Free Republic

Share on Facebook | printer-friendly Eighteen months ago, Christopher Buckley made headlines with his endorsement of Barack Obama, becoming the conservative darling at MS-NBC after penning “The Conservative Case for Barack Obama.” At the time, Buckley wrote of Obama’s “first-class temperament” and top-drawer intellect. Buckley convinced himself that Obama would govern as a post-partisan centrist, rising above the progressive agenda that had carried him from the Chicago Machine to the threshold of the White House: But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us...

Time for another round of increasingly tedious GOP big tent/small tent navel-gazing, this time with moderates on the offensive. Powell’s point about Limbaugh not being above criticism is fair enough but I don’t know what he expects from big shots like Steele who’ve been forced to grovel to him. As the GOP shrinks, it relies more heavily on the base for fundraising; the base adores Rush, so as a matter of simple politics, party leaders can’t afford to take him on. It’ll necessarily fall to moderates like Powell who are outside the process and have nothing to lose by antagonizing...

Some Republicans don't know what to make of "Obama hugger" Charlie Crist When Florida Gov. Charlie Crist announced a run for the U.S. Senate, fellow Republicans split into two groups, writes columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. WASHINGTON — When Charlie Crist, Florida's popular governor, announced this week that he would run for the U.S. Senate, it was the best news the Republican Party has had in an otherwise unpleasant year. The problem for the GOP is that its right wing quickly decided that the good news was very bad news indeed. The elation and the desolation had the same source. Party...

In tonight's mini-State of the Union, President Obama said the "nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it." One problem. We didn't. That would be Karl Benz, in Mannheim, Germany. Just sayin'...

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — A faculty adviser for the Texas A&M chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas has resigned, saying he was "ashamed beyond words" when the group posted fliers identifying four professors who signed a petition opposing "demonization" of 1960s radical William Ayers. John Fike, a professor in engineering technology and industrial engineering, quit the adviser role last week, the Bryan-College Station Eagle reported Sunday. The national petition asked for support for education "as an enterprise devoted to human inquiry, enlightenment and liberation" and had more than 4,000 signatures. It circulated during the presidential race, when Ayers' acquaintanceship...

Barack Obama's name is likely to help several Democratic candidates down ballot, but what about a Republican? Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith, one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans, is stressing his history of working with the presumptive Democratic nominee in a new campaign ad hitting airwaves Tuesday....