We, as conservative intellectuals, should not be in the business of making excuses for bad parliamentary decisions by Republican leaders in Congress.
David FrumReagan survived the Iran-Contra scandal because the elements of it that were illegal (aiding anti-communist Nicaraguans) were popular and the things that were unpopular (arming the Iranians) were quite legal.
David FrumWe're not free because other people are nice, maybe other people aren't nice that day. We're free because we expect the institutions of government to work impersonally. That we expect people in government to understand they don't work for the president or the prime minister, they work for the government. And the government is always there.
David FrumCrown Prince Rupprecht, the heir to the throne of Bavaria who commanded the army group facing the British at the Somme, was the senior direct lineal heir of James Stuart, the Old Pretender of 1715. Had there been any Jacobites left in Britain in 1916, they would have had to regard this south German prince as their rightful king.
David FrumOne of the reasons I've been interested in the US health care is that here is something you can do, that could lift one of the largest burdens of worry from the shoulders of tens of millions of people for whom the rest of the economy isn't working. A lot of the things that are in Obamacare that Republicans don't like were deliberately put there to force Republicans to negotiate. Republicans wouldn't negotiate, so we got Obamacare with all of the fur on it. Once it's there, of course, it's very hard to take health care benefits away from people, as the Republicans discovered.
David Frum