Free Republic

Magazines Fuss Over First Lady, but Newsstand Sales Are Mixed NEW YORK -- Vogue's March cover story on Michelle Obama called her "The First Lady the World's Been Waiting For." No doubt she's been embraced by the media world, appearing on cover after cover, from Us Weekly to Newsweek. But when it comes to sales, Ms. Obama may not yet be general-interest magazines' new Princess Diana, who regularly helped the industry sell more copies at newsstands. A Michelle Obama cover doesn't hurt a general-interest magazine, the numbers suggest, but it doesn't produce more than an occasional lift either. New York...

President Barack Obama is not the 21st-century Abraham Lincoln, although if you followed his campaign, you could be forgiven some confusion. From the time two years ago when Obama declared his presidential candidacy in Springfield, Ill., to his pre-Inaugural celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, Obama has linked himself to that earlier tall, skinny fellow from Illinois who was born 200 years ago today. Certainly, parallels do exist between the 16th and 44th presidents. Two lawyers from humble origins. Two relative unknowns springing from Illinois politics onto a national stage. Two exceptionally accomplished writers. Two speakers who could captivate crowds. Two...

With Barack Obama's approval ratings in the 70s and his visage plastered on every shop window and Metro card in Washington, it's hard to remember that 58 million Americans voted for the other guy. Even President Bush — who presumably counts himself among that group — said last week that Obama's inauguration is "a moment of hope and pride." That's not exactly how Michelle Malkin describes it. "Jan. 20 has turned into a schlock inauguration, (where) every last moocher has come to cash in on Obama," says the conservative blogger and pundit. "There are some of us who want to...

Barack Obama loves Chicago music, and it shows: In his speeches, he echoes the ideals — hope, tolerance, determination — heard in the songs of such local greats as Sam Cooke, the Staple Singers and Curtis Mayfield President-elect Barack Obama paid homage to Chicago soul in his Grant Park acceptance speech. He riffed on Wendell Phillips High graduate Sam Cooke by saying, “It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, at this defining moment, change has come to America.” This clearly expands on Cooke’s 1963 hit “A Change Is Gonna Come.” But...

Obama: concussion drove me into White House race 22 minutes ago Democrat Barack Obama joked Wednesday that the true reason he entered the White House race was concussion. "Why did I start running for president? I got hit on the head with a rock," the Illinois senator told a seven-year-old girl who questioned him on his motivation at a "town hall" meeting in Indiana. "When I woke up, I'd made my announcement and then it was too late. No, I'm teasing," Obama said to laughs.

BostonTHE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION will culminate tonight in Boston with John Kerry's acceptance speech and a nine-minute mini-documentary that chronicles his life. The short film, produced by documentarian James Moll, will include film that Kerry shot during his time in Vietnam. The footage has long been the subject of controversy, with some members of Kerry's unit alleging that the future senator captured the images with his political career in mind. Those allegations will be featured in a forthcoming book, called Unfit for Command, that has raced up the Amazon.com bestseller list--from #1,318 to #2 in one day--after being prominently featured...

JOHN KERRY will be only the third Catholic in U.S. history to be nominated for the Presidency by a major party. The other two were Al Smith in 1928, who lost to Herbert Hoover, and John F. Kennedy in 1960, who defeated Richard Nixon. I asked Kerry if sewing up the nomination has any special meaning for him as a Catholic, and he said: “Historically, yes; substantively, no. I subscribe completely to the speech Kennedy made in Houston in 1960 and believe completely in the separation of church and state.” Kennedy’s speech made to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on...

WASHINGTON -- Is America ready to be led by another Massachusetts senator, a former Navy war hero with the initials "JFK," a rich, Catholic Bostonian with patrician looks and a glamorous wife, a forward-looking Democrat with a challenge to countrymen to be a part of something larger than themselves? John Forbes Kerry, the three-term senator from Massachusetts, the much-decorated former gunboat captain in Vietnam, the aristocrat with the Boston brogue and the Mozambique-born heiress wife, thinks so. But don't suggest to Kerry that he represents a chance for Democrats to return to Camelot or that he is trying to trade...