Free Republic

The rest of the world fell as hard for Barack Obama as Americans did. Back in 2008, the same qualities in the 47-year-old senator from Illinois that excited U.S. voters enthralled people around the globe. He was a fresh face and a compelling orator. He had spent his childhood in the Asia-Pacific, and his skin color alone made billions of people feel a connection with him. Perhaps most importantly, he was not George W. Bush, the president who invaded Iraq. Obama promised “hope” and “change” and people believed he could deliver—that he would end wars in Muslim countries, improve America’s...

Don't strain the system. Don't add to the national stress level. Don't pierce when you can envelop. Don't show even understandable indignation when you can show legitimate regard. Realize that the ties that bind still bind but have grown dryer and more worn with time. They need to be strengthened, not strained. Govern knowing we are a big, strong, mighty nation, a colossus that is, however, like all highly complex, highly wired organisms, fragile, even at places quite delicate. Don't overburden or overexcite the system. America used to have fringes, one over here and the other over there. The fringes...

Clinton faced the same dilemma in November of 1992. So he called a summit that confused everything During CNN’s broadcast of Barack Obama’s first press conference on Friday, a corner of the screen flickered with a live feed of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. As Obama spoke, the Dow average lost more than 100 points. In his brief statement and question session, the president elect of the United States said next to nothing about anything. There were no signs of the Yes We Can positivism of the campaign in his low-key, even halting manner. What little he did say may...

There are two simultaneous international uproars over the satiric cartoons that appeared in September in a small Danish newspaper, and they reflect the Wall between Western and Islamic values. In most of the West, there is reaction to the strong-arm tactics mounted by the Arab states against Denmark, and Muslim demands that the Western press be censored in line with Arab sensitivities. In Muslim countries, there is state inciting of outrage that Mohammed is dissed by cartoons. The Washington Post’s Jefferson Morley describes the two differing views: "Islam forbids any representation of the Prophet," the paper's [France Soir, before its...