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All Good Things...

- Frum Forum Goes Live Frum Forum launched itself almost exactly three years ago, on Inauguration Day 2009. Over the subsequent interval, our hundreds of contributors have reached more than 5 million individual readers. I like to think that together we have helped to move the national …

Written by David Frum on Friday January 6, 2012

The Expectations Game

Byron York has a tough read on the meaning of the Iowa result for Romney. In the end, Romney escaped humiliation, and he did it at far less cost than in 2007-2008, when he gave Iowa everything he had in his first run for the GOP nomination. "If you look back four years ago, we had 52 paid …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday January 4, 2012

Wargaming The Caucuses

Result 1: Romney wins, Santorum second, Paul third, Gingrich fourth, Perry fifth. This is the result indicated by last day's polling. If it eventuates, this will be a very short nominating contest. Romney will proceed to win in New Hampshire. Perry and Gingrich will try to make a last stand …

Written by David Frum on Tuesday January 3, 2012

Waiting Time in Iowa

I attended Romney's closing rally last night in Des Moines. Very professionally done, introduction by Senator John Thune. Three themes really stood out: * Romney opened with a statement about the danger from Iran. Without mention of Ron Paul, it astutely poked at the top vulnerability of the …

Written by David Frum on Tuesday January 3, 2012

Res Judicata: Can an E-Verify Mandate Be Enforced?

Enforcement of the law prohibiting the employment of illegal immigrants, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), enacted in 1986, has been pathetic. When the was first enacted, illegal migration from Mexico initially slowed to a trickle as Mexicans waited to see how seriously the U.S. …

Written by Howard Foster on Monday January 2, 2012

Best of FF: A Party of Jerks

As 2011 comes to a close, Frum Forum plans to re-run some of our best featured pieces from the year. Here is Eli Lehrer's observation on the GOP leadership. I’m not the first to make this comment , but the current debt limit debate shows what the Tea Party movement (which I once …

Written by Eli Lehrer on Friday December 30, 2011

Best of FF: Confessions of a Climate Change Convert

As 2011 comes to a close, Frum Forum plans to re-run some of our best featured pieces from the year. D.R. Tucker wrote an especially provocative piece about how he changed his position on climate change and global warming. I was defeated by facts. It wasn’t all that long ago when …

Written by D.R. Tucker on Thursday December 29, 2011

Best of FF: Fox Geezer Syndrome

As 2011 comes to a close, Frum Forum plans to re-run some of our best featured pieces from the year. We will be running past pieces up until January 2nd of 2012. We start with an analysis of 'Fox Geezer Syndrome' by Richard Ramsay. Conor Friedersdorf strong> remembers what a pain it was to …

Written by Richmond Ramsey on Wednesday December 28, 2011

Don't Blame Romney for Ballot Trouble

The Republican Party of Virginia is on the verge of the appearance of a significant scandal. Allegations , fueled by a post by Richard Winger at Ballot Access News , are swirling, suggesting that the Virginia GOP changed the rules for the validation of signatures in October 2011: But what has …

Written by Fred Bauer on Tuesday December 27, 2011

Ron Paul: Codger, Crank or Bunco Artist?

In my column for CNN, I discuss what Ron Paul tried to achieve with his infamous newsletters: Texas congressman Ron Paul now leads among Iowa Republicans and has tied Newt Gingrich for second in New Hampshire. Republican conservatives have cycled through a series of "Not Mitts." Is it now …

Written by David Frum on Monday December 26, 2011

It's Still Romney's Turn

Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich's mutual failure to qualify for the Virginia ballot raises lots of questions about their long term viability, funding, and organization. But it isn't that surprising at all for one simple reason: neither has run for President before while the two candidates who …

Written by Eli Lehrer on Monday December 26, 2011

Welcome to the DC Party Scene

The more I talk to my friends across the country, the more I realize that I’m in a very unique position in terms of my unemployment—namely, that being jobless in DC is very different than it is elsewhere in the country. “So wait,” my hometown friend Elizabeth coughed over a plate of hash …

Written by Galatea on Friday December 23, 2011

Still No Justice for Lockerbie

In 1988, Libyan terrorists, sponsored by the intelligence services of the now-deceased Muammar Qaddafi, made a bomb using a plastic explosive planted within a Toshiba cassette player with the cruelly-ironic name “Bombeat.” Twenty-three years ago today, Libyan operative Abdelbaset al Megrahi …

Written by Anthony Amore on Thursday December 22, 2011

How Dare The WSJ Blame The House GOP?

The Wall Street Journal this morning excoriates House Republicans for mishandling the payroll tax holiday: The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday December 21, 2011

The Coming Liberal Argument

Here is a real effect Occupy Wall Street is having on the liberal left. They will start to blame the current bad economy explicitly on income inequality. Here is Heather Boushey writing at the Center for American Progress: Take, for example, the housing bubble of the 2000s. It was …

Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Monday December 19, 2011

Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

A friend of theirs once took Christopher Hitchens and his wife Carol Blue to dinner at Palm Beach's Everglades Club, notorious for its exclusion of Jews. "You will behave, won't you?" Carol anxiously asked Christopher on the way into the club. No dice. When the headwaiter approached, Christopher …

Written by David Frum on Friday December 16, 2011

Only One Can Rule the Galaxy

While reading Maureen Dowd’s New York Times column about Newt Gingrich, we learn that the former Speaker of the House is a big fan of the science fiction novels of Isaac Asimov, and not in a good way : Speaker Gingrich told me that he became a historian because he read Isaac Asimov’s …

Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Thursday December 15, 2011

Three Bankers: Brian

Read Part 1 in the 'Three Bankers' miniseries here . Read Part 2 here . Banker 3: Brian Brian grew up in a rural state with the cards stacked against him—middle-class, scrappy and short, he overachieved his way into being the top finance student in my class. He taught me how a collateral…

Written by Galatea on Wednesday December 14, 2011

Three Bankers: Allen

Read Part 1 in the 'Three Bankers' miniseries here . Banker 2: Allen Allen eventually made his way onto Wall Street, working for a midsize firm but pulling in a massive, six-figure salary. I always remembered Allen being a very sweet, if awkward and neurotic guy, prone to throwing money …

Written by Galatea on Wednesday December 14, 2011

Three Bankers: Luke

Banker 1: Luke Luke was insane. Like, absolutely, certifiably whackadoo. There was the clinical mental illness part—talking with his therapist on the phone at all hours, receiving pills in the mail, and shuffling his hulking mass along the hallways of campus as he muttered about The …

Written by Galatea on Tuesday December 13, 2011