Free Republic

The first time I saw a friend wearing blackface I was a freshman in college. I was stunned. I was hurt. I was enraged. But more than anything, I was confused. He thought it was funny, albeit controversial. But to me it wasn’t a joke; it was pointed mockery. I imagined him laughing and joking as his friends painted his skin. I couldn’t understand why he would so callously and easily disrespect me and those like me, for fun. Now I have come to expect such acts, and the conversations that surround them, as routine displays of disrespect and cultural...

Like everyone else who cares more about the facts than his own opinions, I’ve recently read Graeme Wood’s excellent Atlantic article “What Isis Really Wants.” Those of you making do with excerpts and pull quotes, stop, and go read the whole thing. That it renders the president’s statements about ISIS absurd is the least of the article’s accomplishments. No one but a small coterie of leftist knuckleheads believes what Obama says on this subject anyway — though it’s unfortunate that the president himself is part of that coterie. Among the many things in the piece that inspire thought is Wood’s...