Free Republic

(CNN) -- Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical Christian leaders last week issued a bold political statement. They intended to target the Obama administration. Inadvertently, they may have also hit probable Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney ought to rank atop the Republican candidates for president in 2012. He finished second in votes cast in the primaries of 2008. He is a candidate with immense private-sector economic expertise in a time of urgent economic debate. But Romney has a political problem: his Mormon religious faith. A Gallup survey in December 2007 found that 18 percent of Republicans would not vote for...

(CNN) -- The Republican fratricide in the Nov. 3 special election in upstate New York may prove just an opening round of an even more spectacular bloodbath in Florida in 2010. In New York, Republican feuding lost the party a seat in the House of Representatives. At stake in Florida is not only a senatorship -- but very possibly Republican hopes for 2012 as well. The battle in Florida pits Gov. Charlie Crist against former Speaker of the Florida House Marco Rubio. Both men claim to be conservative, pro-life, tax cutters. On the issues, they would seem to agree far...

Writing on his website, which used to be called “New Majority” until he got tired of people laughing at him, David Frum published an essay called “The Palin Fantasy” over the weekend. Even as the House of Representatives was preparing to pass the most blatantly unconstitutional assault on America’s freedom in Congressional history, Frum found something really outrageous to write about: Matthew Continetti’s admiring essay on Sarah Palin’s populist appeal. It’s a good thing Frum has his priorities in order. We wouldn’t want Palin to get into office and drop a few trillion dollars of unsustainable debt on us. Frum...

Andrew Sullivan directs attention to this fascinating query: All of this gets me to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Both of them have been in the news a lot for their outspoken and controversial views. And once again, people don’t seem to understand that their jobs are entertainment, nothing more… Talk show hosts have no legal or ethical obligation to do anything but entertain. And judging by their successes, Limbaugh and Beck are brilliant at their jobs. I find it mind boggling that anyone believes a TV talk host is expressing his own true views… Do you think that Limbaugh...

In his worst post yet David Frum picks up some Andrew Sullivan foam (which is pretty much what Andrew produces since he became a celebrity of the left) and takes it to the next level of nasty. “Do Limbaugh and Beck Believe What They Say?” is the title of Andrew’s thoughtless little jape. At least Sullivan deploys the question as an unabashed instrument of derision which he doesn’t himself take seriously. We’ve all asked the question, which is our way of saying no one in his right mind could believe that. It’s what every liberal thinks (when they’re not thinking)...

Politics: Democrats say Rush Limbaugh is running the Republican Party. Better Rush than George Soros, who is running the Democrats. At least Rush believes in freedom, capitalism and letting you keep what you earn. The cover of the March 7 issue of Newsweek shows a picture of conservative icon Limbaugh with a piece of tape covering his mouth and the word "Enough!" So much for disagreeing with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it. Voltaire could never be a contributor to Newsweek

David Frum has a parting shot for our me in our debate. Before responding let me say that it is gratifying that we could go these three rounds without acrimony, and with a sense that we could engage these issues again down the line in a fraternal manner. That speaks to the health of the conservative coalition, and I am pleased about that. And it also pleases me that we can end on a note of agreement. Sort of. Here’s what David wrote along with my reply

Any questions?

For reasons best known to himself, David Frum has decided to suppress my side of the debate on his website. Thus my reply to his latest post (which follows below) doesn't appear on his website. I agree with you David that this dialogue is getting more focused, and I find it much more pleasurable (and hopefully informative) as a result. There are two issues here. One is a remarkable conservative outburst against the broadcaster Glenn Beck which includes you, Mark Levin and Pete Wehner among others, and which collectively wishes for his early self-destruction. The message from the three...

The debate over Glenn Beck continues at FrontPage in a discussion coordinated by my colleague Jamie Glazov. If you've enjoyed what we've had so far, then you're going to love this new installment.

So over at New Majority David Frum has a rebuttal to my post calling out his distortions on Glenn Beck. He accuses me of "not doing my homework" on Beck's positions on Paul: You’d think that review would be a matter of some urgency for David Horowitz. After all, Horowitz himself described Paul as “a crackpot, a conspiracy nut and a public menace… an anti-Semite and an America-hater.” To date, however, Horowitz has not found time to consider the record. Soon afterward, David Swindle appeared on David Horowitz’s Newsreal blog to deny that much of a record even existed. Swindle...

In the recent dialogue between David Frum and David Horowitz about the place of Glenn Beck and other bold talkers in the Conservative Movement Frum shot out a claim which threw Horowitz off guard: Third – how do we define “our side”? Horowitz harshly condemns Obama appointee Van Jones. Van Jones was eventually forced to resign not because of any of the allegations Glenn Beck hurled at him, but because the Gateway Pundit blog unearthed evidence that Van Jones had consorted with 9/11 denialists. So that’s the other side, right? Except… the American politician who most closely associates with 9/11...

David Frum has responded -- sort of -- to my Newsreal critique of his blistering attack on Glenn Beck in tones you would normally use for a Ward Churchill or a William Ayers or a Cynthia McKinney.I say "sort of" because he has not addressed the points I made and has instead misrepresented my views. I did not say that Beck's comments were false. Beck's sin so far as I can tell from David's posts are that he conflated Cass Sunstein with Peter Singer. His bad. How big a sin is this? Well it's all about context isn't it. Animal...

Conservative David Frum, having made a bad name for himself with a crusade against Rush Limbaugh in the leftwing press, has now taken out after Glenn Beck in a column titled "GOP Surrenders to Beck's Mob Rule." (Frum is an armchair aristocrat). I don't have a big quarrel with Frum's view that Beck's view of Cass Sunstein is "over the top" or off target. Conservatism is and should be a big tent where people can disagree in their judgments of issues and others. Frum is right that Sunstein is not a raving leftist. On the other hand he is not...

When Glenn Beck made his Fox debut, some shrewd conservatives responded with a wink. Maybe the show was paranoid and hysterical. Maybe Beck was none too scrupulous about facts and truth. But why be squeamish? The other side did as bad, or nearly. And see how usefully he mobilized the base! Those shrewd conservatives assumed Beck was working for them. Big mistake. Beck is working for himself – and he chooses his targets according to his own scheme of priorities. The newest target is Cass Sunstein, confirmed yesterday by the Senate as director of the Office of Information and Regulatory...

Politico conducted an interview recently with David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush and a vigorous critic of Governor Palin, about the progress of his new project, the New Majority, a website that is allegedly "dedicated to the modernization and renewal of the Republican party and the conservative movement." In the interview, Frum effectively concedes that his New Majority project thus far has had little success in accomplishing its stated goals. "[T]he Internet is proving to be a little more complicated than Frum first thought it would be, he says. He admits to shortcomings in his Web acumen, and...

Even if the former governor of Alaska fades away before the 2012 presidential election, David Frum thinks “the Palin problem is still with us.” And as long as that’s the case, Frum — the conservative pundit and former George W. Bush speechwriter — will be here, too. “Why were conservatives vulnerable to somebody like this?” Frum mused about Palin recently in an interview with POLITICO. “The things that prevented them from seeing her are all still there. And we see them during this health care debate.” It’s been seven months since Frum parted ways with National Review to launch his...

Detroit was the Silicon Valley of the 1920s — the booming home of a glamorous new industry, a place where huge fortunes were conjured in years, sometimes months. But while the creators of the computer industry have as yet bequeathed very little to the built environment, the automobile industry piled up around it an astounding American city, in astoundingly little time. The Detroit of 1910 was a thriving Midwestern milling and shipping entrepot, a bigger Minneapolis. The Detroit of 1930 had rebuilt itself as a grand metropolis of skyscrapers, mansions, movie palaces and frame cottages spreading northward beyond the line...

Here is audio of conservative Mark Levin on radio yesterday taking pseudo-conservative David Frum apart for his cozying up to the mainstream media and his attacks on true conservatives like Gov. Sarah Palin. Frum has started a website called the "New Majority," and even wrote a book on the subject that sold "only 5,000 hard copies," according to Levin. That's why Frum is so angry at the success of Levin's book "Liberty and Tyranny," that will be considered a classic work on conservatism and the U.S. Constitution. Here is Frum's response to Levin's words on his website: "My series on...

Recently, author and columnist David Frum has engaged in a series of attacks against conservative talk show host Mark Levin. For the most part, Frum’s attacks concentrate on Levin’s style, which he asserts is “doom and gloom”. Frum’s real problem is that talk show hosts (and their listeners for that matter) are not his type of conservative; a holier than thou lot content to engage in political bargaining and the soft peddling of conservatism. That’s not to say Frum is not an intelligent guy, but he is undoubtedly drunk on the idea of his own intellectual superiority, seeing Levin’s uncompromising,...