Overview for David Frum in Print

Gop's Last Best Hope

Tuesday was a bad day for supporters of Rudy Giuliani. It wasn't so great for fans of Mitt Romney, either. The Republican presidential race seems to be returning to the place where it started 18 months ago: with John McCain as the presumptive front-runner --despite his low standing among the …

Written by David Frum on Thursday January 31, 2008

Ancient Holy Books, Modern Dilemmas

Holy books are like mirrors that reflect us back to ourselves. The loving hear calls to love more deeply; the hateful are confirmed in their hate. It is not the text that makes the religion what it is; it is the reader. I find few religious scenes more inspiring than a synagogue on a morning …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday January 30, 2008

What's At Stake At Durban Ii

To call anything the United Nations does a "new low" does an injustice to all the previous "old lows." How do you do worse than pass a resolution condemning Zionism as a form of racism on the anniversary of the Nazi Kristallnacht, as the UN did in 1974? Still, even by the sordid standards …

Written by David Frum on Saturday January 26, 2008

Turning The Triple Play

Why is the Republicans' three-legged stool wobbling? Why aren't economic, social and political conservatives pulling together during this primary season the way they have in the past? To understand, let's imagine that we had three conservatives in the room with us--and that they said exactly …

Written by David Frum on Friday January 25, 2008

The Day Humanity Became Cheap

On January 28, Canada marks the 20th anniversary of what may be the most astounding decision in the nationÕs legal history: R. v. Morgentaler, the case that struck down CanadaÕs abortion laws. The Morgentaler case was followed the next year by Daigle v. Tremblay, which clarified and …

Written by David Frum on Tuesday January 22, 2008

Bush's Impossible Task

fully and personally to the Palestinian cause than any previous president. At a press conference earlier that same day, standing alongside Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, Bush said: "I'm confident that two democratic states living side by side in peace is in the interests not …

Written by David Frum on Saturday January 12, 2008

Advantage: Rudy

My man Rudy Giuliani--for whom I act as an unpaid foreign-policy advisor--got smoked in the Republican Iowa caucuses: 4% of the vote. Yet as the smoke clears, it's going to become apparent that Rudy was the night's big winner. Here's why. The actual Republican winner, Mike Huckabee, cannot …

Written by David Frum on Saturday January 5, 2008

Dangerous Indifference

For weeks, the U.S. presidential campaign has been unfolding with truly disturbing indifference to the outside world and its dangers. That changed with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Thursday. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been wrestling to determine …

Written by David Frum on Saturday December 29, 2007

Truth Among The Fiction

A decade ago, Columbia University geologists William Ryan and Walter Pittman proposed an arresting explanation of the story of Noah's flood: Eight thousand years ago, what is now the Black Sea was a freshwater lake, much smaller and much shallower than today's inland ocean. Early farming …

Written by David Frum on Saturday December 22, 2007

Killing Ourselves With Food

Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control released some rare good news in the struggle against obesity: For the first time in a generation, things are not getting worse. One-third of all American men--and more than one-third of American women--are obese. Not just a little large, but …

Written by David Frum on Saturday December 1, 2007

Catching The Cfl Spirit

"The war has not progressed altogether as we would have wished." With those words, the Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan in August, 1945. They also neatly describe this season's performance by the Toronto Argonauts: a stunning come-from-behind surge culminating in an embarrassing …

Written by David Frum on Saturday November 24, 2007

L'affaire Al-dura

I want to tell you about a forgery. The forgers intended to incite hatred against Jews and the state of Israel and to a great extent, they have succeeded. The forgery is a 55-second film clip that purports to show the shooting death of a 12-year-old boy at a Gaza crossroads after a Palestinian …

Written by David Frum on Saturday November 17, 2007

Remembering A Great War For Democracy

It's just one exhibit at the Canadian War Museum: an interactive display that allows you to punch in a name of a First World War soldier and see his enlistment papers. It does not sound very dramatic. Until you try it. I entered the name of my wife's grandfather, a veteran of the Western front. …

Written by David Frum on Saturday November 10, 2007

Losing The Battle Against Anti-americanism

In the movie "Wag the Dog," an embattled president hires a Hollywood producer to retrieve his image. The producer presents the president with a speech. Top aides read it over and pronounce it "corny." The producer explodes in rage. "Corny? Corny? Of course itÕs corny!" Nobody except extreme …

Written by David Frum on Saturday November 3, 2007

Politics Has Lost Its Charm

The first political campaign on which I ever worked was a provincial election in the west end of Toronto, more than three decades ago. We won, little thanks to me. (And since the candidate was a New Democrat, no thanks are due.) It was a small operation: a half dozen volunteers, some pamphlet …

Written by David Frum on Saturday October 27, 2007

Make Speech Free, And All Else Follows

Fix one thing about Canada? Where to start? Maybe we can start by noting all the things that have improved already. Government's share of the national income is declining. Public debt levels have been reduced. Taxes have begun to lighten. Canada is playing a more positive role in the world. Canada …

Written by David Frum on Saturday October 20, 2007

What Happens To Ayaan Matters To Us All

Last week, the Dutch government announced it would remove the security protection it has provided to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The Somali-born Ayaan is perhaps the world's best-known living critic of the maltreatment of women in Islamic culture. First as a parliamentarian, then as a writer and filmmaker…

Written by David Frum on Saturday October 6, 2007

Dogma Isn't History

The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) has been bombarding journalists and local politicians with press releases urging that October be proclaimed "Islamic History Month." The cities of Victoria and Kingston have duly complied, in the same crowd-pleasing spirit that has inspired the U.S. Congress to …

Written by David Frum on Saturday September 29, 2007

Fear Fills The Air In Poland

It's been almost two decades since I last visited Poland. In 1990, communist rule had only just barely ended. The police still wore their former uniforms--and still treated citizens and travelers with the former arrogance. As my wife and I flew out of Poland to East Berlin, a border official …

Written by David Frum on Saturday August 25, 2007

Dear President Harper

"I would immediately call the president of Mexico, the president of Canada, to try to amend NAFTA, because I think that we can get labour agreements in that agreement right now." --Barack Obama, speaking at the AFL-CIO presidential candidates debate, Aug. 7. Senator Obama's little slip of …

Written by David Frum on Saturday August 11, 2007