Free Republic

After reading transcripts of Obama's recent campaign stump speeches and watching his interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer, I am even more convinced he is every bit as clueless as he appeared in that fateful debate but also very deceitful. The money quote in Obama's interview with Sawyer, who asked him what happened in the debate, was: "It's not the first time I've had a bad night. But I think what's important is that the fundamentals of what this race is about haven't changed. You know, Gov. Romney went to a lot of trouble to try to hide what his...

Last week Mr. Obama was weirdly passive. Last night Mr. Biden was weirdly aggressive, if that is the right word for someone who grimaces, laughs derisively, interrupts, hectors, rolls his eyes, browbeats and attempts to bully. He meant to dominate, to seem strong and no-nonsense. Sometimes he did—he had his moments. But he was also disrespectful and full of bluster. "Oh, now you're Jack Kennedy!" he snapped at one point. It was an echo of Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle, in 1988. But Mr. Quayle, who had compared himself to Kennedy, had invited the insult. Mr. Ryan had not. It...

ESPN airs a weekly show called “E:60.” This investigative hour-long show highlights stories – often personal, touching, and sometimes tragic ones – related to sports. On October 1, ESPN posted a segment of “E:60" called “Perfect” to YouTube. “Perfect” is nothing less than a gripping, life-changing tale. Heath White, a military man, marathon runner, and all-around success story, was suddenly faced with a choice. During his wife’s second pregnancy, Heath discovered that his new daughter would be born less than perfect, to his way of thinking. Heath admits that he pressured his wife to have an abortion, yet she bravely...

......“MR. MUSK: The ideal thing to do would be to tax CO2. But taxes are difficult to implement. So, we’re doing an indirect thing, which is to subsidize electric cars to some degree, and other sort of renewables.”

The number of U.S. states reporting initial unemployment claims has dropped to a new low under Obama- and more importantly journalists have dropped to a new low as a result. Previously physicists had predicted that journalists couldn’t get lower.Guess what? They were wrong.  I call it the Obama effect: No matter how crappy things are, adding Obama can make it just a little but crappier. Only 49 of 50 states reported initial unemployment claims last week according to Labor Department economists. This has led to a predictable, yet wholly pathetic attempt by the media to say that unemployment claims have fallen...

"Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness." -- Mary Frances Berry, the liberal former Chairwoman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights "Liberals claim Republicans speak in racist code words for the simple...

I know it sounds outrageous, but the arguments my liberal readers make for abortion have convinced me that they are trying to legalize rape. Aside from the obvious fact that rape is a moral issue (and one can’t legislate morality), pro-abortion reasoning provides 10 additional reasons for making rape legal. I have enumerated all of them below. I have even taken the time to expand on some of the more disturbing arguments: 1. It is uncertain where consent ends and force begins. Because that is largely a religious question that cannot be determined by science, it has no place in...

There is an uplifting American feel about a university, a workplace or a neighborhood brimming with people of different races. It is the product of a nation assembled of people from everywhere else. From many places, one people. Other nations have diversity of a sort, but no one can go to France and become French. I cannot go to Brazil and become Brazilian. The diversity of America, an assemblage of skin colors painted with a wide swath of history from immigration to slavery, has become a uniquely beautiful concept. Leave it to government to screw it up. The Supreme Court’s...

You don’t win a nationally televised debate by being rude and obnoxious. You don’t win by interrupting your opponent time after time after time or by being a blowhard. You don’t win with facial expressions, especially smirks or fake laughs, or by pretending to be utterly exasperated with what your opponent is saying. That’s why Vice President Joe Biden didn’t win the one and only debate last night with his Republican rival, Mitt Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan. In fact, though Ryan had several weak moments—one of them was on Syria—the only conceivable takeaway from the veep debate was Biden’s...

Heading into the closing stages of Thursday night’s vice presidential debate in Danville, Ky., moderator Martha Raddatz of ABC News steered the conversation away from foreign policy and the economy and toward abortion, a development that pleased both President Obama’s re-election campaign and some liberal media commentators.Raddatz, who has been under fire in recent days for her decades-old association with President Barack Obama, instructed Vice President Joe Biden and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan to discuss their Catholic faith as it regards the emotional and intensely personal issue. (RELATED EDITORIAL: ABC fails ethics test)“We have two Catholic candidates, first time, on a stage...

As I observed the words and demeanor of Vice President Joe Biden all throughout last night’s debate a line from Hamlet kept running through my mind. “That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain,” William Shakespeare wrote. How better to sum up the most unctuous, disingenuous vice president in this writer’s lifetime? The radical left-wing Delawarean showed the same loathsome traits that he displayed during his debate with Sarah Palin four years ago. But this time, because he wasn’t facing a woman he wasn’t walking on eggshells, terrified of offending female voters. This allowed his worst characteristics to...

October 12 marks the 12th anniversary of the bombing of the USS Cole. The grim milestone comes as President Obama faces mounting questions about his administration's dereliction of duty during the murderous attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya. And it comes just a day after resurgent al-Qaida thugs pulled off the drive-by assassination of a top Yemeni security official who worked at the U.S. embassy in Sanaa. These are not "bumps in the road." These are gravesites on the blood-spattered path to surrender. Seventeen U.S. sailors died in the brutal suicide attack on the guided Navy missile destroyer as...

It was crystal clear tonight that Vice President Biden was determined not to reprise the president's passive performance in Denver.  In that, he succeeded.  He also succeeded in interrupting his opponent constantly, repeatedly laughing at strange moments, and playing the 'loud anger' card frequently.  Rep. Paul Ryan's serenity in the face of the Vice President's behavior was almost supernatural.  On actual talking points, the two men battled to a draw.  Ryan excelled on economic issues, gave a fabulous answer on abortion and closed strong.  He also held his own on foreign policy.  Biden scored on Afghanistan and by pointing out...

....The 2012 debate season began with a lay-up,a Mitt Romney victory that shattered every record in the history of snap polling. Style. Crispness of answers. Eye contact. Their candidate had every advantage that the focus groups crave.Then came Joe Biden. Imagine you’re a liberal,and think of all the lines you wanted Barack Obama to use against Mitt Romney....Did Biden forget any of them? Or did he pull a San Diego Fourth of July fireworks display and spray them all at once?..........An hour after the debate ended,the [RNC] released a super-cut of every Biden laugh,claiming that he was “laughing at the...

The United Nations is lecturing Canada again by throwing stones while standing naked in the living room of their glass house. A report has been released by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, a committee that includes Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt among its members. The committee is telling Canada that it needs to do more for the nation’s children. If you didn’t know there was a permanent UN committee for this issue, then remember what I have told you before: The UN considers itself a government, a world government in waiting, and they think that their...

If MSNBC doesn't hire a number of public editors to analyze the accuracy of statements made by its on air hosts and commentators, it will never be taken seriously as a credible news source. Consider Hardball host Chris Matthews who on Thursday falsely said for the umpteenth time that no one will sell health insurance to senior citizens (video follows with transcript and commentary): Chris Matthews Shows Staggering Ignorance, Falsely Claims No One Will Sell Seniors Health Insurance MATTHEWS: When I hear your people, including the President, he's our president as well, say the difference between the healthcare plans of...

Jay Cost thinks so, and it appears that Gallup may have at least tacitly admitted it. The Left has critiqued Gallup’s samples, accusing it of continually oversampling white voters and creating an artificial handicap for Barack Obama’s approval and support numbers. David Axelrod made the loudest noise, but Jay cites a column from Mark Blumenthal at HuffPo as more influential, and it was HuffPo that first noticed the change as well: Over the summer Mark Blumenthal of Huffington Post wrote a critique of Gallup’s daily presidential job approval poll. The point of which was that Gallup was over-sampling whites and...

Oh, honestly. Obama’s people are certainly putting out that message that Vice President Biden is “fired up and ready to go” for tonight’s debate, but clearly they felt the need to get in a few little preemptive jabs at his challenger Paul Ryan — could it be that they don’t have enough confidence in Biden’s abilities alone to get the job done? I found this video in my inbox in an e-mail from Stephanie Cutter and the Truth Team, imploring me to “share it with others” before tonight’s debate: aul Ryan and His Many Methods of MisrepresentationPuh-lease. Let’s not pretend...

Stories about Wednesday’s Congressional hearing on Libya were prominently displayed on the front pages of major newspapers throughout the United States on Thursday morning. The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, for example, both led with the story, meaning that editors placed it in the primary news position on their front pages. But The New York Times was not among them. The six stories on The Times’s front page included one on affirmative action at universities, one on Lance Armstrong’s drug allegations, two related to the presidential election, one on taped phone calls at JPMorgan Chase, and one on...

Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter stirred a lot of controversy Thursday when she blamed Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for injecting the Libyan consulate attack into the presidential campaign. “The entire reason that this has become the political topic it is, is because of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan,” Cutter told CNN. “It’s a big part of their stump speech and it’s reckless and irresponsible.” Cutter’s remark angered Team Romney aides, who noted that — with the exception of Romney’s statement condemning the administration on the night of September 11 — Romney and Ryan have not, in fact emphasized...