Overview

David Frum celebrates a conservatism that defends both liberty and morality. Frum dissects such current political figures as Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Colin Powell, and Jack Kemp, offering insight into the mechanics of Republican party politics as well. Whether the issue is health care, social programs, supply-side tax cutting, crime, or censorship, Frum cuts to the essential matters of principle with passion and wit. He makes a powerful case for Republicans to reject populism, protectionism, and nationalism and return to their core doctrines: smaller government and American world leadership.

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9780465041985

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Reviews

Commentary can best be described as a reflective critique of current events. Which is precisely what Frum (Dead Right, 1994) offers in this impressive medley of previously published essays on various aspects of political conservatism. Taken from the pages of such periodicals as The American Spectator, Forbes, The National Review, and The Wall Street Journal, the 30-odd pieces collected here are divided into three main groups: politics and politicians; public policy; and the thinkers whose convictions in one way or another helped shape contemporary conservatism. Although candidly partisan in his perspective, the Canadian-born author casts a clear, cold eye on fellow tories and their office-seeking antics. Cases in point range from unsparing profiles of the latter-day right's saints and sinners - Pat Buchanan (a.k.a. the Conservative Bully Boy ), Newt Gingrich, Phil Gramm, Jack Kemp, Colin Powell - through harsh takes on the Christian Coalition (which, for all the fear and loathing it inspires on the left, has a largely unrealized agenda). He also takes on the ideationally addled Republican lawmakers who support subsidies for Big Business or compound the problem of spiraling health-care costs with other than market solutions. Included as well are perceptive disquisitions on John Maynard Keynes ( the Nietzsche of economics ), Russell Kirk (who taught that conservatism was above all a moral cause ), and Harry S. Truman (an unfortunate neocon icon in Frum's view). Throughout, the author is insistent that conservatives and their candidates must value principle over popularity with the electorate, stressing minimal government intervention, individual freedom, self-reliance, personal probity, fiscal responsibility, and actual (as opposed to rhetorical) cuts in federal spending. Right-minded observations from an intellectual and ideological heir of William Buckley. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

David Frum is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor for the Weekly Standard. He is also the author of Dead Right.

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