Overview for News

Super Committee Braces For Another Fight

The good, the bad and the ugly of politics has been on display for the past few days. None of it popped up spontaneously. First, the ugly. In an article in The Hill , Alexander Bolton reports that the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (JSC) “can’t agree on how to count.” This …

Written by Steve Bell on Thursday October 13, 2011

Conceding One to the Critics

As readers of this site have no doubt noticed, I'm not one who is greatly troubled by hostile criticism. On the other hand, sometimes the critics make a valid point. When they do, I'm not too obstinate to concede. For years, I've shared the Marketplace airwaves with former Secretary of …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday October 12, 2011

You Can't Take Occupy Wall Street Seriously

At Huffington Post Canada , Daniel Alexander Portoraro explains the many problems that are preventing Occupy Wall Street from reaching a more mainstream audience: Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has finally broken out of the ivory computer towers of social media users, and spilled over into …

Written by FrumForum Editors on Wednesday October 12, 2011

Romney Won't Drink the Tea

In an October 11 post discussing Romney’s performance in a recent Gallup poll, the Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen noted, “What seems more interesting, however, is just how weak a frontrunner Mitt Romney really is. Even as Rick Perry’s support collapses, and even when the rest of the GOP field …

Written by D.R. Tucker on Wednesday October 12, 2011

No Disrespect But...

Who produces the first big analysis: Why the Tea Party could not produce a credible presidential candidate?

Written by David Frum on Wednesday October 12, 2011

GOP Candidates Spar Over the Economy

GOP Bloomberg Econ Debate What did we learn from last night's debate? There are problems with Herman Cain's candidacy . Herman Cain's rising popularity and poll numbers meant that Bloomberg had to dedicate a significant amount of time to his 9-9-9 plan. His plan was even presented as part of …

Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Tuesday October 11, 2011

Worry About Costs, Not Mandates

Revelatory Headline : "White House used Mitt Romney health-care law as blueprint for federal law." I am no fan of Obamacare. The notion that a top down system will control costs flies in the face of the fact that virtually every advanced country on earth that has a top-down scheme to manage its …

Written by Stanley Goldfarb on Tuesday October 11, 2011

Perry's Dangerous Debate Temptation

Rick Perry has thrown away his opportunity to make a good first impression. Will tonight's debate be a last chance to correct a negative view? I think I can guess the advice Gov. Perry is receiving in advance of the debate. He needs to "go on the attack," hit hard on Romneycare and the individual …

Written by David Frum on Tuesday October 11, 2011

The Murder War Against Egypt's Christians

Egypt was not a congenial place for its Christian minority even under Hosni Mubarak. Now conditions are getting worse, writes Peter Goodspeed in Canada's National Post : Last weekend’s massacre of Coptic Christians in Cairo is just a symptom of a more dangerous disease, as the transition to …

Written by David Frum on Tuesday October 11, 2011

Christie Could Never Run Against Romney

When I wrote that Chris Christie was not going to run for President, I gave four reasons why it was too late for him to enter the race. As we learn about Chris Christie's plan to endorse Mitt Romney today, we can add a 5th: apparently he had been in communication with Romney for a long time. …

Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Tuesday October 11, 2011

The Moral Majority is Getting Smaller

A dozen years ago, another Texas governor launched a campaign for president in which religion was also a major theme. George W. Bush stressed his own Christian commitment and spoke in terms borrowed from the evangelical lexicon. At the same time, Bush took care to avoid offense to non-evangelica…

Written by David Frum on Tuesday October 11, 2011

Why Food Stamps Don't Pay for Healthy Meals

I applaud Monica Marier's commitment and the good intentions of Sesame Street's producers in drawing trying to draw attention to child hunger in the United States. Certainly, far too many children grow up in bad circumstances in the United States and some of these circumstances relate to food. …

Written by Eli Lehrer on Tuesday October 11, 2011

The White House Knew Solyndra Was Not Profitable

Today, the Wall Street Journal disclosed and commented upon an e-mail to Larry Summers regarding the Solyndra loans: Brad Jones of Redpoint Ventures got to the heart of the Solyndra economy in a December 2009 email to then-National Economic Council director Larry Summers: “The allocation …

Written by Hank Adler on Monday October 10, 2011

The Tea Party of the Left? Sort Of.

More than a few commentators and reporters have tried to brand the Occupy Movement as a Tea Party of the Left. On its surface, the analogy has some compelling aspects: both movement emphasize rage over a rational, forward-looking policy agenda. Both claim to speak for the “little guy” but are …

Written by Eli Lehrer on Monday October 10, 2011

NPR Prepares for a Future Without Government Support

Several months ago, I wrote a piece here at Frum Forum in which I stated that National Public Radio would be better off going without federal funding, because of the constant political headaches such funding entails. I also suggested that changes in the media world, namely the rise of digital …

Written by Mark R. Yzaguirre on Monday October 10, 2011

Paul's Straw Poll Wins Are Practice for Iowa

One of the minor stories to come out of this year’s Values Voters Summit is Ron Paul’s sizeable victory in the forum’s straw poll. The Paul organization is developing some expertise at the art of straw poll hijacking . They turned out their supporters in significant numbers by committing money …

Written by Chris Ladd on Monday October 10, 2011

The Top Sixteen Westmoreland Quotations

16. Motives: In an oral history interview: “I diligently tried to do a good job, not because I was bucking for anything higher, but because I was trying to do a job for the sake of doing a good job. That was my orientation. As a matter of fact, it was throughout my career. It was to do a job for …

Written by Lewis Sorley on Monday October 10, 2011

Exclusive Quotes from `Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam'

Perhaps the most outstandingly original history of the Vietnam War is Lewis Sorley's A Better War . A Better War describes the US fight in Southeast Asia between 1969 and 1972. The US forces switched then from a big-unit strategy adapted from the Korean experience toward counterinsurgency …

Written by David Frum on Monday October 10, 2011

Res Judicata: Leave Tort Reform to the States

One tenet of all the Republican campaigns is the demand that Congress enact some type of “litigation reform.” This usually means caps on damages in civil tort litigation in general and punitive damages/pain and suffering awards in particular. Currently, there are no such limits under the Federal …

Written by Howard Foster on Monday October 10, 2011

Steve Jobs Leaves Behind a World He Made

"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me.… Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful—that’s what matters to me." R.I.P Steve Jobs. He was the patron saint of entrepreneurs. Newton once reflected that if his vision extended farther than others' it was because …

Written by Brad Schaeffer on Sunday October 9, 2011