Why do I hold Sarah Palin to a more exacting standard than I do David Frum? Simple: because Palin and Frum fulfill different roles in the conservative movement. Palin is a political leader; Frum an intellectual leader. As an intellectual leader, Frum has much greater leeway — and an obligation really — to challenge conservative orthodoxy. Palin, by contrast, is abandoning conservative policy positions that she does not yet fully understand and has not yet fully thought through.
Reflections on the Revolution in America
March 18, 2010 By 25 Comments
Welcome to the efforts of the liberal well-to-do class — who are immune from the dictates they impose on others.
The Fate of Roger Ebert’s Legacy
February 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment
“I’m so relieved to be an elite” –tweet from Roger Ebert
Most public figures have done or said something they wish they could take back. When it comes to public intellectuals and film critics specifically, they generally pride themselves on their ability to analyze what they see. Therefore, their responses to culture should be very measured [...]
Guy Sorman: Bad Ideas Never Die – City Journal
December 18, 2009 By 1 Comment
French public intellectuals have a reputation—well-deserved—for being socialists, Marxists, or Trotskyists. One thinks in this regard of popular figures like Jean-Paul Sartre, Pierre Bourdieu, Jacques Derrida, and Simone de Beauvoir, all with fan clubs on American campuses. Some French thinkers, however, have carried forward another intellectual tradition, that of classical liberalism—pro-democracy and pro-market—and running from [...]
