Overview for David Frum in Print

The Politics Of Sexual Harassment

Why is Anita Hill deemed more credible than Paula Jones? Anita Hill is back this fall, with a memoir of her epic battle to block the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Alas for her, she took too long to publish. Six years ago, Anita Hill was a …

Written by David Frum on Tuesday October 7, 1997

The Death Of Duty

The British and the American publics, by electing Tony Blair and by electing and reelecting Bill Clinton, have made it clear that they expect their political leaders to be able to summon on demand an easy tear and a quaver in the voice. Why would any less be required from the royal family? "Tell …

Written by David Frum on Monday September 22, 1997

Parties Of The Right Must Point Conservatism In New Direction

They can begin by championing democratic accountability This hasn't been a good year for conservatives around the world. For the first time since 1978, left-of-centre parties are in power in Canada, the U.S. and Britain all at the same time. In fact, every major Western industrial country except …

Written by David Frum on Saturday September 20, 1997

China Inches Toward Market Economy

Communist leader gambles he won't lose reins of power Chinese Communist Leader Jiang Zemin took a big gamble this weekend. At the 15th congress of the Chinese Communist party, he said China's giant state-owned socialist monopolies will now go bankrupt if they can't pay their way. With that, the …

Written by David Frum on Tuesday September 16, 1997

Diana Accepted The Benefits Of Royalty, But Not Its Duties

Grief for the Princess of Wales should not lead us to do an injustice to the family she left behind The death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, has detonated a blockbuster bomb of anger and resentment against the British royal family. Millions of people around the planet have made up their …

Written by David Frum on Saturday September 6, 1997

Islam And Democracy Don't Mix Well

New book has interesting insights into Muslim world In the past 20 years, democracy has spread farther and faster than ever before in human history. Now, in all the world, there remains only one large area of human culture to which democracy remains a stranger: the Muslim world, stretching from …

Written by David Frum on Tuesday August 19, 1997

Middle Class Dismissed

Liberals used to jeer at the working-class social conservatives who voted for Ronald Reagan; Mr. Reagan, they said, was exploiting working-class resentment of abortion and racial quotas, while delivering the economic goods to the rich. How could anyone be such a fool as to trade money for …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday July 30, 1997

Who's Afraid Of Big Bad ITT?

'Super concentration' menace unfounded in the end There was a time, not so long ago, when intelligent people trembled in terror of the giant corporations that seemed to be taking over the planet. These monsters had, writers such as John Kenneth Galbraith warned, grown so big that nothing except an …

Written by David Frum on Tuesday July 29, 1997

Did The U.S. President Auction Off U.S. Foreign Policy?

The complicated Clinton campaign finance story boils down to one simple question You probably haven't heard much about the Clinton financial scandals recently. The U.S. media aren't interested -- the story is complicated, it's vacation season, and besides, the only scandals they care about involve …

Written by David Frum on Saturday July 19, 1997

Splendor In The Grass -- Revisited

In college, my friends and I used to debate the year that one was irretrievably, unqualifiedly, with no more excuses middle-aged. The age we finally settled on was 37. And here I am. If my college self could somehow be introduced to my now middle-aged self, what would he think? More than anything, …

Written by David Frum on Monday July 14, 1997

France Must Let Go Of Its Economic Delusions If It Is To Prosper

The Communists still champion what might be called the anti-Galileo point of view It will be a gloomy Bastille Day in France Monday. The French economy remains mired in its worst economic slump since the Depression. For eight consecutive years, almost 13% of the population of France has been …

Written by David Frum on Saturday July 12, 1997

Crack-up, Part Deux

It's been another bad week for conservatives. In France, the second round of legislative elections on June 1 proved every bit as devastating to conservatives as the first round a week before: The socialists won 268 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, with another 39 going to the Communists. …

Written by David Frum on Monday June 16, 1997

Confused Conservatives: The Worldwide Crack-up

In Leo Tolstoy's telling of the story, Napoleon began the battle of Borodino -- the battle that doomed his hopes of conquering Russia -- exactly as he began every battle. He reviewed his men, gave them an inspiring speech, and sent them out to attack the enemy. In the past, the result had never …

Written by David Frum on Monday June 9, 1997

Back To Harvard

It's been a long, long time since I was last in Cambridge, Massachusetts. How long? Well, let's put it this way: As I drove along Mt. Auburn Street, I passed the battered old sign of the University Typewriter Repair Shop and realized that the first time I had seen it, I was actually taking a …

Written by David Frum on Monday May 19, 1997

What's Wrong with this Plan?

For conservatives, the performance of the Republican Congress is rapidly deteriorating from the depressing to the embarrassing. Each week we wonder, can things get worse? And the answer always seems to be, yes, they can. Now Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah has unveiled a plan to give the Government an …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday April 2, 1997

Israeli Actions Always Blamed for Threatening Peace Process

Decision to build apartments may be irritating -- but a threat to peace? It's a curious thing, this Middle East peace process. We hear over and over again that it is in danger -- but never from Palestine Liberation Organization actions that violate the terms of the agreement signed on the White …

Written by David Frum on Saturday March 15, 1997

Hitler Could Have Been Stopped

Henry Ashby Turner and Historical Responsibility Hitler's Thirty Days to Power, January 1933 By Henry Ashby Turner Addison-Wesley, 255 pp., $ 25 Yale historian Henry Ashby Turner has made a career out of debunking myths about German history. In his 1986 book German Big Business and …

Written by David Frum on Monday February 17, 1997

Health Care: Beware the "Little Fix"

In President Clinton's first term, the Democrats had a vision: a sudden and dramatic takeover of the nation's health-care system that would upend the nation's economy and transform its politics. The plan was candidly megalomaniacal, grandiose, and preposterous. Unsurprisingly, the Democrats were …

Written by David Frum on Monday January 13, 1997

Bookshelf: The Bankruptcy Around the Corner

Some 76 million Americans were born between 1946 and 1964. Starting in 2008, 12 years from now, they will begin to retire. In “Will America Grow Up Before It Grows Old?” ( Random House, 237 pages, $21), Peter Peterson argues that America is utterly unprepared for this immense and imminent …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday October 16, 1996

Anatomy of a Train Wreck: Review of "The System" by Haynes Johnson and David Broder

The collapse of the Clinton health care plan is the story of a failure — but whose? In “The System” (Little, Brown, 668 pages, $25.95), an account of “American politics at the breaking point” (as the grim subtitle puts it), two of Washington’s most eminent journalists lay the blame squarely …

Written by David Frum on Tuesday May 7, 1996