Free Republic

Historical analogies to current events can be illuminating, but dangerous. Even if strong similarities exist, difference do too, and therefore caution is required when using them. This is especially true with analogies to Naziism and Hitler. Argudendo ad Hitlerum is fraught with peril, and is used far too cavalierly. Hillary found out about the perils when she compared Putin’s incursion into Ukraine-and yes, Crimea is Ukraine-to Germany’s actions in 1936-1938: the occupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss, the taking of the Sudetenland, and the eventual seizure of the rest of Czechoslovakia. Her remarks unleashed a storm of criticism. Mark this...

Anyone who didn't believe that Obama's liberal idiocy on foreign policy wouldn't have real world consequences, I present exhibit "A" - the Taliban responding to the Administration's offer for "honorable reconciliation:" Taliban insurgents reject a U.S. offer of "honorable reconciliation," a top spokesman said on Wednesday, calling it a "lunatic idea" and saying the only way to end the war was to withdraw foreign troops. With the Afghan conflict now in its eighth year, NATO-led forces and the Taliban are locked in a bloody stalemate with violence set to rise further this year as more U.S. troops arrive and seek...

The exchange of gifts seemed to say it all: for Barack Obama, an ornamental pen holder carved from the timbers of the HMS Gannet, a British naval vessel that took part in the battle to end the slave trade; for Gordon Brown, a box set of classic American movies on DVD. Personally, I’m a big fan of giving DVD box sets as presents. Not only are they cheap, but they look impressive on a bookshelf and can be handily purchased at short notice, due to the fact that they’re piled high in stores that can’t get rid of them. In...

Barack Obama's offhand approach to Gordon Brown's Washington visit last week came about because the president has facing exhaustion over America's economic crisis and is unable to focus on foreign affairs, the Sunday Telegraph has been told. Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest. British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a...

When colonial mariners landed on distant shores to be greeted by "natives", the Europeans gave cheap glass beads or brass trinkets, and took gold and silver in return, not to mention slaves. When feudal tenants paid homage to their liege lords, they promised services to be rendered. And when Gordon Brown pays his first visit to President Barack Obama at the White House, the prime minister gives his liege lord a present of great value, and receives a stack of DVDs. It was an exchange encapsulating the emptiness of that "special relationship" of which Brown still forlornly boasts. Someone in...

In the realm of foreign affairs, the first ten days of Barack Obama's administration were a disaster. It's hard to believe that even a foreign policy neophyte like Obama could blunder so badly, on so many fronts, in such a short time. We spent the better part of an hour of today's radio show talking about Obama's serial missteps, which I wrote about here, here and here. If I get time, I'll try to podcast that hour. Among other things, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs are beating Obama like a drum. Obama's misguided criticisms of America's policies toward Muslim...

Barack Obama, Aspiring Commissar By the Editors While the Obama coronation proceeds apace in Denver, it is in Chicago that Americans are getting a disturbing demonstration of his thuggish methods of stifling criticism. Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Harvard-educated social anthropologist and frequent contributor to National Review, among other publications. He is widely respected for his meticulous research and measured commentary. For months, he has been doing the job the mainstream media refuses to do: examining the background and public record of Barack Obama, the first-term senator Democrats are about to...

WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee criticized the Bush administration's war against terrorism Friday, delivering a bold and potentially risky speech that could establish the former Arkansas governor as the maverick among top Republican candidates and test his party's loyalty to President Bush. "This administration's bunker mentality has been counterproductive both at home and abroad," Huckabee said in opening a broad indictment of Bush's style and policy.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, 46 days old on Tuesday, has run into some speed bumps, created because of a series of missteps magnified because he is under microscopic scrutiny. It's too early to say whether the gaffes slow Obama's momentum -- or if they become barricades, extracting a more significant price for the Illinois Democrat's White House bid. They are getting noticed. Consider the items that have been accumulating since Obama announced on Feb. 10: • Marking the anniversary of the March 1965 "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Ala., Obama, speaking at a church, said his parents got...

For all those historians and political naysayers, Sen. Barack Obama's allies like to point out that Abraham Lincoln served just two years in the House before becoming president.It's a comparison certain to be repeated as Obama, with slightly more than two years in the Senate, continues to align himself with the Civil War president. The senator's expected campaign kickoff is scheduled for Feb. 10 in Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Ill. - where both men served in the state legislature. Obama filed paperwork for a presidential exploratory committee Tuesday, which allows him to raise money and organize a campaign structure before...

SAN JOSE – Susan Love's problems began with a smile. The New York City fund-raiser clicked on a happy-face attachment in a friend's e-mail last year. The virus crashed her computer within an hour. Love, 57, salvaged her data. But within a few months her computer's performance slowed to a crawl. In December 2003, she upgraded to a Sony Vaio with an extra-large monitor and Microsoft Windows XP operating system. Within a few days, "spyware" – programs that sneak onto computers uninvited – began sponging up valuable memory. Then her e-mail stopped arriving. Instead of crafting holiday e-mails, she spent...

Well, hellooo carrot and stick. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger just displayed dramatic examples of both in his dealings with the California Legislature, which is still reeling from it and is scrambling in private to figure out how to deal with it. But the real story as 2003 wraps up is the psychology of the governor himself, what we’ve learned after watching him for little more than one month in office and what it portends for California’s fiscal health. Schwarzenegger is a neophyte to Sacramento politics, where nothing is really as it appears and most legislators are working with both a public...

I will be on a college trip to the Loop on 22 October and would like to meet and hopefully stage an Infinite Freep with Chicago area Freepers during the 3 hours of personal time we will have. If you can't help with that, tell me what you would do with three hours in the Loop on a Tuesday afternoon. Just one thing: Please use Freepmail to discuss any details of location times/places/descriptions of personnel, etc.