Overview for David Frum in Print

The New (softer) Face Of America's Pro-life Movement

Whoever imagined that we would see a Republican convention rapturously applaud an unwed teen mother? Yet that is just what happened on Wednesday night in St. Paul. At the conclusion of Sarah Palin's triumphant speech, the Alaskan Governor welcomed her family onto the stage: her husband, her five …

Written by David Frum on Saturday September 6, 2008

A Clear Gain For Obama

'You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and handguns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I'm gonna convince Americans that I'm right, and I'm gonna get the guns." That passionate outburst occurs at the …

Written by David Frum on Saturday June 28, 2008

The Rules

How McCain should pick 'em. Some years ago, C-SPAN's Brian Lamb played a dirty trick on a journalist friend of mine. My friend was appearing on c-span's "Washington Journal" to discuss recent events. If I remember right, my friend was expanding on the future of East Timor when Lamb abruptly …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday June 25, 2008

My Father Was Right

'Marriage is a lottery." Among the pieces of wisdom that my father tried to impart to me, that quotation ranked number one. (Number two was "internal rate of return is a useless concept in evaluating a real estate investment" -- but that's a topic for another column.) My father's …

Written by David Frum on Saturday June 21, 2008

The Clinton Ultimatum

It's not unusual for the winner of a U. S. presidential nomination to choose the runner-up as his running mate. John Kerry did it in 2004. Ronald Reagan did it in 1980. John F. Kennedy did it (under very different rules) in 1960. In these pairings, it is always the winner who reaches out to the …

Written by David Frum on Saturday June 7, 2008

In Mcclellan, Bush Reaps What He's Sown

Except maybe for MSNBC's wild-eyed commentator Keith Olbermann, nobody in politics or media seems to have a good word to say for Scott McClellan, the former George W. Bush press secretary turned ferocious Bush critic. The right complains of his disloyalty. The left complains that McClellan'…

Written by David Frum on Saturday May 31, 2008

Democracy To Democracy

Seven bombs exploded in the Indian city of Jaipur on the evening of May 13. An eighth was placed outside a Hindu temple just outside the city. At least 63 people were killed, more than 200 wounded. Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but Indian media and police take for granted that the …

Written by David Frum on Saturday May 17, 2008

Subsidizing Ethanol Was A Mistake

It was a routine drop-by for President Bush. Speaking last weekend at a high-tech firm near St. Louis, Missouri, the president attempted to defend himself against the charge that his policies were responsible for rising food prices. Bush has strongly favoured subsidies to ethanol: …

Written by David Frum on Friday May 9, 2008

Republicans Must Change To Win

These have been a terrible few weeks for the Democrats - so bad that Republicans are feeling faint flickers of hope. Damaging revelations about Barack Obama - and his own and his wife Michelle's ill-chosen words - have opened the way for John McCain to rerun the Republican presidential campaign …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday May 7, 2008

The Loyal Son

Like thousands before and after me, I first met William F. Buckley because of Yale. A group of us from the Yale Political Union had invited the conservative magazine editor R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. to come talk to us. Tyrrell generously accepted -- and asked if he could bring his friend Bill …

Written by David Frum on Thursday May 1, 2008

The Axis Of Evil: An Idiot's Guide

Mystery solved. On Sept. 6 of last year, Israeli warplanes struck a facility in the deserts of eastern Syria. The Israelis refused to explain what they had hit or why. The Syrians immediately bulldozed the site to block all further investigation. The U.S. government acknowledged the attack but …

Written by David Frum on Saturday April 26, 2008

Big News Out Of Basra

What the hell is going on in Basra? According to the major media outlets in New York and London, the answer is: a major defeat for U.S. and British policy in Iraq. This is how the well-regarded Michael Gordon of The New York Times reported the story: "Mr. Maliki overestimated his military's …

Written by David Frum on Saturday April 5, 2008

Beware Of Pandering Politicians

Across the U.S., mortgages are being foreclosed. Banks are writing off bad loans. One investment bank has already failed, with who knows how many more to come. So is it a recession yet? Oddly, the news from the overall American economy remains surprisingly better than expected. On Friday, the …

Written by David Frum on Saturday March 29, 2008

A Noble Project, Badly Managed

Five years later, the debate over the Iraq war rages as hot as when it began. We have never ceased looking over our shoulders. We have attempted to fight our way forward with our eyes fixed backward. Mired in these old arguments, it becomes impossible to see anything new. Just last week for …

Written by David Frum on Saturday March 22, 2008

Legal Fairness: No. Poetic Justice: Yes

As the media revel in all the lurid details of the Eliot Spitzer scandal, ask yourself this question: How is it that we know any of this stuff? The short answer: U.S. federal prosecutors leaked it. The court documents referred only to a mysterious "Client Number Nine" -- reflecting the usual …

Written by David Frum on Saturday March 15, 2008

Nobody's Fault But Obama's

Is it the responsibility of the government of Canada to assist Democratic presidential candidates in telling lies? Apparently the answer is "yes" -- at least according to the opposition parties in Ottawa. The opposition parties are slamming the Harper government for inadvertently …

Written by David Frum on Saturday March 8, 2008

Friends With Those He Fought

Of all the writings of Bill Buckley, none were finer than his short obituaries. He wrote nearly 500 of them -- for world rulers, political opponents and intimate friends; and, in many cases, for people who combined all three roles into one. Here, for example, is an extract from his obituary for …

Written by David Frum on Saturday March 1, 2008

Hillary Has A Point

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is collapsing, a victim of this one unsolveable problem: Hillary's opponents hate her -- but her supporters do not much like her. As the Democratic primaries have stretched, former Hillary supporting constituencies have one by one dropped away. …

Written by David Frum on Saturday February 23, 2008

Right Man, Wrong Time

It's been a long time since there was a Republican presidential candidate like Mitt Romney. In recent years, Republican presidential candidates have dealt in soaring rhetoric and heroic themes. The grubby details of policy they left to the Democrats. Mr. Romney was made of very different …

Written by David Frum on Friday February 8, 2008

Economy Could Yet Cast The Final Vote

The first (and maybe most decisive) news of the day came not from New York or California, not from Georgia or West Virginia, but from the Institute for Supply Management. The Institute tracks business purchasing of everything from toilet paper to laptop computers. On Super-Duper Tuesday, it …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday February 6, 2008