Free Republic

Justin Raimondo detects yet another death of neoconservatism and yet another resurgence of non-interventionism on the right. As usual, he takes isolated examples, misinterprets them and then grossly exaggerates their importance. It is great news that many Tea Party protesters support something like a non-interventionist foreign policy. As many of them were originally Ron Paul supporters, just as I was, it makes sense that quite a few of them do support this. It would be even better news if there were any reason to believe that most of the Republican Party and conservative movement shared their foreign policy views. The...

Mickey Kaus alerts us to the latest Greenberg-Carville's Democracy Corps poll suggesting that 6% of likely voters might vote for Lou Dobbs in a Romney-Obama race in 2012. Even tossing a hypothetical Green party candidacy by Ralph Nader into the mix, their numbers raise the possibility that a Dobbs candidacy might well take a serious bite out of the Republican vote. As a third-party candidate, Dobbs does bear some resemblance to Ross Perot in 1992: he's focused on nationalism issues (trade, immigration) rather than moral issues; his style is secular rather than religious; he speaks in specifics that create the...

I have never understood the Sarah Palin attraction. Sorry. I just don’t I am a die-hard conservative, but Sarah Palin does not do it for me. Never did. When she was first announced as John McCain’s running mate, I cringed, but then reluctantly understood. This was a political “Hail Mary” pass for the McCain campaign. Honestly, what could the poor man do from where he stood in the polls and in the modern American environment in which he was nominated? Answer: apparently little, aside from dumbing himself down to the political environment of the times—i.e., try to match the idiocy...

As Sarah Palin embarks on a publicity tour for her book, conservative commentators have again taken to likening the former Alaska governor to the GOP’s revered conservative icon Ronald Reagan. Palin, like Reagan, brands herself as an articulate conservative. Both Palin and Reagan were governors from Western states, but the similarities end there. When Reagan entered the White House, he had successfully completed two terms as governor of California and had run for president against President Ford. Palin chose not to complete her first time as governor. Reagan’s Republicanism was that of the big tent—the kind where contrasting opinions, even...

“Conservative” pundit David Frum, new kid on the block at failing cable giant CNN, has outdone Liberal harpies like Heather Mallick and Rachel Maddow in Trashing Sarah Palin, Round Two. As thousands lined up in Michigan to meet Sarah Palin at a Going Rogue book signing last night, Frum was on News Hour with Jim Lehrer. “This is a woman who has got into a position of leadership by sending very powerful sexual signals,” Frum told reporter Judy Woodruff. “And we see that in the way that men like her much more than women do.” Incredibly Frum, draped in cobwebs...

Judy Woodruff did a piece on Sarah Palin and her book. Among the interview participants was National Review Contributing Editor David Frum. Frum said that Palin "got into a position of leadership by sending very powerful sexual signals." It was a highly edited segment and there was no follow up or elaboration. (Segment has not yet been posted online.)

So now Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) and five self-confessed 9/11 co-conspirators are to be tried not as war criminals in a military tribunal but rather in civilian court just blocks from Ground Zero. A civilian format will allow challenges of evidence obtained under duress (ie. water-boarding), question the legality of KSM’s 2003 capture, and even negate confessions extracted without the full protections of the Constitution being first explained to the detainees. And thus do I have a horrible feeling that these trials will degenerate into a case against the Bush Administration as much as the terrorists themselves. As for demonstrating...

Matthew Continetti has a piece in this weekend’s Weekly Standard hailing Sarah Palin as the ideal leader of a new populist uprising. One obvious objection to his thesis: The populist Sarah is in fact one of the most unpopular figures in American life. According to Gallup, 63% of Americans say they would never consider voting for her. By a margin of 62%-31% Americans rate Palin “unqualified” to serve as president – by far the worst score for any leading Republican. In comparison, only 51% of Americans say they would never consider voting for Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee – and...

Is it just me or does this David Frum ad hit others the wrong way as well? ex animodavidfarrar

At the beginning of the summer, most observers expected Republicans to win all three of the big elections on Nov. 3. Two weeks out, it suddenly looks very possible that Republicans will win only one: the Virginia governor’s race. The other two will be lost—not to superior Democratic organizing and messaging, but to the GOP’s own divisions. By all rights, the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District should be a Republican cakewalk. Stretching across the hunting and fishing towns along the Great Lakes and Canadian border, the district contains Fort Drum, base of the 10th Mountain division, and...

When Glenn Beck made his Fox debut, some shrewd conservatives responded with a wink. Maybe the show was paranoid and hysterical. Maybe Beck was none too scrupulous about facts and truth. But why be squeamish? The other side did as bad, or nearly. And see how usefully he mobilized the base! Those shrewd conservatives assumed Beck was working for them. Big mistake. Beck is working for himself – and he chooses his targets according to his own scheme of priorities.... Glenn Beck is not the first to make a pleasant living for himself by reckless defamation. We have seen his...

The ostensible subject of their debate at FrontPage Magazine is: "Is Glenn Beck Good for Conservatives?" But David Horowitz, after an opening compliment of David Frum, makes clear, in scathing language I have never seen him use against another conservative, that the real problem and the real subject of the discussion is not Beck, but Frum himself. (I've abridged Horowitz's comment, but the whole thing is worth reading, as he goes into detail tearing apart Frum's pious claim that Frum in the past has defended conservatives from liberal attacks.) Horowitz replies to David Frum: ... But it is the intemperate...

Canadians are not Americans. That’s not to say there aren’t similarities. With a majority of the population deriving from Northern Europe, a British cultural matrix, and Anglo-Saxon systems of law and government (excepting Quebec, Canada’s wild card in all things), it couldn’t be otherwise. Like the U.S., Canada was settled through mass immigration over an extended period, with a national character formed by the impact of the frontier. Canada is second only to the U.S. as a technological culture, rivaling us in scientific research and application. It could be said without much exaggeration that the U.S./Canada form a unique double...

When Glenn Beck made his Fox debut, some shrewd conservatives responded with a wink. Maybe the show was paranoid and hysterical. Maybe Beck was none too scrupulous about facts and truth. But why be squeamish? The other side did as bad, or nearly. And see how usefully he mobilized the base! Those shrewd conservatives assumed Beck was working for them. Big mistake. Beck is working for himself – and he chooses his targets according to his own scheme of priorities. The newest target is Cass Sunstein, confirmed yesterday by the Senate as director of the Office of Information and Regulatory...

David Frum credits Gatewaypundit for exposing Van Jones I see, Van Jones just simply made a mistake a long time ago... The problem is the political terrorist who are pointing out Van Jones past... David Sirota is an absolute complete jack*ssDavid Sirota: "And what I think is going on here is that the White House is listening to the right-wing's political terrorists - people like Glenn Beck, people like conservative activists, who have targeted Van Jones because Van Jones is an African-American with progressive movement background working on behalf of social justice." Frum: "David Sirota does his own cause an...

David Frum: Barack Obama's Lockerbie sleight of hand Muammar Qaddafi delivered President Obama a welcome gift this week — a gift made all the more valuable by the remarkable lack of curiosity of the U.S. press about what exactly was contained inside the box. The hero’s welcome given to the convicted Lockerbie bomber in Tripoli diverted media attention from embarrassing questions about the bomber’s release to the much easier issue of the bomber’s reception. Now the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy will drive the entire subject into the back pages and specialty blogs. President Obama is unlikely now to have...

A pregnant American arrives at her doctor's office. It's time for her ultrasound check. The doctor wheels over the machine from the corner of the room: Of course, he has his own. A child has a fall from a slide. There's blood in his urine. The parents race him to the emergency room. Two hours later, the boy's having a CAT scan. (An American is twice as likely to use a CT machine in any given year as a Canadian, four times as likely as a Briton, and seven times as likely as a Dane.) A car driven by an...

Did you hear about the latest episode involving talk radio host and NYT bestselling author Mark Levin ? The guy went out and said the President and his friends were engaged in a "ruthless war" of "unmitigated plunder of the public trust." Winding up in a serious rant he assailed "the purchase of votes, the corruption of elections officials, the bribing of legislatures…and the flagrant disregard of laws" that "threatened the very foundations of democracy." He even got religion, saying it was time to "drive the money changers out of the temples of democracy." Later he went the inevitable Hitler...

According to Public Policy Polling (PPP), a North Carolina polling firm, only 24% of self-identified Republican voters in the state believe Barack Obama was born in the United States. 47% do not believe that Obama is American born, and 29% of Republicans aren’t sure. One part of PPP’s data might reassure sentient readers somewhat: 7% of those who voted for John McCain do not believe Hawaii to be a part of the United States. Now perhaps this is just another irrational expression of Obama hatred. But, it may also be older voters who never quite absorbed the news that our...

Detroit was the Silicon Valley of the 1920s — the booming home of a glamorous new industry, a place where huge fortunes were conjured in years, sometimes months. But while the creators of the computer industry have as yet bequeathed very little to the built environment, the automobile industry piled up around it an astounding American city, in astoundingly little time. The Detroit of 1910 was a thriving Midwestern milling and shipping entrepot, a bigger Minneapolis. The Detroit of 1930 had rebuilt itself as a grand metropolis of skyscrapers, mansions, movie palaces and frame cottages spreading northward beyond the line...

Levy Izhak Rosenbaum claimed to be in the business of buying and selling real estate, but he really bought and sold human kidneys for transplant, according to a federal complaint filed Thursday. The 58-year-old Brooklyn man was accused of trafficking in human organs, after a sting by an undercover FBI agent who agreed to pay $160,000 for a kidney from a live Israeli donor for her sick New Jersey "uncle." Investigators said Rosenbaum bragged about doing "quite a lot" of transplants over the last 10 years. "I am what you call a matchmaker," the complaint said the man, also known...

Frum disses Palin for sharing money with Alaska taxpayers when she comes out against government "handouts" He says Palin was popular in Alaska because she gave everyone 1200 bucks. Frum: Palin failed in interview after interview. Coulter: She has tremendous star power Frum: Palin a divisive force within the republican party And within the country. And will lead the party to political defeat and ineffectiveness in government. (LOL HUH? That's what the GOP did with McCain)Coulter: Reagan was divisive too, and they said he was just appealing to the base (It worked then) Coulter: Palin a lot closer to the...

As speculation over Sarah Palin's presidential aspirations heat up now that she has stepped down as Alaska's governor, a former member of George W. Bush's staff said Palin had no chance of winning the White House. "Impossible," is how Bush's former speechwriter David Frum described the likelihood Palin would become president. Frum based his opinion on Palin's decline in approval ratings from when she was announced as John McCain's Republican presidential running mate in August termed her "divisive" within the party. Asked what she represents for the future of the GOP: "political defeat."

~ snipCoulter countered, saying Palin can overcome any "quitter" label anyone associates with her. "I don't know that Sarah Palin wants to run for president," Coulter said, "but she's already a bigger story than the president of the United States. There were two stories yesterday. For the first time, this 'Mr. Popularity,' President Obama's popularity, public approval ratings fell below 50 percent, for the first time. Editor's note: Coulter was referring to the daily presidential tracking poll of likely voters done by RasmussenReports, in which Mr. Obama's approval rating slipped to 49 percent Friday, and stayed there Saturday; Rasmussen is...

Here is video of Ann Coulter, Bay Buchanan, and David Frum on CBS today where they commented on the impact of Gov. Sarah Palin's resignation as Governor of Alaska, which will take effect tomorrow, July 26, 2009. Bay Buchanan, a Republican strategist, believes it will hurt Palin's chances if she decides to run for President, and believes she was unprepared to deal with the media last year, giving too many "trite" answers to questions in interviews. David Frum criticized Palin's decision, saying Palin was a "calamitous candidate in October 2008," citing declining poll numbers from the time she was nominated....

Washington conservatives who dissent from the party line are often accused of selling out our principles in hope of snagging an invitation to a Georgetown cocktail party. It costs much, much more than that to buy Washington's pillars of conservative orthodoxy. Thanks to the brave people at FedEx, the whole world now knows exactly how much more... When you hear a member of Congress described as more or less conservative than another, it's the ACU's voting index that is being cited. ACU sponsors the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, the biggest event on conservatism's annual calendar... The leaders of...

Americans adore irresponsible, flashy celebrities. But they do not vote for them. Michael Jackson’s funeral crashed the Internet. Had he ever tried to run for dog-catcher, it would have been a very different story. Sarah Palin is about to experience the weight of this rule. Between her speeches and her book deal, she can reasonably hope to earn $10 million over the next two years. She’ll fly in private jets, sleep in sumptuous hotel suites, receive rhapsodic applause. Yet there will be no escaping another story line. Faced with exasperating criticism and the accumulating cares of public office—she quit to...

In today's Washington Post, Bill Kristol asks tauntingly "[T]he mainstream media and the Republican establishment. … tend not only to dislike and disdain Palin, they also want to bury her chances now as a presidential possibility. What are they afraid of?" That's easy to answer: They -- we! -- are afraid that Palin's distinctive combination of sex appeal, self-pity, and cultural resentment has a following in today's GOP. We are afraid that it is not utterly inconceivable that she could win the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, and we are afraid that if she did so she would lead the...

PALIN EXPOSED Thursday, July 02, 2009 9:27 AM Another day, another leak from the wreckage of the McCain campaign. First Todd Purdum publishes a harsh piece in Vanity Fair on the Palin nomination, filled with harsh quotations from anonymous senior campaign sources. Politico follows with an even more revealing exchange of charges and counter-charges. Now at NRO, Mark Hemingway reproduces a series of leaked internal emails. The issue in all cases: Who was revealing to the world these damaging insider descriptions of Gov. Palin? I'm as fascinated as the next person by the insider details. But let's pause for a...

Another day, another leak from the wreckage of the McCain campaign. First Todd Purdum publishes a harsh piece in Vanity Fair on the Palin nomination, filled with harsh quotations from anonymous senior campaign sources. Politico follows with an even more revealing exchange of charges and counter-charges. Now at NRO, Mark Hemingway reproduces a series of leaked internal emails. The issue in all cases: Who was revealing to the world these damaging insider descriptions of Gov. Palin? I'm as fascinated as the next person by the insider details. But let's pause for a sobriety check. The 2008 campaign is over. The...

Thursday, June 25, 2009 More Pearls Of Wisdom From Mr Frum By The Aged P World famous, lovable and cuddly David Frum is a towering intellect, a Republican guru whose pronouncements can make or break those aspiring to political office. He has remarkable insight, shimmering perspicacity and an astonishing way with words – a sort of Republican Barack Obama. It is therefore with sadness that we must report Frum’s latest magisterial declaration – that Governor Palin has little hope of gaining the Republican nomination in 2012. Ivy Leaguer Frum who knows the grassroots better than any other Republican alive and...

For the past four years, Republican reformers have been warning of political disaster ahead. Our party's ideas have fallen behind the times, we are losing key demographic groups, and we have suffered disappointment and defeat in four of the six national elections since 1998. You'd think that such a record would demand reform. Yet most conservatives prefer to rationalize the dismal trends. They say: There's nothing wrong with conservatism. We lost in 2006 because of overspending and Iraq. We lost in 2008 because of the financial crisis and John McCain. There's no need to change or adapt. All we need...

June 15, 2009, 3:00 p.m. Rethinking the Reagan MystiqueDutch made mistakes, but also provided edifying examples of keen political judgment. By Steven F. Hayward In the New York Times this weekend, John Harwood revisited the debate between conservatives and Republicans over whether it is time to “rethink the Reagan mystique.� Does anyone really think the major media outlets covering this intramural argument really have conservative success in mind?   Now, that’s not to say that the argument isn’t a worthy one or should be suppressed — NRO has hosted some fruitful discussion on the issue. But Americans should approach such...

Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny has sat atop the bestseller lists for many weeks. Clearly, conservatives across the country are finding meaning and value in this book. But what? Unlike Ann Coulter’s books, Liberty and Tyranny is not an exciting read. To his credit, Levin on the page eschews the vituperative style of his radio program. In his serious mode, he expresses himself in the sonorous style of the conservatives of the 1950s and 1960s. The tone of L&T owes a lot to the elder Brent Bozell. But Bozell coined lapidary phrases as elegantly and abundantly as the Mint strikes...

Earlier, Allahpundit posted this link to David Frum’s latest post. In it, he says the following: There was a lot of wild political hate expressed during the Bush years. I was there, I remember. But short of the crazy 9/11 denialists, no prominent liberal figure - certainly nobody as central to the left as Limbaugh is central to the right - ever accused either President Bush or Vice President Cheney of wishing to do harm to America. To have accused them of such a thing would have been to accuse them of treason. His evidence for this claim is two...

David Frum makes an important point today about the innovative approach on policy differences unveiled this week in Washington by the Obama Administration and the Senate Intelligence Committee: It appears that winning an election and taking control of Congress will no longer be sufficient for the political mob. Rather, those now out of office will have to spend their time as private citizens being pursued by committees and possibly prosecutors for the views they expressed and actions they took when they were serving in the executive branch under different political management.

Well-known conservative hopes to steer the GOP away from the politics of Rush LimbaughThe future of the Republican Party, if it has one, is Canadian. David Frum is emerging as the reasoned alternative to the blinkered prejudices that inform much of the debate within the GOP. His close knowledge of the struggle to reinvent and reunite Canadian conservatism, and his own personal evolution, have led him to call for a renaissance of the Republican Party within the United States, one that combines fiscal probity with social moderation, targeted primarily at young, university-educated voters. It has made him deeply loathed by...

Greg Gutfeld takes the challenge: Can Fox produce a show that anticipates a SNL parody of Fox? The panel discusses the question: should the US invade Canada… and produces something almost as hilarious as the old Half Hour News Hour. UPDATE: The clip in question is a sequence of goofs about the feebleness, uselessness and absurdity of the Canadian Armed Forces. Why would I call that dumb? Here's why, courtesy of CanWest News. Sorry I disrespected your show, RedEye fans - but you disrespected the dead. --David Frum

Frum's embrace of various liberal positions doesn't make him a dummy, or an unskilled writer, or someone who should be excluded from a necessary conversation among self-identified conservatives about the direction of their wayward movement. It just makes him rather hubristic to envision himself as a general giving marching orders, or as a pope issuing excommunications, to a movement he no longer has much use for.

The news that Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston have canceled their engagement doesn’t come as very much of a surprise. The arrangement looked from the start like an election-season pretense. With the election decently behind us, the pretense can be dropped. Now Bristol and her baby can recede into private life for the next 3 years or so. But as she goes, Republicans and conservatives need to think seriously about the lesson she has taught us – or more precisely, about the illusion she has punctured. Many conservatives carry in their heads a mental image of American society that’s a...

Word has it that the Atlantic’s Ross Douthat will be picking up where Bill Kristol left off at the New York Times’s op-ed page. Here’s the email the Times’s Andrew Rosenthal sent to colleagues announcing the hire: Folks: Some exciting news. We’ve hired Ross Douthat, currently of Atlantic. Ross will be joining the Times staff in mid-April and will be based in the Washington bureau. He will start out primarily online, but will soon be writing with increasing frequency, and then regularity, on the Op-Ed page, in the Monday slot opposite Paul. At some point, he’ll also resume his work...

It has been a fortnight to forget for conservatives. Over the last two weeks, the movement has seen more sniping, spur digging, hair pulling, eye gouging, mud wrestling, and general mayhem than it has at any similar time in memory. It has been Rush vs. Newt, Newt vs. Rushbots, Rush vs. Steele, Steele vs. The Base, Rush vs. Frum, Frum vs. The World, Brooks vs. Himself, along with various blog wars, pundit poundings, and the usual gaggle of internet assassins in the various comment sections of popular websites — all having a merry old time flinging monkey feces at one...

It wasn't a fight I went looking for. On March 3, the popular radio host Mark Levin opened his show with an outburst (he always opens his show with an outburst): "There are people who have somehow claimed the conservative mantle … You don't even know who they are … They're so irrelevant … It's time to name names …! The Canadian David Frum: where did this a-hole come from? … In the foxhole with other conservatives, you know what this jerk does? He keeps shooting us in the back … Hey, Frum: you're a putz." Now, of course, Mark...

Perhaps David Frum is jealous of all the media adoration Kathleen Parker now receives. Knowing he would be challenged on other media outlets, as he was previously on Mark Levin’s radio show, Frum appeared with MSNBC's Chris Matthews tonight. He talked about his recent column in Newsweek titled on the magazine's cover as "A Conservative's Case Against Rush Limbaugh." Appearing on Hardball to plug his anti-Limbaugh Newsweek article denotes that Frum knew he would be addressing not only the Obama White House but also the mainly liberal fans of MSNBC. If Frum was truly interested in endearing his article to...

At the American Enterprise Instutute (AEI) last week, a panel of conservative intellectuals gathered to discuss the legacy of National Review founder William F. Buckley and the future of the Republican Party. During the question-and-answer period, a retired foreign service officer, who confessed to having frequently loitered at National Review editorial meetings in the 1960s at the invitation of senior editor Wilmore Kendall, lamented the anti-intellectualism of today's conservative movement. "Do we have to listen to 14-year-old kids and overweight blabbermouths," he grumbled, to receive our marching orders? Another questioner denounced the "fundamentalism" of talk radio doyen Rush Limbaugh, to...

I’m afraid the man who wrote “Dead Right” is dead wrong. While Goldwater and Reagan were different people who faced very different political circumstances, the latter succeeded due to the path that the former set in motion. In other words, Goldwater did make Reagan possible.

Speechwriter David Frum says Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh is hurting the Republican Party. Rush is new (talking) head of the GOP His controversial quips come faster than a locomotive and he leaps over spineless Republicans in a single sound bite. He's Rush Limbaugh - and he's kryptonite for the GOP, says conservative pundit David Frum. Frum, an influential former Bush speechwriter, charges in this week's Newsweek that the bombastic radio talk show host is trashing the Republican Party by allowing the Democrats to anoint him de facto party leader. "Limbaugh is kryptonite, weakening the GOP nationally," writes Frum, who...

It's CPAC weekend - the grand rallying of the conservative clan here in Washington. It's a season where conservatives from across the country meet to compare notes, share stories, and seek political consensus. The consensus forming this year however is an ominously dangerous one - ominously dangerous to conservatives themselves that is. Conservatives live in thrall to a historical myth, and this myth may soon cost us dearly. The myth is the myth of the Goldwater triumph of 1964. It goes approximately as follows: In 1964, after years of watered down politics, Republicans turned to a true conservative, Arizona Senator...

Newsweek magazine joins the Obama administration's war on Rush Limbaugh with a cover story authored by conservative lightwieght David Frum.The cover art is an unflattering tight shot of Limbaugh's face featuring a black box over his mouth with the word ENOUGH!The article, which doesn't matter really because it is the excuse to position the anti-Rush agit-prop cover on newstands around the country for a week, can be read here.Newsweek released a press release with an excerpt from Frum's article:"In the days since I stumbled into this controversy, I've received a great deal of e-mail. (Most of it on days...

Well, Frum isn’t getting in line, so I thought I would try to give him the talk I gave my daughter when she was having trouble getting along with her playground friends. Dear Dave, Look, you are special. Nobody else is Davey Frum. You have talents that no other person in this world possesses. But I have to tell you what the right thing to do is. There is a tendency of all people, it is in fact human nature, to try to impress other people to feel loved. That feeling is persued continually by some people, exactly because it...