Free Republic

While the outcome of NATO’s intervention in Libya is still uncertain, the ongoing drift toward a negotiated solution is fraught with potentially debilitating problems for the Western alliance. Ousting Qaddafi remains a possibility, and could have been achieved much earlier with swift and decisive action, but the prospects for a clear NATO victory are now quite uncertain. The collapse of NATO’s resolve came in several stages, with the seeds planted right at the outset of the military action. First, President Obama signaled hesitancy and weakness by waiting until Qaddafi’s forces had nearly taken Benghazi , the rebels’ key stronghold, and...

BOSTON (AP) - A Republican's surprising nimbleness, his opponent's missteps and shifting political winds in this "bluest of blue" Democratic states have turned a sure thing into an even bet. In a span of weeks, state Sen. Scott Brown has capitalized on voter dissatisfaction to erase a double-digit lead held by Democrat Martha Coakley, the state attorney general. Coakley ran a textbook primary campaign but then stopped after winning a four-way race with 47 percent of the vote. She cut back on her appearances and disappeared from public view entirely Christmas week, confident she needed only community and political activists...

Fourth in a series of 10 columns ... (snip) As he took office, the state faced a huge repayment of short-term budget deficit loans in June 2004 that it didn't have the money to make. The proposed solution was stretching out repayment through a $15 billion debt refinancing bond - much like a family's taking out a new home mortgage to cover crushing credit card bills - but it would require voter approval at the March 2004 primary election, so time was short, and Republicans were demanding a tough state spending limit. Initially, Schwarzenegger backed the strict limit, but Democrats...

<p>NASHUA -- Even his advisers called the performance "sluggish" and "unpresidential": Senator John F. Kerry, at a house party here on Nov. 7, left some Democrats in the room bewildered by referring to President Bush's "job-creating tax cut," calling an abortion procedure "grisly or whatever," and offering such anti-sound bites as "the road traveled is the prologue to the road to be traveled."</p>