster), has come under question, it seems solid enough to me to withstand sustained assault. Doris Kearns Goodwin is not a fraud. She is, rather,...

Historian Goodwin defends her research, writing Chuck Haga Star Tribune Published Mar 8, 2002 A combative Doris Kearns Goodwin vowed in St. Paul Thursday night to continue quot;to tell and retell the stories of the past,quot; confident that quot;my reputation for integrity . . . will sustain me long after this current controversy fades into history.quot; The quot;maelstromquot; of media attention and criticism that followed her acknowledgment that she had used unattributed passages from another writer in one of her books will cause her to be more cautious in criticizing other public figures in such situations, she said. quot;I hope...

Historian Goodwin says reputation will sustain her BY MARY ANN GROSSMANN Pioneer Press #147;I intend, however difficult it is at the moment, to write history and tell stories as long as I am able,#146;#146; Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin told an appreciative audience Thursday night at the College of St. Catherine. Goodwin#146;s #147;difficulty#146;#146; was her admission in February that she had used uncredited material in her 1987 book #147;The Fitzgeralds amp; The Kennedys.#146;#146; In her first public speech since the plagiarism flap brought her media scrutiny, Goodwin said that writing history is #147;a treasured part of my life#146;#146; and...