The American Spectator

Frum is among those whose intellectual pretensions send him in search of elitist approbation of the liberal intellectuoidal establishment of which the news media are no small part. His new majority seems mostly a retreading of libertarianism in the same way that Obama’s change is the same-o same-o drivel from his party’s tax, spend, and abort heritage.

There is more to Frum’s pursuit than meets the eye however. In the vernacular political science of talking head parlance there is an emerging troika of voter classes now labeled as blue, purple, and red. It is this purple group which Frum wants to lasso into the Republican party but a nation as diverse, fractured, and polyglot as America is long past a two party facade.

The Republican ascendancy of the past 12-15 years was always very tenuous because of these stirring political compositional changes but the Republican proposition was exposed for the charlatanism that it always was when we saw that Republicans governed just like Democrats but without the Paris Hilton celebrity with which Democrats ooze.

I am a rigid social conservative who sees much societal benefit from protecting unborn children, heterosexual marriage, and a number of other sanctities which have served society well over the centuries. There can be no compromise with acts of murder and that is precisely where frum is the new amoral real politic apparatchik.

So I have happily left the Republican party for greener pastures in the Constitutional Party. We’ll never win any important elections but at least I can vote with a clean conscience and keep my duty before god in good faith — something which the new majority despises. Republicans in all important respects are democrats (liberals) a generation behind.
— David Bonn

It is becoming tedious to see the likes of David Frum argue once again that the road back to power is for Republicans is to exile social conservatives. As others have pointed out, this experiment has been tried and has been in fact a disaster. Witness what is left of the Republican Party in Christine Todd Whitman’s New Jersey. There the Republican party is essentially defunct. In contrast In the liberal Northeast one of the few popular Republican office holders is the very pro-life governor of Rhode Island, Don Carcieri. Moreover during the presidential race McCain had two surges in his popularity. The first came when he made a clearly more pro-life statement than Obama, during his interview with Rick Warren, and the second came when he picked Sarah Palin for his running mate. Palin was clearly not hurt by her pro-life stance, but rather by what were unacceptable performances during interviews by a hostile media. (My bet is next time around after a couple more years as Governor of we will see a more seasoned performance from her.)

Frum’s problem is that he is a not really a philosophical conservative, and thus as a liberal on social issues, and wishy washy on economics he has no clear political home. He thus wants to transform the party into something that mirrors his views. There is a very small market for this. In fact one could argue the one aspect of his project that is not “conservative” is support for the war on terror. To support the use of force to suppress the Jihadist while certainly a good idea, need not stem from a conservative philosophical stance. One might be opposed to the Jihadist as a liberal because one hates any fervently held religious ideology (a la Christopher Hitchens) or one might oppose them regardless of political philosophy because one recognizes the Jihadists are homicidal lunatics, regardless of how they feel about Islam, and whether their lunacy has a specific religious flavor. One might even be a conservative and think that the Iraq war was ill conceived, Sure Saddam was a monster, but reconstructing Iraq may never be achievable In the long run, and the problems with taking responsibility for this are legion. To some degree they even lead to the current disaster of electing Democratic majorities and a socialist President.) All that said it does not seem to me like the problems with the Republican Party are because there are too many pro-lifers!
— Michael DePietro

NOT EVEN A CHOICE
Re: George H. Wittman’s Israel Readies Iran Takeout:

Your neighbor, who has told you repeatedly that he means to kill you and your entire family, is even now at a gun store purchasing a shotgun and ammunition.

You inform the police, but for whatever reason, they remain unconcerned and advise you to do nothing precipitous.

You remember a similar neighbor who, 70 years ago, killed most of your ancestors. You swore it would never happen again.

What do you do while time (and your family) remains?

This is no scenario.