Free Republic

Liberal television anchors love having David Frum on their shows. He pretends to be a conservative but makes a habit of bashing them. The latest example came on Sunday when Frum took a shot at Fox News viewers. Frum told Howard Kurtz on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” that “people who watch a lot of Fox come away knowing a lot less about important world events.” In a recent New York magazine column, Frum accused the conservative media of running an “alternative knowledge system” of “pseudo-facts and pretend information.” Frum offered no specifics on CNN to back up his claim, and Kurtz,...

I was a strong opponent of same-sex marriage. Fourteen years ago, Andrew Sullivan and I forcefully debated the issue at length online (at a time when online debate was a brand new thing). Yet I find myself strangely untroubled by New York state's vote to authorize same-sex marriage -- a vote that probably signals that most of "blue" states will follow within the next 10 years. I don't think I'm alone in my reaction either. Most conservatives have reacted with calm -- if not outright approval -- to New York's dramatic decision. Why? The short answer is that the case...

On the day Mitt Romney formally announced his bid for the GOP presidential nomination, former Alaska Governor took a shot at his Massachusetts health care plan by criticizing government mandates. RealClearPolitics reports: ‘[E]ven on a state level and a local level, mandates coming from a governing body, it’s tough for a lot of us to accept because we have great faith in the private sector and in our own families and in our businessmen and women in making decisions for ourselves,’ Palin said. ‘Not any level of government telling us what to do.’ And yet… even her home state of...

On CNN’s Reliable Sources, conservatives Jennifer Rubin and David Frum discussed the declining television ratings of Glenn Beck and the recent conservative attacks on him. Rubin said Beck was creating a bad image for the Republican party, whereas Frum, a longtime Beck critic, suggested audiences are just tired of hearing ludicrous conspiracy theories. Rubin, seemingly speaking on behalf of Beck’s “elite” conservative critics everywhere, said: “Sure he doesn’t need our approval and we’re not giving him our approval. But to the extent to which he wants to influence events, which is presumably why does it – other than the money...

Perhaps anticipating that the media would begin ripping Sarah Palin’s interview with Sean Hannity earlier tonight underestimated the speed of the news cycle. Less than an hour later and a network away, Palin’s fellow conservative David Frum responded to her comments with a good-natured plea for her to just “stop talking now.” On MSNBC’s The Last Word, Lawrence O’Donnell noted that he would have wanted to hear Palin explain the difficulty of finding an appropriate timing to respond to the attacks on her, introducing the review of her performance on Hannity without deeply analyzing any particular part of it. Frum...

Washington (CNN) -- The annual Conservative Political Action Conference drew 10,000 activists to Washington over the weekend. The event traditionally concludes with a presidential straw poll. Last year, the poll was won by Mitt Romney. This year, Ron Paul won, with 31 percent of the ballots cast. CPAC's organizers cautioned against over-interpreting the Paul win. Participation in the poll had been light, the Paul team had just out-organized, etc. All true enough. But it's also true that Ron Paul-style themes have percolated through the conservative movement since Paul's beat-the-spread 2008 presidential campaign. Of all those themes, the one that has...