“When Ben Franklin first emerged from the Constitutional Convention, he was asked by a passerby, ‘What government have you given us?’ Franklin replied, ‘A Republic, if you can keep it.’ For 220 years, until last year, we did keep it. America was a democratic constitutional republic, governed by the rule of law, a beacon of liberty to the entire world. But no more. After just one year of Barack Obama’s fundamental change, aided by the far left House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco, and the easily confused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, America has been transformed from a Constitutional Republic into a Banana Republic.” [editor’s note: Ferrara seems to have memory-holed the eight intensely “banana republican” years immediately preceding, and creating the template for, the Obama regime - TLK] (03/17/10)