Overview for News

Advice For Gop - Blur The Difference

Gary Andres wrote an article at the Weekly Standard discussing some political implications of the fact that Americans tend to call themselves "conservative" rather than "liberal". According to Andres, on the NES 7-point scale from 1 = extremely liberal to 7 = extremely conservative, the …

Written by Andrew Gelman on Friday May 8, 2009

Will Obama Try Chicago Techniques On Netanyahu?

Here's a link to my latest column for Moment magazine, on the troubled future of US-Israel relations. Obama may be tempted to frame the coming debate as a personal contest between himself and Netanyahu, just as Clinton did, in the hope that his popularity within the American Jewish …

Written by David Frum on Thursday May 7, 2009

Enough With Freedom And Socialism Already

With just 21% of Americans willing to identify themselves as Republicans, GOP leaders have launched the National Council for a New America and embarked on a listening tour . By establishing a dialogue with ordinary Americans, they hope to generate and successfully market conservative …

Written by Henry Clay on Thursday May 7, 2009

Chicago Enforcement Techniques Defended

If I understand it correctly, the case for the Chrysler cram-down goes something like this: "Hey bondholders – the US government saved the entire credit system when it bailed out AIG. Therefore it is now entitled to bend or break a few tedious legal rules. You may get less than the law …

Written by David Frum on Thursday May 7, 2009

More Oil, More Imports - The Genius of the Obama Energy Plan

I knew Bob Samuelson slightly back in the 1980s, and he always struck me as a reasonable liberal, one for whom facts matter. His most recent piece in em> Newsweek

Written by Gusher on Thursday May 7, 2009

Its Still a New Kind of War, Mr. Obama

It's like we’re sitting in a room with not one, but several ten-thousand pound gorillas that everybody wishes really were not there. Iraq is not the “lost war” Democrats in Congress claimed it was two years ago, but Afghanistan might very well become so. Darfur is still an anti-Christia…

Written by Sean Linnane on Thursday May 7, 2009

"calcified In Its Own Way"

Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan, this seems to me very apt. Liberalism was trapped in the late 1970s and 1980s not by a single ideologically rigid formula, but by a rigid commitment to a thousand different, often unrelated interest group platforms. These platforms were usually expressed in …

Written by David Frum on Thursday May 7, 2009

Threatening Bondholders

With thanks to Mickey Kaus, more details on the administration's attempt to up-end law and bully senior bondholders for the benefit of political allies: Creditors to Chrysler describe negotiations with the company and the Obama administration as "a farce," saying the administration was bent on …

Written by David Frum on Thursday May 7, 2009

Jack Kemp Remembered

My memorial at em> The Week

Written by David Frum on Thursday May 7, 2009

Are You Still Paying Your Own Bills?

If so - you must be getting pretty lonely by now .... Congress is about to pass a bill to offer up to $4, 500 to people who trade in old cars, reports the NYTimes . Under the plan, consumers can turn in cars or light-duty trucks that get less than 18 miles a gallon. If they buy cars …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday May 6, 2009

You Think Schools In Pakistan Are Bad? Come See Mine

The New York Times reported Monday on Pakistan’s Islamic schools, which fill the void for some kids in a state where public education hasn’t been valued or even known to exist. In America , gangs fill the void where public education isn’t valued or respected – where …

Written by Thomas Gibbon on Wednesday May 6, 2009

Prosecute Obama's Chrysler Deal Lawyers?

After all: Their legal advice is much more blatantly wrong than anything proposed by George Bush's lawyers on detainee interrogation, or so writes Ann Woolner at Bloomberg.com: Chrysler is essentially selling itself to itself, says Lynn LoPucki, a law professor at the University of California, …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday May 6, 2009

"chicago-style Enforcement Techniques"

Republicans Darrell Issa and Lamar Smith released this statement about the Obama administration's muscling of Chrysler bondholders: As Ranking Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the House Judiciary Committee, we are writing to express our concern over the recent …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday May 6, 2009

So Much For Transparency ...

USA Today reports : Although President Obama has vowed that citizens will be able to track "every dime" of the $787 billion stimulus bill, a government website dedicated to the spending won't have details on contracts and grants until October and may not be complete until next spring — …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday May 6, 2009

Unafraid In Connecticut

If you have not read it already, read and absorb this powerful open letter replying to President Obama's denunciation of Chrysler bondholders by Clifford Asness of AQR Capital Management, a Connecticut fund manager, originally posted in the New York Times' Dealbook blog . Unafraid In Greenwich …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday May 6, 2009

Skill Testing Question

I'm trying to re-establish my conservative street cred here, but I need some help: I can't figure out which is worse, listening or empathy. Any guidance for me? Or is it best to combine the two and forthrightly position ourselves as the party of unempathetic loudmouths?

Written by David Frum on Wednesday May 6, 2009

Obama May Force Israel To Reveal Nukes

Eli Lake, in the Washington Times , writes: President Obama's efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons threaten to expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel's nuclear weapons from international scrutiny, former and current U.S. and Israeli officials and nuclear …

Written by Eli Lake on Wednesday May 6, 2009

Too Clever By Half?

As Gomer Pyle would have said, "Sur-PRISE, sur-PRISE, sur-PRISE!" The Senate Democrats have placed Arlen Specter on what amounts to probation , consigning him to the lowest seniority slots on his committee assignments. They say the issue of his seniority will be "negotiated" after the 2010 …

Written by Gusher on Wednesday May 6, 2009

The "effective Tax Rate" Myth

There's an argument that high US corporate tax rates are not a problem because abundant loopholes lower the "effective tax rate." (You can see it repeated in the comments on this morning's feature post.) But this isn't a compromise. It's a double whammy. High rates plus abundant loopholes = …

Written by David Frum on Tuesday May 5, 2009

The Perfect Storm

How's this for a movie angle on the news: Obama, Democrat House and Senate majorities, and the Liberalization of the Supreme Court = The Perfect Storm. Here's the movie: A crew of fishermen struggle to support themselves and their families on a catch that gets progressively smaller. Their …

Written by Sean Linnane on Sunday May 3, 2009