Free Republic

After President Obama finished a speech in Panama City, Florida, he was called aside by reporters just off stage and asked what he thought of reaction to his comments yesterday about the plans to build a Muslim center -- including a prayer room -- near the site of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. “My intention was simply to let people know what I thought, which was that in this country we treat everybody equally and in accordance with the law, regardless of race, regardless of religion,” Obama told the reporters, referring to his comments at the annual...

The White House on Saturday struggled to tamp down the controversy over President Barack Obama’s statements about a mosque near Ground Zero — insisting Obama wasn’t backing off remarks Friday night where he offered support for a project that has infuriated some families whose loved ones died in the Sept. 11 attacks. Obama’s comments placed him in the middle of the controversy over a Muslim group’s plans for a mosque near the site of the 2001 attack — and in turn, transformed an emotion-laden local dispute in New York into a nationwide debate overnight. Republicans pounced, amid early signs that...

The passage of US healthcare reform is enormously consequential, and not just for the things the new law aims to affect. The manner of its passage, as much as its substance, makes November’s mid-term elections pivotal. They may decide the political trajectory of the United States for the next several decades. To see why, you must understand the improbability of what has happened. Barack Obama just tore up the US political rulebook. A year ago there were two scenarios for healthcare reform. One was that the Democrats would carry a willing public with them and pass a comprehensive bill. Another...

The morning after Republicans lost an upstate New York House seat, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned that conservative activists will bring destruction to the Republican Party if they drive out moderate candidates across the country. “To those people who are pursuing purity, you’ll become a club not a party,” Graham told POLITICO in the Capitol Wednesday. “Those people who are trying to embrace conservatism in a thoughtful way that fits the region and the state and the district are going to do well. Conservativism is an asset. Blind ideology is not.” Graham, who has sparred with his party’s right wing...

OBAMA: What I reject is when some folks say we should go back to the past policies when it was those very same policies that got us into this mess in the first place. (Applause.) Another way of putting it is when, you know, I'm busy and Nancy busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else's mess --- we don't want somebody sitting back saying, you're not holding the mop the right way. (Applause.) Why don't you grab a mop, why don't you help clean up. (Applause.) You're not mopping fast enough. (Laughter.) That's a socialist mop. (Laughter and applause.)...

Reacting to the escalating firestorm over President Barack Obama's comments calling a Massachusetts cop “stupid” for arresting his friend, the author Henry Louis Gates Jr., Rush Limbaugh blasted the president for mimicking the black supremacist thought of his longtime mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Rather than dodging the question and staying above the fray, Obama provoked a firestorm by calling a much-decorated beat cop’s actions “stupid.” In doing so, Limbaugh said, Obama fell back on the leftist teachers of Wright and early mentors during his years as a community organizer in Chicago. “I think what we learned last night, ladies...