Free Republic

It’s finally happened. David Frum, true conservative.No no, kidding. This is, I think, something he pulled from his dream journal after waking up one night in a cold sweat, screaming. All it’ll take for a Cruz victory, he thinks, is an economic slowdown followed by an “event” on Wall Street that pushes America into recession followed by a months-long primary challenge by Elizabeth Warren to Hillary followed by an immigration brouhaha that unites conservatives behind Cruz followed by a Cruz/Christie fusion ticket eking out the narrowest of wins over Clinton in a very low-turnout election. Interestingly, the word “ObamaCare” appears...

I wish I could offer up a better retort to this pathetic sh**bag ( Ace does it better than I ever could) but all I have to offer is this — piss off and die. Via Daily Beat/David Frum: “Of the dead, speak nothing but what is good.” It’s an ancient rule and a wise one, but one that does not do justice to the life and career of Andrew Breitbart, dead today aged 43. It is impossible to speak nothing of a man who traced such a spectacular course through the contemporary media. But to speak only “good” of...

Liberal television anchors love having David Frum on their shows. He pretends to be a conservative but makes a habit of bashing them. The latest example came on Sunday when Frum took a shot at Fox News viewers. Frum told Howard Kurtz on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” that “people who watch a lot of Fox come away knowing a lot less about important world events.” In a recent New York magazine column, Frum accused the conservative media of running an “alternative knowledge system” of “pseudo-facts and pretend information.” Frum offered no specifics on CNN to back up his claim, and Kurtz,...

This week, Sarah Palin stoked a late, brief flurry of speculation that she might enter the 2012 presidential race. I wont try to predict the former Alaska governor's decision. But I will predict this: If Palin does enter the race, she won't be any kind of factor. Over the past three years, Palin has systematically laid waste to the basis for a presidential campaign. By her own words and actions, she has discredited herself and alienated her one-time supporters. But before Palin vanishes into her hard-earned obscurity, Republicans need an assessment and an accounting. Had John McCain won in 2008,...

In this debt-ceiling fight, I'm having horrible flashbacks to the Republican debacle over health care. Then as now, what could have been a negotiated deal turned into all-out political war. Then as now, Republicans rejected all concessions by the president as pathetically inadequate. Then as now, Republicans refused any concessions of their own, instead demanding that the president yield totally to their way of thinking. Then as now, Republicans convinced themselves that they had the clout to force the president to yield. With health care, Republicans calculated spectacularly wrong. They pursued an all or nothing strategy and got -- nothing....

David Frum is a writer who, in 1997, engaged in a spirited online debate with homosexual writer Andrew Sullivan over the topic of homosexual "marriage." In over 5,500 words of text, Frum was articulate, cogent, and compelling in his opposition to radically redefining marriage, saying that "this request isn't just misplaced, but is actually logically impossible." Now, however, Frum has changed his mind. In a short CNN op-ed last week, he wrote that "the case against same-sex marriage has been tested against reality. The case has not passed its test." Tested? Only five out of the fifty states (soon to...

I was a strong opponent of same-sex marriage. Fourteen years ago, Andrew Sullivan and I forcefully debated the issue at length online (at a time when online debate was a brand new thing). Yet I find myself strangely untroubled by New York state's vote to authorize same-sex marriage -- a vote that probably signals that most of "blue" states will follow within the next 10 years. I don't think I'm alone in my reaction either. Most conservatives have reacted with calm -- if not outright approval -- to New York's dramatic decision. Why? The short answer is that the case...

So Obama could lose if -- and here's the big if -- Republicans do not blow the opportunity by presenting themselves as Medicare-annihilating racist maniacs... Tea Party conservatives complain that Republicans who advocate restraint, responsibility and moderation do so in order to be nice to Obama. That's utterly upside down. Restraint, responsibility and moderation are indispensable to the defeat of President Obama. It is Tea Party conservatism itself that is Obama's last, best hope for a second term.

Cry me a river: Sarah Palin has mesmerized the cable shows by revving a bus and riding a Harley.[...] Meanwhile, the man who was and is the actual front-runner in the Republican presidential race rates barely a mention in the media commentary.I’m talking about Mitt Romney of course, the former governor of Massachusetts who has polled first in almost every Republican presidential preference poll since January 2009. Yet somehow the commentariat will not believe it.It’s truly amazing anyone still listens to this moron, but his musings do undeniably provide comic relief.  A few days ago I observed him on TV (can’t...

Here's a part of his post at CNN, where he is apparently a regular contributor, which makes the point: "Ben Smith in Politico reports that the trip was booked through a Christian tour operator. But the real news is who did not book the trip: the Republican Jewish Coalition, the group that brought George W. Bush to Israel in 1998, Mitt Romney in 2007, Haley Barbour in 2011, and many other presidential hopefuls beside. "Very likely you have never heard of the Republican Jewish Coalition. But then again, you probably are not seeking the Republican presidential nomination. If you were...

On CNN’s Reliable Sources, conservatives Jennifer Rubin and David Frum discussed the declining television ratings of Glenn Beck and the recent conservative attacks on him. Rubin said Beck was creating a bad image for the Republican party, whereas Frum, a longtime Beck critic, suggested audiences are just tired of hearing ludicrous conspiracy theories. Rubin, seemingly speaking on behalf of Beck’s “elite” conservative critics everywhere, said: “Sure he doesn’t need our approval and we’re not giving him our approval. But to the extent to which he wants to influence events, which is presumably why does it – other than the money...

Dearly as I esteem Ross Douthat, I thought his blogpost today on the press and Sarah Palin did not hit the nail on the head. Ross: "No politician, from Bush to Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi, is hated so intensely by so many Americans [as Sarah Palin]. And this is what’s so problematic, to my mind, about much of the Palin coverage: The media often acts as though they’re covering her because her conservative fan base is so large (hence the endless talk about her 2012 prospects), when they’re really covering her because so many liberals are eager to hear...

Perhaps anticipating that the media would begin ripping Sarah Palin’s interview with Sean Hannity earlier tonight underestimated the speed of the news cycle. Less than an hour later and a network away, Palin’s fellow conservative David Frum responded to her comments with a good-natured plea for her to just “stop talking now.” On MSNBC’s The Last Word, Lawrence O’Donnell noted that he would have wanted to hear Palin explain the difficulty of finding an appropriate timing to respond to the attacks on her, introducing the review of her performance on Hannity without deeply analyzing any particular part of it. Frum...

David Frum takes Sarah Palin to task for not being more public in her reaction to the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords, not being sufficiently empathetic, and not grasping the scope (no pun intended) of the accusations against her, What Palin Needed To Say After Giffords' Shooting: "Palin failed to appreciate the question being posed to her. That question was not: “Are you culpable for the shooting?” The question was: “Having put this unfortunate image on the record, can you respond to the shooting in a way that demonstrates your larger humanity? And possibly also your potential to serve as leader...

Stanley Kurtz on David Frum’s new effort to police political speech: Last week, the distinguished liberal thinker and activist William Galston, along with an equally distinguished conservative counterpart, David Frum, announced in the Washington Post the forthcoming founding of a new organization called “No Labels.” The stated aim of No Labels is to combat the “hyper-polarization” of American political debate by “calling out” politicians, media personalities, and opinion leaders who “recklessly demonize” opponents. Unfortunately, their announcement gives us reason to fear that No Labels will only increase the level of political acrimony by attempting to constrain debate, thereby exacerbating the...

With Kathleen Parker getting her own CNN show, David Frum is undoubtedly worried that he will be totally eclipsed among so-called conservatives with Palin Derangement Syndrome. So, in a little 59 word post portentously entitled, “Bigger Problems with Sarah Palin’s new book,” David Frum finds racism—yes, racism—in the following statement: PALIN FROM “AMERICA BY HEART”: “But from what I’ve read, family life at the time of the founding was a lot like family life for Americans today: full of challenges, sure, but also full of simple pleasures.” I’ll give you boilerplate, banality, throwaway, heartfelt cornpone… but racism? Really? Give up...

A journalist yesterday asked me a thought-provoking question: Why does Sarah Palin command so much media attention? By most measures, she currently stands about equal in the Republican field alongside Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and only a little ahead of Newt Gingrich. Yet the cable shows do not erupt when Mitt Romney makes a speech. Newt Gingrich is on Twitter almost every day, but his messages don’t make news. So why Palin? Five guesses. 1) She polarizes. Modern media culture favors contrast and conflict. Sarah Palin serves both up by the bucketful. Most presidential candidates present themselves as gracious and...

“A nightstick the size of a telephone pole and the muscle to wield it effortlessly.” Mike Huckabee, who knows a thing or two about insurgent campaigns, sees the power of the Palin candidacy. Taegan Goddard links this morning to the Des Moines Register: Mike Huckabee told the Des Moines Register that Sarah Palin would be a strong contender for president should she decide to run. Said Huckabee: “No question, she will be a very, very strong presence and force, if she gets in. You know, she may run away with it. And that’s one of those things everyone needs...

I’m not going to go on at length about David Frum. We all know who he is; we all know what he is and what he represents. He’s a “conservative” who gets his jollies and press gigs railing at actual conservatives, along the lines of Kathleen Parker and, during the 2008 campaign, Peggy Noonan. Parker has gone on to CNN infamy alongside Eliot Spitzer, while Noonan has tried to rehab herself by claiming that the Tea Party saved the GOP. She’s right about that, but only from a rearview mirror perspective. It’s easy to get stuff right after it’s already...

Republican political strategist Mark McKinnon – veteran of McCain and Bush presidential campaigns – acknowledged in an interview with David Frum that a third-party presidential effort for 2012 was not far off, and hinted at his involvement in one. In the podcast interview, McKinnon, who was discussing his recent Daily Beast column “A Centrist Manifesto”, lamented that “there’s nobody that gets rewarded for bipartisan behavior, [and] in fact they get punished.” To that end, he said, “there is a very real possibility for a legitimate third party effort for 2012 … American voters are so hungry for more voice, and...