Free Republic

If the reaction to President Obama's post-election press conference is any indication, he's in Dutch not only with voters but with the mainstream press as well, after several gave Obama two thumbs down for his performance. The Daily Beast's Jonathan Alter, for one, was not impressed. "His post-election press conference was too long, too provocative and too stingy in his phoned-in praise for the winners. Obama managed the extraordinary feat of making (Senate Minority Leader Mitch) McConnell look gracious by comparison." Politico's White House reporter, Josh Gerstein, poked holes in Obama's defense of his record. "President Barack Obama and his...

President Barack Obama swore as far back as 2008 he’d close the U.S.-run prison for terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay. Five and a half years later, he finally took a real risk to get that process moving. The president defied Congress over the weekend, ignoring a 30-day notice rule required by law to greenlight the transfer to Qatar of five alleged members of the Taliban held at Guantánamo in exchange for the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan. It’s Obama’s most assertive move to shrink Guantánamo’s population since U.S. embassy bombings suspect Ahmed Ghailani was flown from the...

I have a new story up tonight about the latest polling on public views about President Barack Obama's religious beliefs. There's a lot of startling news in these polls — from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and Time magazine. But one number that could catch significant attention is this: in the Time poll, 46 percent of Republicans said they believe Obama is a Muslim. In the Pew survey, that number came in somewhat lower: 31 percent. The Time GOP number isn't posted on the Web, as best I can tell, but a spokeswoman for the magazine shared...