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Judy Woodruff did a piece on Sarah Palin and her book. Among the interview participants was National Review Contributing Editor David Frum. Frum said that Palin "got into a position of leadership by sending very powerful sexual signals." It was a highly edited segment and there was no follow up or elaboration. (Segment has not yet been posted online.)

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney delivered a scathing criticism of President Obama's Afghanistan strategy Friday night, accusing the president of delivering rhetoric and not action in the war-torn country. Quoting from a speech Obama delivered in March, Romney agreed with the president "that 'we are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States, our friends and allies."' Romney continued on seconding the president: "I believe 'that to succeed, we and our friends and allies must reverse the Taliban's gains, and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government.'"

Matthew Continetti has a piece in this weekend’s Weekly Standard hailing Sarah Palin as the ideal leader of a new populist uprising. One obvious objection to his thesis: The populist Sarah is in fact one of the most unpopular figures in American life. According to Gallup, 63% of Americans say they would never consider voting for her. By a margin of 62%-31% Americans rate Palin “unqualified” to serve as president – by far the worst score for any leading Republican. In comparison, only 51% of Americans say they would never consider voting for Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee – and...

Steve Schmidt, John McCain's chief campaign strategist in 2008, said today that a Sarah Palin presidential nomination in 2012 would be “catastrophic” for the GOP. Is this controversial? I can’t count the ways in which she is a poor candidate. She’s a terrible strategist, having inexplicably resigned before the end of her first term. She's a capricious handler of her public appearances and the press. She picked a fight with David Letterman, of all people. People give her credit for having a unique brand of political charisma, but she needs prepared texts lest she go off the rails. (Remember her...

Frum disses Palin for sharing money with Alaska taxpayers when she comes out against government "handouts" He says Palin was popular in Alaska because she gave everyone 1200 bucks. Frum: Palin failed in interview after interview. Coulter: She has tremendous star power Frum: Palin a divisive force within the republican party And within the country. And will lead the party to political defeat and ineffectiveness in government. (LOL HUH? That's what the GOP did with McCain)Coulter: Reagan was divisive too, and they said he was just appealing to the base (It worked then) Coulter: Palin a lot closer to the...

WASHINGTON – Colin Powell says the U.S. took too long to strengthen its forces in Iraq after Baghdad fell early in the war. Powell, the nation's top military officer under President George H.W. Bush and secretary of state for President George W. Bush, said the decision to use a lighter force to defeat the Iraqi army was correct. But he said in a television interview broadcast Sunday that the younger Bush's administration should have realized the initial success in 2003 was only the start of a longer fight.

ormer Secretary of State Colin Powell says President Obama's agenda may be too ambitious, and costly. "One of the challenges that President Obama has now is that he's got so many things on the table, and these are issues that the American people find important, health care and so many other issues," said Powell in an interview slated to air Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union with John King." "But I think one of the cautions that has to be given to the president -- and I've talked to some of his people about this -- is that you...

For the past four years, Republican reformers have been warning of political disaster ahead. Our party's ideas have fallen behind the times, we are losing key demographic groups, and we have suffered disappointment and defeat in four of the six national elections since 1998. You'd think that such a record would demand reform. Yet most conservatives prefer to rationalize the dismal trends. They say: There's nothing wrong with conservatism. We lost in 2006 because of overspending and Iraq. We lost in 2008 because of the financial crisis and John McCain. There's no need to change or adapt. All we need...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Rampant redistribution of wealth by government is now the norm. So is this: It inflames government's natural rapaciousness and subverts the rule of law. This degeneration of governance is illustrated by the Illinois Legislature's transfer of income from some disfavored riverboat casinos to racetracks.</p>

What drove evangelical multimillionaire Howard Ahmanson—the man behind Prop 8—away from the Republicans? It wasn't Sarah Palin. He talks to The Daily Beast’s Kathleen Parker. Multimillionaire Howard Ahmanson, one of the nation’s top evangelical Christian philanthropists and one of three funders of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage, recently joined the Democratic Party. Although Ahmanson’s support for Prop 8 earned him critics on the left, his many philanthropic interests funded through his Fieldstead Institute are most often nonpartisan and nonpolitical, from AIDS prevention to public transportation. In an exclusive interview with columnist Kathleen Parker, he explains why he switched political...

Well-known conservative hopes to steer the GOP away from the politics of Rush LimbaughThe future of the Republican Party, if it has one, is Canadian. David Frum is emerging as the reasoned alternative to the blinkered prejudices that inform much of the debate within the GOP. His close knowledge of the struggle to reinvent and reunite Canadian conservatism, and his own personal evolution, have led him to call for a renaissance of the Republican Party within the United States, one that combines fiscal probity with social moderation, targeted primarily at young, university-educated voters. It has made him deeply loathed by...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday. "There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years." Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an Internet posting on Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many Guantanamo detainees were...

Pseudo-conservative Kathleen Parker’s ongoing method of getting her columns published in the Washington Post – bashing conservatives – took another sleazy turn on Sunday, with Parker asserting in the Post that conservatives who accuse the media of a liberal bias are "non-journalists" who stoking "ignorance," like Rush Limbaugh (not to mention groups like the Media Research Center.) The biggest challenge facing America's struggling newspaper industry may not be the high cost of newsprint or lost ad revenue, but ignorance stoked by drive-by punditry. Yes, Dittoheads, you heard it right. Drive-by pundits, to spin off of Rush Limbaugh's "drive-by media," are...

It wasn't a fight I went looking for. On March 3, the popular radio host Mark Levin opened his show with an outburst (he always opens his show with an outburst): "There are people who have somehow claimed the conservative mantle … You don't even know who they are … They're so irrelevant … It's time to name names …! The Canadian David Frum: where did this a-hole come from? … In the foxhole with other conservatives, you know what this jerk does? He keeps shooting us in the back … Hey, Frum: you're a putz." Now, of course, Mark...

Between 1990 and 2007, the total mortgage debt held by Americans rose from $2.5 trillion to $10.5 trillion. This rise was part of a societal credit bubble that burst in 2008. To cushion the pain of that collapse, federal authorities decided to replace private debt with public debt. In 2008, the Bush administration increased spending by about $1.7 trillion, and guaranteed loans, investments and deposits worth about $8 trillion. In 2009, the Obama administration spent $800 billion on a stimulus package, $1 trillion on a second round of bank bailouts and committed another trillion on health care reform and other...

All week the word I kept thinking of was "braced." America is braced, like people who are going fast and see a crash ahead. They know huge and historic challenges are here. They're not confident they can or will be met. Our most productive citizens are our most sophisticated, and our most sophisticated have the least faith in the ability of our institutions to face the future and get us through whole. They have the least faith because they work in them. Tuesday I talked to people who support a Catholic college. I said a great stress is here and...

An article in New York Magazine notes the difficulty The New York Times is having in trying to find a conservative voice it’s comfortable with for its opinion page. The paper is losing one of its two ostensibly conservative columnists. Departing columnist Bill Kristol is an establishment Republican who’s never been accused of being exactly dynamic, eloquent or edgy. Hence, he was safe from The Times’ perspective. The paper’s remaining voice on the right (loosely defined) is David Brooks. In Brooks, The Times has found a writer Maureen Dowd would be comfortable taking home to dinner.

GOP Sen. John McCain is positioning himself to be one of President Barack Obama’s strongest supporters, effectively giving Democrats the votes they need to override any GOP attempt to block the new administration’s legislative agenda. Obama heaped warm praise on his GOP rival during a dinner held in McCain’s honor the day before the inauguration, calling him a hero. Insiders duly noted McCain was granted a prime spot on the dais at the inauguration, sandwiched in a seat between White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The day after the inauguration, Obama and...

It is the curse of the journalist always to be present, but never really There. The job requires that we stand slightly apart, seeing but not believing; hearing without being seduced. We jot down the words, careful not to let them get under our skin. Like surgeons in the operating room, we can't afford to become emotionally involved lest we notice the blood and let the scalpel slip. Then comes the rare instance that penetrates the armor, when something causes you to put down the pad, turn off the camera in your head, and become part of the moment. The...

Here is video of Gen. Colin Powell talking with ABC yesterday about the inauguration of Barack Obama as President. During the interview, Powell said about his party affiliation, "I think I am still a Republican." He makes the statement at the 4:02 mark in the video. Well, Gen. Powell, to have thrown a fairly moderate Republican like John McCain over the side, despite his heroic service to America and his wisdom in supporting the surge strategy in Iraq, it will be hard for you to make the case to any Republican that you have a single GOP bone in your...

Senior Bush administration officials are preparing to ask lawmakers for the second half of the $700 billion financial rescue package despite intense opposition in Congress and then have President Bush use his veto if the request is voted down, three sources familiar with the matter said. The initiative, which is being coordinated with the Obama transition team, may be taken within days, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made. Democratic Senate aides were notified in a meeting this afternoon that the request could come as soon as this weekend and that a vote...

WASHINGTON (CNN)—Arizona Senator John McCain is adopting a major 2008 campaign slogan for a new political action committee designed to support not only his own planned re-election run in two years, but help him put his stamp on the rebuilding of the Republican Party. The formation of the “Country First” PAC is to be announced Wednesday, two sources familiar with the plans tell CNN. One of the sources called it the “first official step” of the GOP Senator’s re-election campaign. McCain made it clear not long after losing the presidential election that he intended to seek re-election to the Senate...

Principle: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell wants his party stripped of the Reaganite values that won it the presidency for 20 of the last 28 years. Meet the "Grand Obama Party."For many years it has been accepted that Gen. Colin Powell — who became a national icon thanks to appointments by President Ronald Reagan and both President Bushes — was more moderate than many of his colleagues. What was not known until lately is how much animus he has for the governing philosophy of those who gave him the opportunity to achieve fame and millions in book sales. In...

The Republican party must stop "shouting at the world" and start listening to minority groups if it is to win elections in the 21st century, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday. In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria for Sunday's "GPS" program, President Bush's former secretary of state said his party's attempt "to use polarization for political advantage" backfired last month. "I think the party has to take a hard look at itself," Powell said in the interview, which was taped Wednesday. "There is nothing wrong with being conservative. There is nothing wrong with having socially conservative views...

[RECOMMEND- SEE Full 2 minute video at site. Powell tells future} In an interview with CNN- General Colin Powell said of Gov. Sarah Palin: "Gov. Palin, to some extent, pushed the party more to the right, and I think she had something of a polarizing effect when she talked about how small town values are good. Well, most of us don’t live in small towns. And I was raised in the South Bronx, and there’s nothing wrong with my value system from the South Bronx."

http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20081207/peggy-noonan-lesley-stahl-and-friends-raise-more-money-wThe purse strings haven’t completely closed for start-ups looking to raise money–even niche Web sites that hope to stay afloat by selling advertising. Wowowow.com, a site launched earlier this year, which targets women over 40, has raised a $1.5 million round led by Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group and the Rhime Group. No word on valuation, but I’d guesstimate Wowowow.com’s investors peg its value in the high 9-figure range. The company has now raised $3.1 million in less than a year. The five founders–former publisher Joni Evans, “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl; New York Post gossip columnist Liz Smith; ad exec...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Nationally syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker made herself the scourge of the pro-life community when she blamed emphasis of pro-life issues for allowing Barack Obama to win the presidential election. In a new article, Parker is backing down slightly from those arguments, but still bungles the facts. Parker drew guffaws originally for blaming the presidential election loss on "oogedy-boogedy" pro-life advocates. In her new column she urges the evangelical and conservative Catholic pro-life advocates to give up their religious-based pro-life arguments and tells them to "take a cue from Nat Hentoff, a self-described Jewish atheist, who has...

As in many other areas, the biggest education debates are happening within the Democratic Party. On the one hand, there are the reformers like Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee, who support merit pay for good teachers, charter schools and tough accountability standards. On the other hand, there are the teachers’ unions and the members of the Ed School establishment, who emphasize greater funding, smaller class sizes and superficial reforms. During the presidential race, Barack Obama straddled the two camps. One campaign adviser, John Schnur, represented the reform view in the internal discussions. Another, Linda Darling-Hammond, was more likely to represent...

Christopher Buckley - whose famous parents, William F. and Pat Buckley, died within months of each other after 57 years of marriage - is coming out with a book about them, "Losing Mom and Pop," in May - and it isn't going to be all sweetness and light. "Writing this book may have been simply a way of spending more time with my parents before finally letting them go," Buckley, 56, tells Vanity Fair's Bob Colacello in the magazine's January issue. "I honestly had no intention of writing about them. But I'm a writer, and when the universe hands you...

Vatican City, Nov 25, 2008 / 03:22 pm (CNA).- An official from the Vatican's Secretary of State department has reacted to the recent suggestion that Pepperdine professor Douglas Kmiec should become the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican by saying, "it will never happen." On November 23, America Magazine published a blog entry from Michael Sean Winters describing Professor Douglas Kmiec, the former Republican pro-lifer who became Obama’s top Catholic apologist during the presidential campaign, as "the perfect candidate" to become U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. In his piece, Winters argues that Kmiec is the perfect candidate because "He is...

<p>Of conservatives' few victories this year, the most cherished came when the Supreme Court, in District of Columbia v. Heller, held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. Now, however, a distinguished conservative jurist argues that the court's ruling was mistaken and had the principal flaws of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion ruling that conservatives execrate as judicial overreaching. Both rulings, says J. Harvie Wilkinson, suddenly recognized a judicially enforceable right grounded in "an ambiguous constitutional text."</p>

Compare: “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” – William F. Buckley, Jr. --------------------------------------- And contrast: Jan. 20, 2009, will be a historic day. Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard Law) will take the oath of office as his wife, Michelle (Princeton, Harvard Law), looks on proudly. Nearby, his foreign policy advisers will stand beaming, including perhaps Hillary Clinton (Wellesley, Yale Law), Jim Steinberg (Harvard, Yale Law) and Susan Rice (Stanford, Oxford D. Phil.). The domestic policy team will be there, too,...

This letter arrived in response to my bloggingheads dialogue with Brink Lindsey. Name and affiliation posted with permission of the author: I find it astonishing that conservatives can discuss the election results and their path back to power without addressing the right wing's increasing estrangement from science. Religious conservatives have refused to acknowledge that evolution is the cornerstone of biological sciences and that the earth and universe are billions of years old, Free market enthusiasts have denied the efficacy and necessity of the Clean Air Act’s protections of the environment and human health. They have also refused to acknowledge Reagan’s...

<p>To my friend Kathleen Parker — This act is getting really old.</p> <p>As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.</p> <p>Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.</p> <p>I'm bathing in holy water as I type.</p>

Door, meet Hagel. That's how many Republicans are likely to react after retiring Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel blasted Republicans in general and Rush Limbaugh in particular, claiming Rush and fellow conservative talkers "don't have any answers." David Shuster, subbing for Olbermann on tonight's Countdown, highlighted Hagel's remarks of today. View video here. After rolling tape of two Republican senators looking on the bright side, Shuster quoted at length from Hagel, whose name had been bandied about as a possible Obama VP pick. SHUSTER: Not all of the GOP is so sunny about their party. Retiring Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska...

In a span of 252 days, the National Review lost two Buckleys — one to death, another to resignation — and an election. Now, thanks to the coarsening effect of the Internet on political discourse, the magazine may have lost something else: its reputation as the cradle for conservative intellectuals and home for erudite and well-mannered debate prized by its founder, the late William F. Buckley Jr. In the general conservative blogosphere and in The Corner, National Review’s popular blog, the tenor of debate — particularly as it related to the fitness of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska to be...

George Will September 23: "Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either. "It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness...

Karl Rove offered comforting words to grieving Republicans in an article published Thursday: “History will favor Republicans in 2010. Since World War II, the out-party has gained an average of 23 seats in the U.S. House and two in the U.S. Senate in a new president’s first mid-term election. Other than FDR and George W. Bush, no president has gained seats in his first mid-term election in both chambers.” Conservatives can only hope so. Early indications, however, point ominously the other way. Like the economy, the Republican party will most likely get sicker before it gets better. There are at...

A reader writes: I love to see you grapple with trying to explain this woman and her thought processes. You are Tcs2 missing something obvious though. She believes in the literal truth of the Bible. She believes it informs on matters of science, biology, evolution, physics, cosmology, etc. So if there are multiple creation versions in the Bible what do you do, make up your own reality. If there are contradictions in it, ignore them. Just like you ignore inconvenient facts about day-to-day life. If you BELIEVE the bible is the literal inerrant word of God what do you do?...

In a Presidential contest replete with novelties, none was more significant than this: A candidate’s campaign—for his party’s nomination, then for the presidency-was itself virtually the entire validation of his candidacy. Voters have endorsed Barack Obama’s audacious—but not, they have said, presumptuous—proposition, which was: The skill, tenacity, strategic vision and tactical nimbleness of my campaign is proof that he's presidential timber. Because imitation is the sincerest form of politics, the 2008 campaign will not be the last in which such a proposition is asserted. Obama’s achievement represents the final repudiation of the Founders’ intentions regarding the selection, and hence the...

Head Strong: Ignoring suburbs doomed the GOP To win Pa., it must appeal to moderates. By Michael Smerconish - Inquirer Inquirer Currents Columnist If retail politicking alone determined the election outcome in Pennsylvania, McCain-Palin would have won in a landslide. Speaking on MSNBC election night, Gov. Rendell joked that the GOP ticket had spent so much time in the state that he was thinking of assessing them with a state income tax.

Today, Red State ran an article on the origination of nasty lies from within the McCain/Palin camp. They report, Romney staffers now working on the McPalin campaign have been spreading the stories of Palin’s “ineptitude” to the press. Red State and other reporters accuse Romney staffers, including Kevin Madden (former Romney press-man) of pushing reporters into “Troopergate” stories and other possible negative Palin story angles. Palin provides a threat to Romney for a presidential run, but now is not the time for in-party fighting. American Girl has been very critical of long-time Romney supporter Kathleen Parker (see here and here),...

Of course, as John Paul II taught in Veritatis Splendor, no democracy should set itself against the truth of the human person. When John McCain proclaimed himself to be “pro-life,” many thought we would hear from him a call for some effort to bring the Constitution in line with the protection of life. Ronald Reagan was a champion of this idea though he did not succeed in achieving it. The Reagan amendment would have included the unborn in the constitutional definition of “person” and it had the benefit of simplicity. Yet, given again the related criminal liability for mother and...

don't know how much kool-aid they drank this morning....... Election Night Predictions November 02, 2008 9:36 AM This morning on our This Week Roundtable we made our predictions for Tuesday night's outcome: Mark Halperin, Time Magazine: Electoral Vote -- 349 Obama Senate -- 58 Democratic seats House -- Democrats net 28 House seats Matthew Dowd, former Republican strategist: Electoral Vote -- 338 plus Obama Senate -- 8 plus pick ups for Democrats House -- 17 plus pick ups for Democrats George Will, ABC News contributor: Electoral Vote -- 378 Obama Senate -- 8 pick ups for the Democrats House --...

Washington DC, Nov 2, 2008 / 04:02 am (CNA).- Doug Kmiec, Pepperdine University law professor and adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, has said in an interview that Obama?s models for Supreme Court nominees are Justices Stephen Breyer and David Souter.

WASHINGTON -- By midnight Tuesday, millions of conservatives probably will believe that the nation, foundering on the reefs of sin, is ruined. And millions of "progressives," emboldened to embrace truth in labeling by again calling themselves liberals, probably will have decided that Heaven is at hand, the nation revived like a flower in an April shower. In any case, political numeracy can illuminate the hours before midnight. So as Tuesday's numbers accumulate, here are some benchmarks to bear in mind: The House of Representatives currently has 235 Democrats and 199 Republicans; the Senate has 51 Democrats (including two independents who...

The case for Barack Obama, in broad strokes: He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief. He climbed steep stairs, born off the continent with no father to guide, a dreamy, abandoning mother, mixed race, no connections. Obama and the Runaway Train The race, the case, a hope for grace. He rose...

It looks like there might be some truth to those rumors former Mitt Romney supporters are already trying to clear Sarah Palin from the GOP presidential deck to make room for their man Mitt in 2012. Former Romney Spokesman Kevin Madden was particularly harsh on Palin in an interview on CNN. His criticism of Palin is especially noteworthy because we're only days from the election. In a spot with Campbell Brown Madden said Palin's wardrobe flap showed how "unseasoned" Palin is. BROWN: And, Kevin, even defending this whole controversy over the clothes, the RNC buying all the clothing, it keeps...