Overview for News

Humility In Europe?

President Obama is collecting praise for the humility expressed in his Strasbourg speech. He confessed that the US had failed to show appropriate appreciation of Europe's role in the world and described the US as sometimes "arrogant" and "dismissive." Well it's always easy to express humility on …

Written by David Frum on Sunday April 5, 2009

The Man Who Brought Michelle To Prague

Barack Obama's Prague speech addressed the topic of nuclear proliferation. Headline: The president has nothing much new to say about the subject. Iran has yet to build a nuclear weapon. And my Administration will seek engagement with Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect, and …

Written by David Frum on Sunday April 5, 2009

Middle-aged Ski Bum

My new column in National Post : "When are you too old to become a ski bum?" opens "Life is difficult enough without throwing yourself off the side of a mountain." That was my uncle Gerry's opinion on skiing, and through most of my life the advice seemed sound. American friends expressed …

Written by David Frum on Sunday April 5, 2009

Obama's Dangerous Abdication

There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America…. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. - Senatorial candidate Barack Obama, July 27, 2004. That …

Written by David Frum on Sunday April 5, 2009

Spanish Atrocity

Put that sandwich down and immediately read Doug Feith's op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal . It begins: A lawyer in Spain -- who did his legal studies while serving over seven years in prison for kidnapping and terrorism -- has engineered a complaint accusing the U.S. government of …

Written by David Frum on Friday April 3, 2009

Lets Rank States Like Colleges

Democracy is alive and well in the United States, at least when there is no incumbent running for reelection and voters have a choice between two clear alternatives (witness the recent closely-contested House election in upstate New York). Partisans of all persuasions are dissatisfied with the …

Written by Andrew Gelman on Thursday April 2, 2009

Obama's Formula For Disaster

My column for The Week can be read here . It opens: President Obama got a heaping serving of good news in Monday’s Washington Post poll. He remains strongly personally popular, and the public’s heavy mood of pessimism has lifted somewhat: 42 percent now say the country is on …

Written by David Frum on Thursday April 2, 2009

Obama's Shameful Club

The Obama Administration has just announced that, reversing the policy of the Bush Administration, the United States will seek a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council. It was established in 2006 to replace the UN Commission on Human Rights. Of the 32 resolutions passed by the …

Written by Martin Krossel on Thursday April 2, 2009

Everything about Immigration has Changed - Except Our Thinking

I was fascinated by an exchange on immigration on NRO between Richard Nadler and John Derbyshire. (See also this ps by Mark Krikorian .) Let me quote a bit from Richard Nadler's post: It [the effective enforcement of immigration laws] is not going to happen. The second is, if it did …

Written by David Frum on Thursday April 2, 2009

Jim Will Win In Ny-20

Jim Tedisco will probably win the special congressional election now being prolonged in upstate New York. This is not hype, wishful thinking or a hope-based prediction. After a meeting of the minds that began at 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday night in Jim’s suite at the Saratoga Holiday Inn, …

Written by Tom Qualtere on Thursday April 2, 2009

Huckabee Got There First

Jim Webb's legislation for a bipartisan commission on prison reform is welcome - especially if it leads to improvement of conditions in prison rather than decarceration on a mass scale. Glad to see Arlen Specter will provide Republican cosponsorship. Fairness though requires acknowledging the …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday April 1, 2009

"moderate" Taliban: Don't Diss Al-qaeda

Earlier this month, Friederike Böge of Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) spoke in Kabul with Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef: a former Taliban official who is rumored to be a key player in facilitating potential talks between the United States and the Taliban. On Zaeef’s …

Written by John Rosenthal on Wednesday April 1, 2009

Dc Voting Rights Act Is Unconstitutional

By a 61 to 37 vote, the Senate at the end of February passed a bill to provide the District of Columbia with voting representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. At the insistence of Republicans, an amendment intended “to restore Second Amendment rights to the District of …

Written by Jessica Leval on Wednesday April 1, 2009

Who Killed Gm?

Mickey Kaus beat me into print with it , but the exact same thought crossed my mind when I heard that President Obama had demanded the head of GM CEO Rick Wagoner in return for further government aid: Is Rick Wagoner the Ngo Dinh Diem of the Obama administration? Of course, it took JFK nearly three …

Written by Gusher on Tuesday March 31, 2009

Bye-bye Reagan Democrats

The General Motors and Chrysler meltdown are only the latest, and it appears final, chapter in a long and sad book. The government first bailed out Chrysler in 1979. And in the 1980s, GM was already proceeding with massive plant closures. Given the past and future impact of GM’s and …

Written by Henry Clay on Tuesday March 31, 2009

Europes Canned Outrage

There is outrage in Europe. Jean-Marie Le Pen has done it again. In a debate in the European Parliament on Wednesday, Le Pen repeated his well-known remark about the Nazi gas chambers being “a detail of the Second World War.” Indeed, he could hardly have avoided repeating it, since Le …

Written by John Rosenthal on Monday March 30, 2009

No Nukes? No Climate Progress

The Obama Administration talks a good game about shaping bipartisan energy and climate change policies. The talk is good. History shows that the best way to ensure that these policies work and survive shifts in the political winds is to pass it with strong support from both sides of the aisle. …

Written by David Jenkins on Monday March 30, 2009

The Reading List

The Wall Street Journal does a weekend feature in which they invite outside contributors to list the "five best" books on a particular subject. I chose "the five best books on political change" - the rise & fall of American political parties. The article was instead titled as the 5 best books …

Written by David Frum on Saturday March 28, 2009

Down To The Wire In Ny-20

Jim Tedisco, the Republican candidate for Congress in upstate New York’s Republican-dominated 20 th district, is currently losing his bid to win Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s vacated House seat in this Tuesday’s special election. Even if the Siena poll released today …

Written by Tom Qualtere on Friday March 27, 2009

An Act Of Civic Decency

The Jake DeSantis a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html"> piece

Written by FF Street Scene on Friday March 27, 2009