Free Republic

No more budget gimmicks? That’s what outgoing White House budget director Peter Orszag promised as the Obama team prepared to take control of the White House. “The president prefers to tell the truth, rather than make the numbers look better by pretending,” he told The New York Times. But numbers games turned out to be Orszag’s specialty. He’s set to step down at the end of July, but for the last 18 months, he’s presided over a wave of fiscal trickery. This year’s White House budget, which Orszag played a key role in preparing, is a prime example. When fiscal...

In 1989, Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe hired first-year Harvard law student Barack Obama as his research assistant. After Obama was elected president, Tribe would gush, “His stunning combination of analytical brilliance and personal charisma, openness and maturity, vision and pragmatism, was unmistakable from my very first encounter.” Obama had one other prominent mentor among the Harvard faculty, Professor Charles Ogletree, an African American. In the run up to the election, Ogletree would enthuse, "I'm so excited about this candidacy that I just can't tell you. I'm just overfull with joy.” In 2004, Tribe and Ogletree both made the news...

POLITICO’s Andy Barr reported earlier that Meg Stapleton, spokesperson and top adviser to Sarah Palin resigned to spend more time with family. Now CNN’s Peter Hamby follows up on the news and writes how not only did McCain campaign staffers and Palin insiders grumble about Stapleton’s handling of Palin, but also journalists. Members of the political press corps have also long been frustrated with Stapleton, who was the primary conduit between Palin and members of the media since the end of the 2008 presidential race, but rarely responded to phone calls or e-mails. When Stapleton did, they were often terse...

Mitchell: "If Mitt Romney had notes on his hand wouldn't we take it pretty seriously?"