Free Republic

It took me a couple of hours of reading, cogitation, and regurgitation to critique Mitt Romney's foreign policy positions. Clearly, I didn't think it was perfect, or even all that good in many places. But, I had to assess it, mull over the content... you know, think. Now, I desperately want to be an equal opportunity blogger, and at this point Herman Cain appears to be the co-frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination. Sure, I've had my fun with him in the past, and he has no shortage of foreign policy gaffes, but I figured that impromptu utterances during debates...

Two new sets of Republicans are feeling deflated today -- the Chris Christie hopefuls and the Sarah Palin stalwarts. The Christie decision didn't surprise me, perhaps because I grew up in Jersey. In fact, Christie and I attended the same high school! Anyway, Jerseyans are many things (not all of them nice), but slick dissemblers we are not. When Christie said, repeatedly, and in ever more colorful terms, that he wasn't running, I believed him. And, while I understand the boomlet for him, I'm also a little relieved to see that he is indeed a truthful guy. Sarah Palin, by...

Kevin Drum makes the appropriate observation about Sarah Palin: And speaking of politicians and sound bites, does it strike anyone else that Sarah Palin has basically become a social media version of Ann Coulter? That is, they're both conservatives whose schtick mostly depends on generating liberal apoplexy over their periodic word bombs, and who are both fading away because they're having problems coming up with new material that's fresh enough for anyone to care about? I didn't even know Coulter had yet another book out until I saw it at the bookstore today (in almost self-parody fashion, it's called Demonic),...

Sarah Palin may have been making the case for herself with a Facebook post last night arguing that a president must be "a strong chief executive [who] has been entrusted with real authority in the past and has achieved a proven track record of positive measurable accomplishments." But she also sounds an awful lot like Tim Pawlenty, whose indictment against Michele Bachmann is that three-term member of Congress gives a good speech but hasn't actually accomplished anything. Wrote Palin: "Leaders are expected to give good speeches, but leadership is so much more than oratory. Real leadership requires deeds even more...

So a miracle happened last night and somehow I was able to actually watch the GOP debate while it was going on and neither Ben10 (my kids' favorite) nor So You Think You Can Dance (my wife's favorite, as is just about any reality show that is on) entered into the picture at all. This is something that happens about as often as a full solar eclipse so I'm grateful, especially because I really did enjoy watching the debate last night, which was unexpected. Anyway, I thought I'd jot down some of my thoughts of how the different candidates fared...

The Club for Growth, an influential anti-spending group, is warning its followers that potential presidential candidate Donald Trump is a wolf in sheep's clothing - calling him just another "tax-hiking liberal" and a "king of protectionism" who doesn't deserve conservative support in the next election. Mr. Trump has flirted with a presidential bid for several weeks, leveling stiff criticism of the Obama administration and riding doubts about the president's birth certificate, reviving the so-called "birther" controversy that many have considered a dead issue.

Listening to and watching Donald Trump talk with Fox News’s Sean Hannity about how rich he is and how smart he is was truly a vomit-inducing moment. The notion that this extremely successful egomaniac would ever be President of the United States is surreal. It’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington on steroids. Now we learn that he is going to announce whether he is going to run on the season finale of “The Apprentice.” The show is scheduled to air on May 15. Reportedly he will hold a press conference to announce the decision about being a candidate in the...