Frum: 'Emotional' war on ISIS is a 'policy of aid-Iran-but-don’t-admit-it'

There's plenty of criticism of Obama in conservative Republican Frum's opinion piece, but this graph sums it up best for me [emphasis mine]:

Debates over foreign policy have a bad tendency to vaporize into abstract discussions of first principles: intervention or non-intervention? Responsibility to protect or mind our own business? Iraq and Syria today present a case that makes nonsense of abstractions. Intervene? The United States and its allies should intervene when intervention will advance U.S. and allied interests, consistent with U.S. and allied values. But where do we find the U.S. and allied interest in a war between al-Qaeda’s even nastier younger brother, on one side, and the mullahs of Iran on the other? If Iran were saying, “Please help us, and we’ll reorient our policy in a friendlier direction,” that would be one thing. They are not saying that. They are not doing that. They are doing the opposite.

And then here's Frum's body slam to finish:

It’s not crass, not narrow, not unethical for the president of the United States to test any proposed foreign policy—and most especially the use of armed force—against the criterion: “How will this benefit my nation?” That test is not a narrow one. The protection of allies is an important U.S. interest. The honoring of international commitments is an important U.S. interest. And it could even be argued that humanitarian action can be justified when it will save many lives, at low cost in American blood and treasure, without creating even worse consequences inadvertently. This new campaign against ISIS does not even pretend to meet that test. It’s a reaction: an emotional reaction, without purpose, without strategy, and without any plausible—or even articulated—definition of success.

'Nuf said. But it's spoken too late.

Don't Go Back to Iraq, Mr. President

By David Frum

September 10, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/obama-speech-iraq-syria-isis-war/379979/

Frum: There is no 'libertarian' movement

I hate to use the term "libertards," but... if the orthopedic shoe fits.... 

Why the 'Libertarian Moment' Isn't Really Happening

By David Frum

August 11, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/the-illusion-of-a-libertarian-moment/375844/?single_page=true

Frum: Why NRA wins while other conservatives lose

A more illiberal and un-PC person than myself might summarize Frum's arguments thusly: the NRA speaks to the racial prejudices and economic insecurities of conservative rednecks.

Well, duh.

Why Gun-Rights Backers Win While Other Conservative Causes Lose

By David Frum

April 29, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/why-gun-rights-supporters-win-when-other-conservative-causes-lose/361396/

Frum: The West CAN do something in Ukraine

Well worth reading!  This was my favorite chunk [emphasis mine]:

Tell me if you’ve recently heard a pundit or strategist say something like the following:

Russia is a great power. It is entitled to a sphere of influence on its borders. NATO and the European Union pushed Russia too hard while Russia was weak. Russia is stronger now, and so naturally it’s pushing back. We have to understand Russia’s need for friendly governments on its border.

Familiar, right? Now let’s consider why it’s an awful thing to say.

Every great power, of course, wants friendly neighbors. But the surest way to secure friendly neighbors is to be friendly yourself. It didn’t just happen that Germany is bordered by a friendly France to the west and a friendly Poland to the east. Germany has earned that friendship with its constructive policies in the years since World War II. Germany doesn’t need to subvert French and Polish democracy to ensure French and Polish friendship. Nobody can win an election in France or Poland on a platform of hostility to Germany.

If Russia finds itself in a different situation, it’s because of Russia’s own actions. Russia’s neighbors are frightened of Russia because Russia is frightening. Rather than allay those neighbors’ concerns, Moscow tries to manipulate neighboring political systems and install stooge governments. Neighbors a little further away—Poland, for example, or the Baltic republics—have every reason to worry that Russia would do the same to them, if it could.

But it can’t. And that’s because of the security guarantees enjoyed by NATO members.

That is why, Frum argues, "As a more effective and accountable government takes shape in Ukraine, it will become time to renew its application for NATO membership. This time, the answer should be ‘yes.’"

That's a pretty controversial stand in both the East and West, especially if you agree with many foreign policy "realists" that Ukraine is destined to be an eternal buffer zone between NATO and Russia. But Putin has just proven that a weak Ukraine is no buffer at all for Russia.  Putin could roll right over it to reach Moldova, Poland, and beyond.  Putin "changed the calculus," as Frum wrote, and so NATO expansion to Ukraine should be back on the table.

How the West Can Help Ukraine—and Stop Russia

By David Frum

March 27, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/how-the-west-can-help-ukraine-and-stop-russia/359748/

Frum: Fate of Europe at stake in Ukraine

I realize that the most important thing in the world right now to Americans is a government website that doesn't work right, but... David Frum is right: a superpower needs a super attention span, and we must urgently turn our attention now to Ukraine, where the future of Europe and a potentially democratic Russia is being decided.  That's the better part of the world.

Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv, Ukraine: pro-EU protests.

Beware Russia's power play in Ukraine

By David Frum

December 2, 2013 | CNN

A superpower needs a super attention span. Unfortunately, Americans seem to take little interest in the troubles of the world around them, even when those troubles threaten soon to vex Americans themselves.

Americans fought two world wars -- and faced nuclear annihilation in a protracted Cold War -- to defend the freedom of Europe. In the thrilling days of 1989-91, four generations of American sacrifice were magnificently vindicated. The communist regimes of central Europe collapsed. The Soviet Union itself broke apart into smaller and less threatening pieces.

For four centuries, the rulers of Russia had sought security for themselves by dominating first their own people, then their neighbors, then their neighbors' neighbors, then their neighbors' neighbors' neighbors ... until their power extended from Berlin to the Pacific Ocean.

Then, abruptly, that imperial project broke apart. Subject nations regained their freedom. The Russians themselves gained a new opportunity -- perhaps the first in their national existence -- to choose a government that served its people.

The former rulers, unfortunately, had other ideas. Democracy did not take root in Russia after 1991. How and why it failed is a long story, with many villains, but let's cut to the end result: A former top officer of the KGB maneuvered his way into the Russian presidency in 1999-2000. Vladimir Putin restored to power the old secret police apparatus.

Since then, Putin and his coterie have attempted to reconstitute as much of the old Soviet Union as they could, while plundering Russia's wealth for themselves.

One step to that reconstitution of the Soviet Union was absolutely indispensable: Reasserting Moscow's power over Ukraine.

No nation suffered more from Soviet communism than the Ukrainians. Ukrainian farmers lost their lands and homes to Soviet collectivization in the 1920s; millions died in the man-made famine that followed in the 1930s. Their language and culture were stunted under Moscow rule; their intellectuals and writers were suppressed, banished, murdered, and defamed. In 1991, Ukrainians seized their chance to build a country of their own.

Ukrainian independence liberated not only the Ukrainian people, but all Europe. Russia without the nearly 46 million people and vast natural resources of the Ukraine is a large and powerful country, but it is no superpower.

Since Putin's entry into power, Russia minus Ukraine has sought to influence and corrupt the democracies of Europe. A Russia that reintegrated Ukraine would possess the power -- like the Soviet Union of old -- to intimidate and bully democratic Europe. Russia minus Ukraine can aspire to become a normal nation state, a democracy, even a liberal democracy. A Russia that holds Ukraine by force must forever be a militarized authoritarian regime, a menace to its own people as much as to the rest of the European continent and the democratic world.

Upholding Ukrainian independence is thus a deep concern, not only to the Ukrainians, but to all the free countries of Europe -- and thus to the United States, free-Europe's security and trading partner.

Vladimir Putin understands all this too, and he doesn't like any of it. Since he came to power, he's worked to undermine and subvert Ukrainian independence. He has been successful. Ukraine imports its oil and natural gas from Russia, and Putin has used energy dependency to sway Ukrainian politics and bribe Ukraine's dauntingly corrupt leaders.

But every once in a while, Putin goes too far. He went too far in 2004, collaborating with Ukrainian former communists to rig a presidential election. Blatant fraud inspired Ukraine's famous "Orange Revolution" -- and a temporary swing in Ukraine's political orientation to the West.

Now Putin is trying again -- and again he is meeting massive resistance in the Ukrainian streets. Over the past years, the European Union negotiated a trade pact with Ukraine. The pact would enrich ordinary Ukrainians, today the third poorest people in Europe, after the Kosovars and Moldovans. The pact would lessen Ukraine's economic dependence on Russia -- and prepare the way for Ukraine's own eventual membership in the EU.

Under extreme Russian pressure, the Ukrainian president -- the very same man whose election fraud triggered the Orange Revolution nine years ago -- has repudiated his own treaty, and his country's best hopes.

Tens of thousands of protesters have filled the streets and squares of the capital, Kiev, two weekends in a row. Police have suppressed the protests brutally, injuring many people. The regime's controlled courts have banned any further public demonstrations until January.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed disappointment in muted tones after a November 28 summit with the Ukrainian leadership: "Unfortunately not all expectations have been fulfilled. We will make very clear here that the EU is ready to accept Ukraine as an associate member, to sign the association treaty. Then we will see. We have no hope that it will happen this time, but the door is open."

Don't be fooled by the muted words, however. What's at stake in the streets of Kiev is the future of the European continent -- and American prosperity and security. An inward-looking America is averting its attention from its own most important interests and highest ideals.

Frum: 'Tea Parties, don't let the door hit you on the way out'

Boo-ya!  Republican David Frum unloads with both barrels on the Tea Parties:

Right now, tea party extremism contaminates the whole Republican brand. It's a very interesting question whether a tea party bolt from the GOP might not just liberate the party to slide back to the political center -- and liberate Republicans from identification with the Sarah Palins and the Ted Cruzes who have done so much harm to their hopes over the past three election cycles.

It's worth repeating over and over again. Add Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana, Sharron Angle in Nevada and Ken Buck in Colorado, Christine O'Donnell in Delaware and Joe Miller in Alaska -- and you have half a dozen Senate races lost to the GOP by extremist nominations.

Maybe the right answer to the threat, "Shut down the government or we quit" is: "So sad you feel that way. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Nevertheless, if it hurts the GOP if the Tea Parties stay in, then as a Democratic "hack," I think the TPs should stay.  The TP pirates will keep on cutting the throats of GOP "RINOs" even as the Republican ship sinks to the bottom.  We liberals should let their lust for anarchy wreak its havoc on the Republican Party. 

A tea party exit would be a blessing for GOP

By David Frum

October 14, 2013 | CNN

URL: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/14/opinion/frum-tea-party-third-party/index.html?hpt=hp_t5

Frum: Let's get real about abortions. (No, let's not.)

More heresy from faux conservative columnist David Frum:

If you're serious about reducing abortion, the most important issue is not which abortions to ban. The most important issue is how will you support women to have the babies they want.

As a general rule, societies that do the most to support mothers and child-bearing have the fewest abortions. Societies that do the least to support mothers and child-bearing have more abortions.

[...]  Abortion is a product of poverty and maternal distress.

No way: personal responsibility starts at the bright side of the birth canal!  Pull yourselves up by your diaper straps, you babies!

Let's get real about abortions

By David Frum

October 29, 2012 | CNN

URL: http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/29/opinion/frum-abortion-reality/index.html?hpt=op_r1

Frum: Mitt played up to the rich's class terror but got burned

Conservative pundit David Frum makes it clear what the 47 percent is meant to mean to Republicans, the facts be damned:

Start with this data point:  When you ask white Americans to estimate the black population of the United States, the answer averages out at nearly 30%. Ask them to estimate the Hispanic population, and the answer averages out at 22%.

So when a politician or a broadcaster talks about 47% in "dependency," the image that swims into many white voters' minds is not their mother in Florida, her Social Security untaxed, receiving Medicare benefits vastly greater than her lifetime tax contributions; it is not their uncle, laid off after 30 years and now too old to start over. No, the image that comes into mind is minorities on welfare. 

It's also a lot of silly and, frankly, disproven fear about Obama's diabolical designs on the wealthy (his first term is almost over and America still exists, pretty much as it was under Dubya):

The background to so much of the politics of the past four years is the mood of apocalyptic terror that has gripped so much of the American upper class.

Hucksters of all kinds have battened on this terror. They tell them that free enterprise is under attack; that Obama is a socialist, a Marxist, a fascist, an anti-colonialist. Only by donating to my think tank, buying my book, watching my network, going to my movie, can you - can we - stop him before he seizes everything to give to his base of "bums," as Charles Murray memorably called them.

And what makes it all both so heart-rending and so outrageous is that all this is occurring at a time when economically disadvantaged Americans have never been so demoralized and passive, never exerted less political clout.  [...]

Yet even so, the rich and the old are scared witless! Watch the trailer of Dinesh D'Souza's new movie to glimpse into their mental universe: chanting swarthy mobs, churches and banks under attack, angry black people grabbing at other people's houses.

It's all a scam, but it's a spectacularly effective scam. Mitt Romney tried to make use of the scam, and now instead has fallen victim to it himself.

Here’s Why Mitt’s 100% Wrong on the 47%

By David Frum

September 18, 2012 | Daily Beast

URL: http://www.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2012/09/18/here-s-why-mitt-s-100-wrong-on-the-47.html

David Frum: GOP's ideology trumps economics

So the topic of conservative pundit David Frum's op-ed is what's wrong with Romney-Ryan, and it's definitely worth reading for that, but his explanation of the Great Recession and its aftermath is the most concise and on-target I've seen anywhere.  I'd like to say Frum's observations are obvious, but apparently they are not, not by a mile, not even among some very smart people, because many persist in believing that our current economic malaise has been caused by government debt, or at least is somehow aggravated by government debt, rather than their acknowledging that fiscal deficits and public debt are symptoms of a down economy, not its cause.  See here:

Americans assumed crushing levels of debt in the 2000s to buy expensive homes, homes they assumed would continue to rise in price forever. In 2007, household debt relative to income peaked at the highest level since 1928. (Uh oh.) When the housing market crashed, consumers were stranded with unsustainable debts, and until those debts are reduced, consumers will drastically cut back their spending. As consumers cut back, businesses lose revenue. As businesses lose revenue, they fire employees. As employees lose their jobs, their purchasing power is reduced. As purchasing power is lost throughout the economy, housing prices tumble again.

Rinse and repeat.

Since 2008, the debt burden on households has declined somewhat, partly because of increased saving, mostly because of mortgage default. But household debts have declined nowhere near enough, and the pace of household debt reduction is slowing.

The result: slow recovery of the private economy, weak consumer demand, paltry job growth -- considerably offset by continuing job shrinkage in the public sector.

In other words, as I've been repeating over and over again (apparently talking to myself for all the good it's done), the Great Recession and whatever we're suffering now has been caused by a lack of aggregate demand, i.e. too few people ready & willing to buy stuff.  And low demand is being aggravated by government at all levels cutting spending and public-sector jobs.  

Tragically, neither Obama nor Romney-Ryan has really addressed that core problem, or proposed a credible, much less courageous, solution.  Sadly, a vote for either ticket is a choice to muddle along.

Romney did Obama a huge favor

By David Frum

August 14, 2012 | CNN

URL:  http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/13/opinion/frum-romney-ryan/index.html?hpt=hp_bn4 

Rush: 'Establishment Republicans' holding party back

Who is the Republican "ruling class," according to Rush? Who are "establishment Republicans?" Any Republican (with half a brain) who acknowledges that Palin can't win in 2012? Rush throws out these terms but I really wish he'd get specific. Who is ruling us? Who exactly is the establishment? What do they retain control of? This sounds like something Democrats and non-establishment Republicans could unite against... right?

No, it's all B.S. As if Republicans were perennial underdogs. As if some stiff-collared Republicans were holding the party down. P-shaw! The GOP is all about stiff collars and established wealth! This is like Democrats lamenting "bad unions." Nobody would buy it for a second! But somehow Rush Limbaugh gets away with this crap.

He has no conscience. Do his listeners? Really, he ought to be ashamed. (But he's too damn rich at your expense to care, ha, ha, ha.....)

Frum: Give Up on Beating Obama

January 19, 2011 The Rush Limbaugh Show

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: What did I tell you, cut 16? You've got to hear this. This is ruling class member David Frum who... (sigh) What would be the most descriptive and honest way to describe David Frum? David Frum remains a guest on Democrat talk shows because he wrote a phrase for a George Bush speech during the first term. It is said that David Frum came up with the slogan "axis of evil." So David Frum wrote three words, and for that he has guest emeritus status. Well, that plus he frequently rips conservatives. He's from the "Reagan is over" crowd, the "era of Reagan is over" crowd. So he was on a television network not to be named last night, and he was asked about something that Newt Gingrich said. It doesn't really matter what he was asked. It's his answer. Basically the question was: "What do you think is Gingrich's consideration here? Is he trying to get an edge on a possible rival?"

FRUM: I do think that there is a lot of concern in senior levels of the Republican Party. People in that kind of orbit are worried about the down-ballot effect of a Palin candidacy. 2012 is shaping up to be a very good year for Republicans in senatorial races. It maybe in the Republican interest to have 2012 be a rather lower-intensity year rather than a higher-intensity year. If it's a lower-intensity year, you're gonna lose the presidency anyway, but your more educated, older, more affluent voters are coming out as a bigger part of the electorate then you can have even bigger gains in the Senate.

RUSH: That, by the way, in tone is the "new civility." That is ruling class-speak. But what he's saying here is that establishment Republicans, if Palin's anywhere near the presidential candidacy -- if she's anywhere near this run -- that that's just too divisive to try to beat Obama in 2012. They may as well just cede the presidential election in 2012 and try to pick up a few Senate seats, is what the erudite and brilliant ruling class (I don't know if he's a member or wannabe) David Frum suggests. It's just gonna be too volatile. Beating Obama, especially if Palin's around, is not possible.

Just don't even think about doing that. Just go for the down-ballot wins and forget the presidency. And he says, "[T]here is a lot of concern in senior levels of the Republican Party. People in that kind of orbit are worried about the down-ballot effect of a Palin candidacy." So it's a great year. In other words: "The Republican leadership, we gotta great chance to pick up Senate seats, not so much the presidency. Let's not even focus on that. We'll just cede that." Now, I don't know that that's true. I don't know that that's the establishment Republican view, but this is what the exalted, celebrated, erudite, ruling class member, David Frum, says. Just FYI.

Krugman on Frum firing, Heritage Found. = Obamacare

Have a heapin' helpin' of Republican hypocrisy for Sunday breakfast!

David Frum, AEI, Heritage And Health Care
By Paul Krugman
March 25, 2010 | NY Times

David Frum* has been fired by the American Enterprise Institute; one has to assume that this is a response to his outspokenness about the Republican failure on health reform.

In discussing the Frum firing, Bruce Bartlett asserts that AEI has muzzled its health-care experts, because the truth is that they agree with a lot of what Obama is proposing. I find this quite believable; back in 2003 Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation, which is supposedly harder-right than AEI, proposed a health care reform consisting of … drumroll … an individual mandate coupled with subsidies to make insurance affordable. In short, Obamacare.

I was struck, by the way, by Butler's recommendation that we

"Provide support to people to obtain health care based on their need, not where they happen to work, or their eligibility for welfare, or their military record, or their age."

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need?

Frum: Health bill was GOP's Waterloo

Apparently the "traitorous" Frum is getting a lot of hate mail from his fellow Republicans for writing this op-ed. And he says he was forced out of the right-wing corporate-funded think tank American Enterprise Institute. Gee, what a surprise.

I especially liked this part:

"When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush's listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds."

FYI, all you teabaggers and FOXNews shut-ins, you can threaten Frum and his family and question their patriotism at: editor@frumforum.com , or on Twitter: @davidfrum.


Waterloo
By David Frum
March 21, 2010 FrumForum.com

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It's hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they'll compensate for today's expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It's a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today's disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama's Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton's in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton's 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.
This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney's Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the "doughnut hole" and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents' insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I've been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush's listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today's defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it's mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it's Waterloo all right: ours.