Free Republic

".....It is the telltale sign of what the late Mr. Buckley once called the liberal “mania.” Said Buckley: “Cross a liberal on duty, and he becomes a man of hurtling irrationality.” A point perfectly illustrated by this latest from Eric Burns.How in the world does it make sense that Bill O’Reilly—quite visibly and openly not a “right-winger” — gets to be the head of a cult of right-wingers?... how in the world does Fox News get to be a cult — but not liberalism and the liberal media that marinates in said liberalism?One of the striking factors of modern American...

MADISON, Wisconsin—Walker Derangement Syndrome is dead. A few hours ago, unions and their supporters held one last protest before the passage of right-to-work legislation in Wisconsin, and it was a staid affair. This is not normal. People who don’t like Scott Walker typically aren’t calm about it.Walker is a strong contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination largely because upward of 100,000 protesters descended on the state capitol in 2011 when he oversaw the passage of legislation that dramatically curbed the power of public-sector unions. Walker’s ability to draw rage from the left transcends space, time, and state lines—during his...

The next presidential election is more than a year away, but news reporters are pummeling GOP presidential hopefuls like Rocky taking on a freezer full of meat. The attacks could work against the Scott Walkers and Jeb Bushes of the party, but they also leave the press vulnerable to months of assaults on its integrity. The latter appears more likely thanks to conservatives hammering guilty reporters on social media. Their message is clear: this isn’t 2012 or 2008. Just do a Twitter search on #ObamaLovesAmerica and you’ll be inundated with snarky and sober comments from the Right. It’s only a...

[SNIP] ".....Whoa. Now is that fair? The minute that this PolitiFact item was released, I got an email from a fellow Reagan expert who was steamed. “Paul, you’ve got to take this on!” he wrote. No, I didn’t want to take it on. I instantly recognized what Walker was talking about, and was mystified by the harsh reaction. I knew the PATCO material published in Peggy Noonan’s and Edmund Morris’ books, and elsewhere. Because a politician in an unscripted TV interview referred to documents rather than books by biographers, he’s a liar with his pants on fire? Should we hold...

".............It would behoove both Clinton and Walker to take a page out of Jeb Bush’s playbook, like yesterday, and start disclosing stuff right now. Otherwise, rest assured, Clinton and Walker will be subjected to an endless drip of stories, and a cloud of suspicion. As the lone Democrat who is up and running, and Clinton being Clinton, she can delude herself into thinking that she has time. As for Walker, tomorrow is already here."

You’ll have to excuse some of my journalism colleagues. They’re not themselves lately. When someone is attacked by a mob of critics, we’re not supposed to pile on additional and unnecessary criticism. It used to be unseemly to beat a dead horse; now it’s how too many in the Fourth Estate spend much of their time — especially if the horse is really an elephant. All too often the folks who get piled on by the media are conservatives and Republicans. People like Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. In a previous incarnation as a reporter for CBS News many years ago,...

The Daily Beast has retracted an article claiming that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker cut all provisions requiring the state’s universities to report sexual assaults. Before finally admitting she “screwed up,” the source of the post tried to defend herself on Twitter. As reported by Politico: The post, published Friday, cited a report from Jezebel that wrongly interpreted a section of the state budget to mean that all assault reporting requirements were to get cut altogether. In fact, the University of Wisconsin system requested the deletion of the requirements to get rid of redundancy, as it already provides similar information to...

When Scott Walker pronounced himself agnostic about President Barack Obama’s patriotism and Christian faith, it must have seemed like a clever formulation. “I’ve never asked him, so I don’t know,” he said. And about Obama’s Christianity: “I’ve never asked him that.”Walker quickly found his pitch unequal to the presidential big leagues. His argument can’t be generalized into a rule. I have never met Billy Graham, for example, but I’m pretty sure what he believes. As political attacks go, this one is particularly heavy-handed—the equivalent of saying: As far as I know, my opponent is not a swindler and a degenerate....

Gov. Scott Walker refuses to let the media dictate the conversation. “There has been much discussion about a media double standard where Republicans are covered differently than Democrats, asked to weigh in on issues the Democrats don't face," the potential GOP presidential candidate wrote Wednesday in an op-ed for USA Today. "As a result, when we refuse to take the media's bait, we suffer." The Wisconsin Republican's commentary comes on the heels of comments made by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who questioned whether President Obama “loves America” during a private dinner featuring Walker. Since then, the media...

"........ Here is their joint wisdom, pooled in a kind of Communications 101 crash course—a guide for first-time candidates. Media Bias: Get Over ItIn a pitch this week, Walker encouraged supporters to help him fight back against “the clueless and mindless journalistic herd.” The Republican National Committee argued journalists are asking less relevant questions of GOP candidates than they are of Democratic candidates. Hillary Clinton and Democrats should have to answer for comments made by other Democrats, the RNC said. “If you’re a Republican, you’ve got to know you’re going to be held to a double standard,” RNC Communications Director...

In principle, there is no point at which the purge can stop — not until the entire discourse space has been purged, and people throughout it have been set eternally on edge to denounce any reappearance of the expurgated thoughts. ‘I do not believe that the president loves America.” So said the mayor who stood for America in the days after 9/11. It would be worth asking how many Americans think Giuliani’s observation is true, and discussing whether, and to what extent, it is in fact true. It is plainly a legitimate question. It would be dangerous for the fate...

"....In Walker's defense, Tim Graham of the Media Research Center (“Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias”) offers this exegesis: “Walker, the son of a Protestant minister, hears the question very differently: asking if someone is a Christian is a very personal question, asking whether someone has committed themselves to Jesus in their heart. It’s like asking if he knows how often Obama prays. His reluctance to answer for someone he doesn’t know is not a ‘No.’ " Nice try, but the political context of the question was clear and it’s the one Milbank mentioned: the conviction that “Obama is a...

".......But even when prompted with the facts, Walker — in Washington for the National Governors Association meeting — persisted, saying, “I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that,” and, “I’ve never asked him that,” and, “You’ve asked me to make statements about people that I haven’t had a conversation with about that.” This is an intriguing standard. I’ve never had a conversation with Walker about whether he’s a cannibal, a eunuch, a sleeper cell for the Islamic State, a sufferer of irritable bowel syndrome or a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. By Walker’s logic,...

"..........On Vox last week, Jenée Desmond-Harris blamed many of America’s ills on “unconscious racism,” which, she suggests, is “also known as implicit bias.” There is a regnant idea in America, Desmond-Harris contends, that is “so deeply entrenched that many of us aren’t aware that we hold it — that white is better than black.” This point was echoed by Nicholas Kristof in Saturday’s New York Times. Directly addressing “white men,” Kristof submitted that because all human beings are “prone to the buffeting of unconscious influences,” “bias remains widespread in ways that systematically benefit both whites and men.” In both cases,...

It appears that Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin believes he can shrug his way into being the Republican nominee for president. Journalists are quickly learning that if you ask Walker to comment on any of the issues that are riling up the fundamentalists, birthers or other right wingnuts these days, Walker will be respond with his impression of a popular emoticon: ¯\(ツ)/¯. On the question of where he stands on the theory of evolution, Walker replied, “That's a question politicians shouldn't be involved in one way or another. I am going to leave that up to you.” On the question...

My take on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker as a presidential candidate is that he’s enviably capable of having it both ways: an acceptable-to-the-GOP-establishment figure who’s also exciting to the conservative base because (a) his blue-state context makes him look more radical than would similar positions and behaviors in a red state, and (b) his electoral record in Wisconsin gives him an electability argument based on confrontation rather than compromise or outreach. But even before officially announcing a presidential run, Walker’s showing signs of stepping on his own image of relative ideological moderation (essential to his Establishment acceptability and MSM approbation)...

It’s all fun and games until someone gets smacked down The Washington Post’s Robert Costa and Dan Balz interviewed Scott Walker yesterday. Of everything they had opportunity to ask, they chose to ask Walker whether he thought Obama was a Christian. How Walker’s opinion on the matter is remotely relevant or newsworthy is unclear to normal people, who expect the press to do that whole “truth to power” thing. Walker, seemingly unamused by the obscure religion question, responded appropriately, saying he “didn’t know.” [BIG SNIP] Because Walker did not play by their rules, he was isolated (rhetorically isolated, anyway) from...

The 2016 presidential campaign might’ve just witnessed the most outlandish question posed to a potential candidate yet Saturday. In an interview with The Washington Post’s Dan Balz and Robert Costa, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was asked whether he believes Barack Obama is a Christian. Walker immediately responded with, “I don’t know,” which served as the Post’s headline for the reporters’ hard-hitting examination of the possible 2016 contender. Walker went on to clarify his response in the interview. “I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that,” Walker said, in a voice Balz and Costa noted was “calm...

"..................Remember way back in the Spring of 2008, when Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes asked Hillary three times if she believed that Obama was a Muslim? She said no twice, but after the third time she hedged her bets and said “As far as I know.” The media and blogospheric reaction was to clutch pearls, hyperventilate and accuse Hillary of stoking rumors that Obama was indeed a Muslim. Last night, two hacks from the Washington Post recycled the trick. The difference is this time Twitter exploded:............."

Even before he was president, Barack Obama enjoyed showing off his sense of humor. Since getting elected to the White House, President Obama has joked with Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert, done off-center interviews for Buzzfeed and YouTube and played ball with an interviewer who jokingly asked him, “What’s it like to be the last black president?” The wacky, funny asides have earned Obama plenty of negative attention, but they’ve also drawn a lot of focus to his policies. Here’s a look back at some of the most memorable moments in the career of Barack Obama, comedian: Nov. 3, 2007:...