American public opinion in almost every way we can measure bunches up toward the moderate middle. Yet increasingly the tone of politics seems to invite and reward extremism. Today, on Lincoln’s birthday, FrumForum asks whether it has to be so.  more

I blogged the Sarah Palin speech after the fact based on the YouTube video. What to call that? It’s not live blogging, exactly.  more

UPDATED: In her speech to the Tea Party Convention, Palin declared that “if government got out of the way, the economy would roar back to life.” In the context of 2010, what is that even supposed to mean?   more

The weirdest campaign ad of this season — maybe any season — debuted on the Internet this past week. The more urgent question for California Republicans though is this: What should they make of the substance of Carly Fiorina’s attack on Tom Campbell?  more

No description can do justice to the low-budget strangeness of the demon sheep ad, but the more urgent question for California Republicans is this: What should they make of the substance of Fiorina’s attack on Campbell?  more

In a post at HotAir.com, Ed Morrissey wisely points out the damage the birthers are causing to the conservative movement.  more

My latest column for the National Post asks if the GOP is losing an important opportunity to stem the growing cost of healthcare.  more

You know, if the Democrats want the government to take over American healthcare, they actually have a simpler option than passing legislation through Congress. They can just do nothing. The government is taking over all by itself.  more

Last night, Stephen Colbert performed a short sketch (the last 60 seconds here) that ended by inviting viewers to invent obscene definitions in UrbanDictionary.com for the term “Canada’s history.”  more

For this particular conservative, the following words from Essays in Persuasion by J.M. Keynes carry immediate relevance.  more

New emails show that Todd Palin often voiced approval or disapproval of Alaskan state hiring and appointments to the relevant authorities. Conservatives were rightly irritated when Hillary Clinton tried to boot-strap her ceremonial position into a role in personnel and policy. But did even she go so far as this?  more

Rush Limbaugh charged in a Fox TV interview that Barack Obama’s law review articles were ghost-written for him. Former White House associate counsel Brad Berenson, who served on the Harvard Law Review with Obama, disputes this allegation.  more

In my interview with Tom Campbell, he spoke with intense anger about the administration’s TARP program.  more

In his opening address to the for-profit Tea Party Nation convention in Nashville last night, Tom Tancredo lamented that: “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”  more

Moderate Republicans sometimes blame conservatives for edging them out of public life. But politics is a competitive business.  more

Moderate Republicans sometimes blame conservatives for edging them out of public life. But politics is a competitive business. If the conservatives bring more voters, more dollars and more intensity to the table, well, of course they get the bigger chair. They’ve earned it.  more

FF Exclusive: FrumForum is speaking with all three GOP candidates vying to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer in California. In the second part of our interview with Tom Campbell, he defended the socially liberal views that may have cost him the GOP senatorial nomination in 1992.  more

Obama promised to break our addiction to foreign oil. A carbon tax would do that. What Obama proposes in his budget doesn’t come close.  more

My latest column for The Week discusses the harmful effects of Obama’s new oil exploration taxes.  more

We seem to be in serious danger of violating Stein’s Law: “If something cannot go on forever – it will stop.”  more

FrumForum will talk to all three candidates for the GOP nomination to challenge Sen. Barbara Boxer in California. Today, an interview with Tom Campbell – the demon sheep himself!  more

Before Tom Campbell became an internet celebrity demonic sheep, he completed an amazing academic career and spent a decade in the House.  more

The campus of the Central University of Venezuela is a UNESCO landmark, a perfect example of the tropical modernism of the 1960s. I visited just a few days ago to talk to students and faculty and noticed something strange: Every clock in the building had stopped dead. I asked why.  more

The campus of the Central University of Venezuela is a UNESCO landmark, a perfect example of the tropical modernism of the 1960s. I visited just a few days ago to talk to students and faculty and noticed something strange: Every clock in the building had stopped dead.  more

President Obama’s second budget puts the U.S. on a path to even higher taxing and spending than his first – a path that will continue long after this recession ends.  more

The new Obama budget’s taxes on oil will do nothing to decrease domestic consumption.  more

The Obama administration says it will assign terrorists on a case by case basis, sending some to civilian courts, others to military tribunals. This seems to offer the worst of both worlds.  more

My latest column for CNN.com discusses the Obama administration’s insistence on trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the Detroit underwear bomber in civilian courts.  more