Free Republic

When you make your living in the public arena as I do and when you let your opinion be known as I do in mainstream and social media, you expect some criticism and this is as it should be, this being America where our very way of life is centered around free speech. I don't mind the criticism and usually give as good as I get, respecting all comers, regardless of how far afield or how vehement I consider our differences to be. But, lately, I have been receiving a small amount of correspondence from people who resent the headway...

President Barack Obama's recent business-related comments in Virginia ("If you've got a business -- you didn't build that; somebody else made that happen") sounded more communistic than capitalistic, especially because the "somebody" to whom Obama referred was in fact the U.S. government. Progressives and the mainstream media were quick to come to the aid of the president by stating that similar statements have been said by other entrepreneurial moguls, such as Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Andrew Carnegie and Walter Chrysler. Others excused Obama by saying he "borrowed" his business verbiage from Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren. No one...

The president recently told a campaign gathering that, "[W]e tried our plan – and it worked." "Worked" apparently means something different to Obama than to, say, working Americans. Did the president mean that it "worked" when U.S. business startups dropped from 554,109 in 1987 to 394,623 in 2010? When the president says "invest," he means the government should take money from people whether they want to give it or not, to pay for things they already have decided are not worth their voluntary investment. Think Solyndra. In that same Virginia speech, the president described government "permitting" private-sector growth. Permitting? We...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows Mitt Romney attracting 49% of the vote, while President Obama earns support from 44%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided. The numbers are similar to the 49% to 43% advantage Romney enjoys on the question of who is trusted more to handle the economy.

Obama's desperate protests that his anti-business rant was taken out of context are betrayed both by that very context and because they are a part of a piece -- just one more component of his war against the American entrepreneurial spirit. He would have us believe that his words "you didn't build that" referred to roads and bridges and not businesses. Given his accompanying statements -- "you didn't get there on your own," etc. -- that is an absurd construction. But even if that's what he meant, why would he have felt compelled to point out that businesses don't succeed...

What's the difference between a calm and cool Barack Obama, and a rattled and worried Barack Obama? Four words, it turns out. "You didn't build that" is swelling to such heights that it has the president somewhere unprecedented: on defense. Mr. Obama has felt compelled—for the first time in this campaign—to cut an ad in which he directly responds to the criticisms of his now-infamous speech, complaining his opponents took his words "out of context."

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: George Lakoff (rhymes with). Bill Jacobson has the details at LegalInsurrection.com. By now you have heard the Obama and Liz Warren speeches about how no one got rich on his or her own. ... This narrative is cribbed almost verbatim from the narrative of George Lakoff, a progressive [liberal] linguistics activist and Professor at Berkeley," and he has been advising the Democrats on how to change and use language in order to hide who they really are. That's what it boils down to. Lakoff advises Democrats on how to say things that mask and cover up who...

For a long time, the United States had one economy. Now we have two economies that compete for America's wealth: A private economy and a public economy. The 2012 election will decide which will be subordinate to the other. One economy will lead. The other will follow. How the U.S. arrived at the need to choose between two competing economies reveals a lot about the political polarization in the country. Any history of the Democratic Party in the 20th century will recognize its roots in the American labor movement. The party was defined by the names of those unions. The...

Click here to watch funny video song parody based upon Starship's 1985 song "We Built This City."

Isn't it obvious? Of course he didn't mean what he said four times while off script a few weekends ago! What the president genuinely meant is written right in the teleprompter, after his messaging team spent more than a week figuring out how to "clarify" his comments. He's slipping, guys. Historically, Team Obama has been much faster at turning the truth on its head. Time's Mark Halperin says The One finds himself on the defensive: A campaign never wants to let the opposition dictate what it advertises on. I don’t know if this purely defensive move is based on the...

“And if you don’t like folks talking about you, you probably shouldn’t run for president. The one thing I do have no patience for is this argument that somehow what I’m criticizing is success… I want to promote success," Obama said.

How can you tell when a campaign knows it has stepped into quagmire? It shifts to defense and starts complaining about context. After several days of attempting to defend his “you didn’t build that” remark, Barack Obama shifted last night to a defense that originated with some of his on-line apologists — that Mitt Romney took his remark out of context: The president, after taking a few-day hiatus from campaigning along with Romney out of respect for the victims of the Colorado mass shooting, set out on a round of fundraisers where he tried again to douse the still-simmering controversy...

Obama’s musings on the way the economy works come from a man who never invented anything, never built anything, never took a chance by sinking every cent he had into a start-up company, never had to beg for a loan based on a hunch, never had to put in 16-hour days, never had to meet a payroll or agonize over the effects of government regulation. Then again, Marx wrote volumes about what was wrong with capitalism without every setting foot on a factory floor. I know where Obamaism began — with ‘60s whack-jobs like Barack’s buddy Bill Ayers. And I...

The short-lived pause in campaign politics following last week’s Aurora, Colo., mass shooting came to an end on Monday as the Obama campaign blasted Mitt Romney on foreign policy and Republicans renewed their criticism of the president for his “you didn’t build that” remark. In a Monday afternoon conference call organized by the Republican National Committee, two business owners argued that they were personally offended by the remark, which Obama made earlier this month at a campaign stop in Roanoke. (As The Post’s Fact Checker and others have noted, the original Obama quote was a reference to infrastructure, not to...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Two Fridays ago, Barack Hussein Obama was in Roanoke, Virginia. I want you to grab audio sound bite number 17. This is hilarious, by the way, folks, what's coming up here. You've heard Obama, it's what's coming up after the Obama. I just want to repeat this, Barack Obama, Roanoke, Virginia, on July 13th, explaining to people that if they started a business, that they really didn't, that everybody else did it for 'em. OBAMA: If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. RUSH: No. OBAMA: You didn't get there on your own. I'm...

In a new ad, the Obama campaign says Mitt Romney is intentionally changing Obama’s words; they show a side-by-side comparison of Obama’s words and Romney’s quotation of them, saying, "Mitt Romney is launching a false attack." Only one problem, guys. What Romney quoted from Obama was this: "If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen." The Obama ad continues, “The only problem? That's not what he said." Guess what the official White House transcript says Obama said July 13, 2012 in Roanoke, Virginia? "If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that....

The ridiculous outcry over "You didn't build that" seems very familiar to me. It calls to mind the hysteria that greeted Margaret Thatcher's comment, "There is no such thing as society". The parallel is almost exact. Obama said the words, but plainly didn't mean what his critics say he meant. Thatcher said the words too, but obviously wasn't saying what her critics said she was. Both speakers were careless, allowing their opponents to draw an unflattering caricature. In each case, though, there was a particle of justice in this willful misrepresentation--because a caricature doesn't work unless you recognize its subject....

This week Obama, speaking off the teleprompter, said something that set off a storm of criticism: "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business. you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet." Pat Sajak, of...

THIS IS THE BEST POLITICAL TV AD SINCE REAGAN'S MORNING IN AMERICA: I BELIEVE ROMNEY JUST WON THE ELECTION: (VIDEO AT LINK)

‘If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen”: President Obama’s words last week are likely to haunt his campaign and possibly cost him the election. The line insulted millions of entrepreneurs, small-business owners, garage inventors and plain old dreamers. (The Post reported this week on a few of the New Yorkers who took exception.) Of course, Obama supporters have relentlessly pointed out that the instantly viral head-scratcher was preceded by some no-man-is-an-island boilerplate. “If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. . . somebody along the line gave you some...