-FrumForum Goes Live
FrumForum 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 debate. When we launched, Sarah Palin was a leading candidate for president   more

Constitutional abuse begets constitutional abuse.
President Obama has engaged in a dubious maneuver to force a recess appointment through a Senate that denies it has recessed.
(Brad Plumer has a good run-down of the legal issues, here.)
The president’s action has ignited a fireworks show of Republican outrage. And yes, Obama has here pushed presidential power beyond past   more

In my column for The Week I discuss the problems with Rick Santorum economic plan:
Santorum’s concern for the American middle class has been one of the most attractive features of his candidacy for the Republican nomination. Alone among the Republican candidates, he took note of the freezing of upward mobility and the stagnation of middle-class   more

Odd experience on CNN this morning.
I was on a panel that had a chance to interview Ron Paul. I asked this question:
“I attended a precinct caucus last night where the person who spoke on your behalf praised you as a strong social conservative: pro-life, anti-gay marriage. He also described you as pro-defense, he said you   more

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   more

Based on the tiny unrepresentative sample at the precinct caucus I attended: his core group are true believers, who have absorbed his message on Austrian economics and foreign policy non-interventionism.
But when they communicate to the broader Iowa Republican rank-and-file, they repackage Paul as a much more conventional conservative: pro-life, pro-military, small government, and supportive of   more

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 in South Carolina. Unless one or the   more

Andrew Sullivan complained yesterday that I had engaged in a “McCarthyite” attack on Ron Paul by writing the following:
A politician isn’t answerable for the antics of every one of his supporters. But there’s surely a reason, isn’t there, that racists, anti-Semites, 9/11 Truthers, and Holocaust deniers are so strongly attracted to the Paul campaign. They hear   more

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 second-polling candidate here.  more

What is wrong (and right) with Joe Stiglitz’s analysis of the Great Depression? Click here for Part 1. Click here for Part 2. Click here for Part 3.
Back in the 1960s, Daniel Patrick Moynihan once offered this solution to the economic problems of black America: restore Sunday mail delivery.
The line was sort of a joke, but sort of   more

What is wrong (and right) with Joe Stiglitz’s analysis of the Great Depression? Click here for Part 1. Click here for Part 2.
Yet for all the problems with the Stiglitz theory of the Great Depression and the Long Recession, there is some useful wisdom as well.
Stiglitz is framing a critique–not only of the Friedman/Schwartz theory of   more

In my column for CNN, I discuss the root causes of America’s obesity epidemic:
Obesity has become the country’s leading public health problem. Yet as we talk and talk about the issue, the country only becomes fatter and fatter.
The problem for the country echoes the problem for individuals: Willpower is not enough. “(It’s a) basic instinct,   more

What is wrong with Joe Stiglitz’s analysis of the Great Depression? Click here for Part 1.
Problem 1: Repeat after me – The Great Depression was a global event. That’s a fact American economic historians always have great trouble keeping in mind, and Stiglitz here succumbs to the national myopia.
How did the troubles of the American farmer   more

Joe Stiglitz’s offers in the current Vanity Fair an arresting theory of both the Great Depression and the current economic malaise.
Contra the (now) orthodox view propounded by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, Stiglitz argues that the Depression was not fundamentally a monetary event. Instead, Stiglitz counters, we should think of the Depression as driven by   more

On the last day of 2011, President Obama “with reservations” signed the authorization for the 2012 defense budget.
The president said he objected to language in the bill that granted him powers to detain terror suspects indefinitely – but forbade him to transfer detainees to the mainland US. Unmentioned in the signing statement was another section   more

In my column for the National Post, I discuss the importance of the latest issue of the Dorchester Review:
I’ve written before about Canada’s important new historical journal, the Dorchester Review. Now they have published a second issue – and I am doing it again.
This opening paragraph from one of the current issue essays nicely conveys why the   more

As 2011 comes to a close, FrumForum plans to re-run some of our best featured pieces from the year. In ‘Two Cheers for the Welfare State’ David Frum responded to Yuval Levin’s essay in National Affairs about America’s welfare state.
Don’t miss Yuval Levin’s piece in the current National Affairs, “Beyond the Welfare State.”
The piece is   more

As 2011 comes to a close, FrumForum plans to re-run some of our best featured pieces from the year. The piece by David Frum discusses whether or not the Founding Fathers would be recognized as libertarians.
Let me toss in my 5 cents worth on the question of whether the Founders were “libertarians.”
This seems to me   more

Here’s another tragic misunderstanding of Ron Paul’s message of human freedom: Paul has just gained David Duke’s endorsement. This week, the former KKK Grand Wizard telephoned into the radio show hosted by Stormfront founder Don Black to announce his support, and the two men had the following conversation.
Ron Paul was a hot topic this week   more

As 2011 comes to a close, FrumForum plans to re-run some of our best featured pieces from the year. The following reprint is of a piece by David Frum discussing the shortcomings of the Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page.
I used to write editorials for the Wall Street Journal myself, 20 years ago now.
So I’m well   more