Free Republic

Later in the segment on CNN’s "Newsroom" between Tony Harris, David Gergen, and Roland Martin after the Reverend Jeremiah Wright speech at the National Press Club (which Mark Finkelstein blogged about earlier), Gergen suggested that "it’s time for him [Rev. Wright] to get off the stage, and frankly, for the media, I suggest, to move on." He also twice characterized the whole affair as a "sideshow" [audio available here].Shortly after a commercial break which came in the middle of the discussion, Gergen, in response to a question from "Newsroom" co-host Tony Harris, said of Rev. Wright, "Every time he appears,...

'The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense.' Actually, what doesn't make much sense is how an intelligent man such as Barack Obama might not see how a relationship with Bill Ayers does in fact reflect on him and his values. Especially when Ayers' response to his "detestable acts" is simply, "I feel we didn't do enough." Oh, really? Of course, one can't blame Obama for being so surprised or offended by...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Sunday that race is not the reason he is struggling to attract working-class votes and insisted he can win over uncommitted superdelegates by showing he is "best able to not just defeat John McCain, but also lead the country." Speaking in a broadcast interview, Obama also brushed aside a challenge from Hillary Rodham Clinton to debate before the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. "I'm not ducking. We've had 21" debates, he said. Trailing in delegates and the popular vote, Clinton has been stepping up the pressure on Obama for more debates...

WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) - Barack Obama, struggling to win over white Democratic voters as he seeks to become the first black U.S. president, said in a Sunday television interview that race would not be a factor in November's election. "Is race still a factor in our society? Yes. I don't think anybody would deny that," Obama said on "Fox News Sunday." "Is that going to be the determining factor in a general election? No, because I'm absolutely confident that the American people -- what they're looking for is somebody who can solve their problems," the Illinois senator said in...

Amid the din of the dueling democrats, people seem to have forgotten about that other guy in the presidential race—you know, John McCain. McCain is said to be benefiting from this politically because his rivals are tearing each other apart. In fact, few people are paying much attention to what the Republican nominee is saying, or subjecting it to any serious scrutiny. On March 26, McCain gave a speech on foreign policy in Los Angeles that was billed as his most comprehensive statement on the subject. It contained within it the most radical idea put forward by a major candidate...

Republican U.S. presidential candidate John McCain accused North Carolina's Republican Party of being "out of touch with reality" over its refusal to pull an advertisement criticizing Democrat Barack Obama.The advertisement criticized Barack Obama for being too extreme. Well, he is. It's not just all of his associations that have come to light in recent months. He was described in the National Journal as the most liberal member of the Senate. The main stream media wouldn't hesitate to describe any conservative as extreme. There's no good reason to gratuitously bash the North Carolina GOP. That wasn't enough. He felt compelled to...

It's not a new message from the Arizona senator, who follows an unpredictable political muse but typically favors smaller government and less regulation. Yet the context was important. Standing outside the Ohio factory Tuesday, in a state where Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton pandered to protectionists, McCain actually stood up for the North American Free Trade Agreement and free trade. The lost factory jobs aren't coming back, McCain said, and rather than waging a futile fight against globalization, Washington should do a better job training workers for careers in the new economy. The next day he visited Inez,...

WASHINGTON -- Just when Sen. Barack Obama thought he might be getting past a rocky stretch of negative news, he finds himself facing new questions about his patriotism. The Illinois Democrat was grilled Wednesday night in a nationally televised debate about why he doesn't wear an American flag on his lapel and his ties to a former member of the radical group Weather Underground who's refused to apologize for planting bombs at government buildings in the early 1970s. He tried to brush aside the questions -- posed by a Pennsylvania voter, the ABC News debate moderators and rival Sen. Hillary...

Free-Trade Agreements Members of Congress aren't going to push here while the election's in play, especially since the presidential candidates, particularly the Democrats, have pledged to protect U.S. workers from foreign competition. Earlier this month, Congress tabled a Bush-negotiated free-trade deal with Colombia. Agreements with Korea and Panama are also on hold. Renewable-Energy Tax Credits Several times during the last year, some members of Congress have tried unsuccessfully to give tax breaks to producers of wind and solar energy, often while raising taxes on Big Oil. Few dispute the need for cleaner energy, but there's little chance anyone's going to...

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have taken turns whining, with each saying at various times they found certain questions and issues unfair. After their showdown in Philadelphia, Obama complained about "gotcha games," saying ordinary Americans don't care about his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Clinton and her Bubba have complained about being ganged up on over drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants and about her tall tale of ducking sniper fire in Bosnia. The candidates should count themselves lucky for such distractions. For if public focus were on the "real issues" they say they want to discuss, the incoherence of...

A day after unveiling an economic agenda built heavily around cutting taxes, Republican John McCain is to bring the debate over how to revive a wilting economy to South Milwaukee today. "I intend to act quickly and decisively," McCain said Tuesday in Pittsburgh. "We need reforms that promote growth and opportunity. We need rules that assure fairness and punish wrongdoing in the market. We need tax policies that respect the wage-earners and job-creators who make this economy run, and help them to succeed in a global economy." McCain is to host two roundtable discussions at Bucyrus International this morning with...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Republican Sen. Arlen Specter has a suggested question for Wednesday's Democratic presidential debate: Ask the candidates if they support faster confirmation of judicial nominations. Specter said Tuesday he sent letters to Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as Republican nominee-in-waiting Sen. John McCain posing that question. He shared the letters with ABC News, sponsor of the debate. Specter, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, wrote that he wants to take, or "discharge," three appellate court nominations from the committee and bring them straight to the Senate floor for a vote. "I write...

John McCain has used humor to offset those who like to say he’s too old for the job. He even pretends to be asleep when asked questions; then suddenly snaps to attention to hear the giggles of the crowd. In an interview carried by CNN Monday April 15, 2008 McCain answered the questions about his age and whether he had the stamina for the job with an invitation for anyone who doubts his stamina to come along with him on his campaign. That silenced everyone.

I’m much more of a fiscon than a socon or a defcon (although I do tend to be rather conservative in all three areas) - and that might help explain why I favored Mitt Romney in the primaries. And now, I’ve got to admit, for possibly the first time in the past two years, I’m almost excited about McCain’s candidacy right now… and because of fiscal and economic issues, no less. Who would have thought? Because in between the times he’s blaming pharmaceutical companies for the health care “crisis” in America and blaming our “recession” on greedy Wall Streeters, he...

by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor April 11, 2008 Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Barack Obama has voted against every limit on abortion as a member of the U.S. Senate -- including repeated votes against making sure taxpayers aren't forced to pay for abortions here or overseas. But Obama told the media on Friday that no one, including him, is pro-abortion.

...Despite such illiberal pandering, both Clinton and Obama know that a traditional liberal position would be to defend free trade that lowers prices and increases choices for poorer American consumers- while helping foreign economies catch up with the United States. Free trade isn't the only example in which liberal Democrats advocate positions that sound parochial and blinkered. Let's take an environmental issue. It may seem environmentally correct for liberals to oppose oil drilling in a small part of Alaska. But how is this prohibition in any way liberal? Unless Americans are willing to accept a drastic reduction in their standard...

(CHICAGO)(April 12, 2008) Chicago-based Obama expert and Internet columnist Andy Martin will hold a 1:00 P.M. Chicago news conference Saturday, April 12th, to condemn Senator Barack Obama for suggesting that small-town America is “bitter” about America and that Americans “cling” to “guns” and “religion” as an outlet for their bitterness. Martin will also demand that Obama end his “secret” campaign in which the presidential candidate uses meetings that are closed to the media to raise money from wealthy liberals by privately disparaging ordinary Americans. “In listening to Obama depreciate and disparage small town America,” Martin will say, “I am reminded...

With Iraq returning to the campaign’s center stage this week, Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson looks at how Sen. John McCain, while defending a generally unpopular war, at least has the advantage of delivering the kind of message voters would like to believe. In Senate hearings this week, “As he’d done so many times before, McCain said we can win if we just pull up our socks and banish our defeatism…Don’t I wish? Don’t we all? I don’t buy his take on the war but, like half of America, I want to.” “Compare this with the downer Democrats whining that we’ve blown...

SAN DIEGO - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says that if an initiative to ban gay marriage qualifies for the November ballot, he's prepared to fight it. California's governor spoke Friday in San Diego at the convention of the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation's largest gay Republican group. He has previously vetoed bills that would have legalized gay marriage. A Schwarzenegger spokeswoman did not say what prompted the governor to shift his position. Schwarzenegger said he was confident a ban would never pass in California and called the effort "a waste of time."

As they map out a strategy against Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Barack Obama and his advisers plan to emphasize big themes and generational contrasts. .... More broadly, Obama will be using the theme of "yesterday versus tomorrow," with McCain billed as the candidate of the past and Obama as the candidate of the future. This would also bring the age issue into the campaign. McCain would be the oldest person ever sworn in as president, at 72, and many Americans have expressed concern to pollsters that the Arizona senator is past his prime.