Free Republic

The front of Sunday's Outlook section in The Washington Post is a complete spit take. There in bold type is the blatantly false headline "Barack Obama, conservative." David Swerdlick is an employee of the Post's Outlook section, so this isn't some freakish freelancer. At first glance, this article seems like an obvious ploy to explain away just how radical the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates are by comparison. Here's the thesis: “This is still a country that is less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement.” That remark helps explain why so many of the candidates’ proposals seem so...

WASHINGTON -- The uproar over former White House adviser Van Jones has heightened attention on the ranks of nonconfirmed policy "czars" within the Obama administration. The use of special White House advisers and the czar moniker itself go back decades, but government watchers say President Barack Obama has appointed an unusual number of senior coordinators, especially for a president so early in his administration. They have responsibilities ranging from health care and climate change to Afghanistan and the auto sector. Some Republicans, fanned by conservative commentators' warnings that these advisers constitute a shadow government, have seized on the czar issue...

When even a Democrat like Senator Robert Byrd objects to President Obama setting up a collective leadership of Czars in the White House, perhaps it is time for Americans to look more carefully at what appears to be a replica of a Soviet-style Politburo. These appointees do not have to be approved by Congress yet play controlling roles in the lives of Americans.