Free Republic

Dearest Ali: I hope you don't mind me taking the liberty to address you by your first name. I just thought it would be a good idea for us to get off on the right foot - as good friends instead of just Supreme Leaders of our respective countries. First, I want to apologize for the shabby treatment you and your people have received from my predecessors, our intelligence agencies, our military, and our media. I respect the fact that you have an ancient and proud culture and strong faith in God who guides you in your moral judgment and...

Ladies and Gentlemen! It is my pleasure to bring to you the spectacle of two battlers from Brooklyn. Introducing first: wearing the Army Dress Green uniform trimmed with a Silver Star on each epaulet, two Bronze Star medals, four Legions of Merit, a Ranger Tab, Parachutist Wings, and a combat patch, standing six feet, four inches tall and weighing in at two hundred pounds. Born in Brooklyn, he graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of New York with a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering, earned a Master's Degree in Construction Management from the University of Florida. He served as the Commander...

In 2002, Al Pacino starred in a movie called S1M0NE about a Hollywood director whose star actress walks off the set after a dispute with him. The director is so obnoxious, no other actresses will work with him. To complete the film, the director substitutes a computer-generated character for the live actress. The movie becomes a great success and the public becomes enamored with this new shining star named Simone (short for Simulation One). The director's scheme begins to fall apart when he's unable to fulfill requests for live interviews with Simone. Someone also figures out that the scenic backgrounds...

This morning I watched Obama join Angela Merkel and Elie Wiesel speaking at Buchenwald, one of the notorious WWII concentration camps. True to form, Obama stumbled through a carefully worded speech someone else had written for him. It was entirely uninspiring - layer upon layer of petty platitudes, truisms, and vague references intended to appeal to Jewish/Israeli audiences but not offend muslim feelings. In particular, he aimed a comment about holocaust denial at an unnamed person, who just happens to be the leader of Iran. The fact that Obama didn't have the courage to call evil by its true name...