Free Republic

The New Yorker is hardly the optimal vehicle for reaching the conservative intelligentsia. But, last year, Barack Obama cooperated with a profile for that magazine where he seemed to be speaking directly to the right. Because he paid obeisance to the virtues of stability and continuity, his interlocutor, Larissa MacFarquhar, came away with the impression that the Illinois senator was an adherent of Edmund Burke: "In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative." As The New Yorker's assessment shot...

After Words: Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past", Bruce Bartlett interviewed by Clarence Page About the Program: In "Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past", Bruce Bartlett argues that the Democratic Party had a racist past and he says there’s an unfair perception of America’s two national parties. In his book, he contends that Democratic Presidents and congressmen of the past supported racial segregation and the "Jim Crow" laws that dominated the Confederate states. Mr. Bartlett discussed his book with Clarence Page, syndicated columnist at the Chicago Tribune. Watch now:http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=9391&SectionName=After%20Words&PlayMedia=Yes

Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past, by Bruce Bartlett (Palgrave Macmillan, 288 pp., $26.95) Two years ago, on his Daily Kos website, Markos Moulitsas asked: “Is it any wonder the GOP is the party of racists?” While Moulitsas conceded that “not every Republican is a racist,” he maintained that “the opposite—every racist is a Republican—is just about right.” Such sentiments typify a common view that racism is the soul of the Republican Party, and that black Republicans are traitors to their race, or at least peculiar. Bruce Bartlett sets the record straight in Wrong on Race: The Democratic...

In his December 24, 2007 Tax Notes article, “Why the Fair Tax Won’t Work,” Bruce Bartlett purports to critique the FairTax, a proposal to replace almost all federal taxes with a retail sales tax plus a rebate. In fact, Barlett’s article has little to say about the FairTax and even less to say that’s accurate. Instead, most of his article misstates research on the FairTax, criticizes unnamed proponents of the FairTax, lambasts unattributed views of the FairTax, and engages in political punditry. This paper takes a close look at Bartlett’s “analysis,” exposing his repeated use of straw men for what...

With remarkable speed, Congress, the White House, Republicans, Democrats and even the Federal Reserve have come to a consensus on the need for economic stimulus to moderate and perhaps forestall a recession. It seems certain that the final stimulus package will contain a tax rebate. The underlying theory for the rebate idea traces back to the British economist John Maynard Keynes. He believed that spending was the driving force in the economy. It didn't matter whether the spending was done by businesses on capital equipment, by governments on public works, or by consumers -- spending is spending in the Keynesian...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Bruce Bartlett, the former deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy under George H.W. Bush. He was the former executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress and he also served in the Office of Policy Development at the White House under Ronald Reagan. He is the author of the new book, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past.FP: Bruce Bartlett, welcome to Frontpage Interview.Bartlett: Thanks for the opportunity to discuss my new book.FP: What inspired you to write this book?Bartlett: I think the seeds were sown during the Trent...

His "natural habitat" threatened by the growing popularity of the FairTax, Bruce Bartlett rather sadly resorts to the most damning fiction he can create in order to malign this thoroughly researched proposal ("Dianetics, the Tax Plan," September 10). Misdirection is, of course, a valuable skill for pickpockets and stage magicians but in the case of public policy, it is a coarse path that reflects poorly on the performer and ill-serves honest debate. The FairTax was developed, independently of any other proposal, over the course of several years by noted economists after extensive market research was conducted into what the public...

Senator Clinton’s favorite “Conservative” Bruce Bartlett has dug his way to the bottom. It seems he doesn’t like the idea of Candidate Fred Thompson’s National Sales Tax proposal and has no scruples about using it’s previous endorsement by The Church of Scientology as a bludgeon to attack Thompson’s start-up campaign. Like Scott Thomas Beauchamp, Bartlett has authored a disingenuous piece of fiction for The New Republic. Like Scott Thomas Beauchamp’s Shock Troops diary, the piece reeks of being a cheap, unfair smear job. Bartlett released his sewage in hopes of ruining Republican Candidate Fred Thompson’s entry into the GOP nomination...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's unexpectedly strong second-place showing in the recent Iowa Republican straw poll is widely attributed to his support for the FairTax. For those who never heard about it, the FairTax is a national retail sales tax that would replace the entire current federal tax system. It was originally devised by the Church of Scientology in the early 1990s as a way to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service, with which the church was then at war.... Rep. John Linder (R., Ga.) and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.) have introduced legislation (H.R. 25/S. 1025) to implement...

As some readers of this column may know, the first "real" job I ever had was working for Rep. Ron Paul back in 1976. I went to visit the Texas Republican a few months ago and was pleased to see he had not changed much at all since the days when I was a legislative assistant on his congressional staff. At that time, I did not know Ron planned a run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. When I later learned of it, I thought he was being hopelessly Quixotic -- tilting at windmills. I thought Ron's views about limited...

As someone who has been highly critical of George W. Bush’s repeated violations of conservative principles for some years, last week brought some vindication. His endorsement of an immigration reform bill that is widely viewed as offering de facto amnesty for illegal aliens seems to have finally gotten to many of those who have defended him down the line and attacked people like me as conservative turncoats. They now realize what I figured out three years ago: he ain’t one of us. For me, the tipping point was the Medicare drug bill, which was rammed through Congress in the dead...

I hadn’t planned on writing another column about Hillary Clinton, but the one I wrote last week has been so widely misunderstood that I feel compelled to do so. To recap, I said that no Republican can win the presidency next year. If one accepts this premise, then if follows that it is in the interest of conservatives to support the most conservative Democrat running for that party’s nomination. I went on to say why I think Hillary Clinton may be the most conservative Democrat. To begin with, it is obviously not impossible for a Republican to win next year....

I hadn't planned on writing another column about Hillary Clinton, but the one I wrote last week has been so widely misunderstood that I feel compelled to do so. To recap, I said that no Republican can win the presidency next year. If one accepts this premise, then if follows that it is in the interest of conservatives to support the most conservative Democrat running for that party's nomination. I went on to say why I think Hillary Clinton may be the most conservative Democrat. To begin with, it is obviously not impossible for a Republican to win next year....

Democrats and Conservatives By Bruce Bartlett I hadn't planned on writing another column about Hillary Clinton, but the one I wrote last week has been so widely misunderstood that I feel compelled to do so. To recap, I said that no Republican can win the presidency next year. If one accepts this premise, then if follows that it is in the interest of conservatives to support the most conservative Democrat running for that party's nomination. I went on to say why I think Hillary Clinton may be the most conservative Democrat. To begin with, it is obviously not impossible for...

As each day passes, it becomes increasingly clear that the Democrats will win the White House next year. It's not quite 1932, but it's getting close to a sure thing. All the energy is on their side, they are raising more money from more contributors, and there is little if any enthusiasm for the Republican candidates -- even among Republicans... At some point, politically sophisticated conservatives will have to recognize that no Republican can win in 2008 and that their only choice is to support the most conservative Democrat for the nomination. Call me crazy, but I think that person...

One reason I wish columnist Ann Coulter hadn't used the F-word in a recent speech -- the one that is a derogatory term for homosexual -- is because it gave liberals yet another excuse to label all conservatives as homophobic, racist and sexist, which writer Rick Perlstein did last week in the New Republic. As Mr. Perlstein wrote, Miss Coulter's poor choice of words "fits into a running conservative pattern." He went on to suggest radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was sending coded messages to his listeners about former Secretary of State James A. Baker's sexual orientation by referring...

Republicans' Cheney Problem By Bruce Bartlett It is becoming increasingly clear that the Republican Party has a huge problem going into 2008. Usually, it has a clear frontrunner going into the process who is broadly acceptable to most Republicans. But in this election cycle, that is not true. The race is wide open and it is hard to predict who will be left standing when the last primary vote is cast. One thing that can be predicted is that a great many Republicans will be dissatisfied with their party's presidential nominee. It won't matter who among those currently running ends...

With Republicans controlling Congress and the White House, conservatives these days ought to be happy, but most aren’t. They see expanding government, runaway spending, Middle East entanglements, and government corruption, and they wonder why, exactly, the country should be grateful for Republican dominance. Some accuse Bush and the Republicans today of not being true conservatives. Others see a grab bag of stated policies and wonder how they cohere. Everyone thinks something’s got to change. Now seven prominent conservatives dare to speak the unspeakable: They hope the Republicans lose in 2006. Well, let’s be diplomatic and say they’d prefer divided government—soon....

Kind words for Bush By Bruce Bartlett Tuesday, August 22, 2006 Regular readers of this column know that earlier this year, I published a book highly critical of George W. Bush for his deviations from conservative principles, which got me fired from an intellectually bankrupt think tank. Since publication of that book, however, Bush has actually fixed some of the problems identified in my book. It almost makes me think that someone in the White House read it very thoroughly and took its message to heart. The first big improvement was installation of Joshua Bolten as White House chief of...

From what I read on the blogs these days, most Democrats believe that their party's single biggest problem is that it is not tough enough. Their solution is to be ever more shrill and hysterical in attacking Republicans. As a Republican, I think this is wonderful. It just makes Democrats look like kooks, and forces moderates to vote Republican. Actually, I think the Democrats' biggest problem is simple ineptness -- they just aren't very good at coming up with politically attractive ideas and marketing them effectively. I even have a theory about why this is the case. The fact is...