Frum Signs Off at NRO, Embarks on a New Project

Here's the last excerpt from the "Frum Diary" at NRO

In the months ahead, conservatives and Republicans will face the most adverse political environment since the middle 1960s. At the same time, the current economic crisis raises some of the most searching intellectual problems conservatives have faced since their rise as a coherent intellectual movement. How did we get into this mess? How do we get out? And perhaps above all: Why did American incomes stagnate so dismally on our watch, even before the crisis struck?

The work ahead is difficult. As ever, it is difficulty that brings out the best in individuals and in political movements. I look forward eagerly to working through those difficulties together with you, our readers and (I hope) future commenters - and with the brilliant band of colleagues and associates who will be posting at NewMajority.com

I wish him luck on the project. Conservative punditry has been dreadful the last few years as they tried to pretend that Bush wasn't a disaster, that it's unpatriotic to question the war strategy and staying mute while Bush nationalized the economy, and has the country on the brink of bankruptcy.

The cracks started to show with Bush's handling of the economy, signing every spending bill that crossed his desk. Republicans are supposed to be for small government and free markets. Bush was making a mockery of the concept. Then we noticed the wars were dragging on and nation building projects that conservatives were skeptical about were proving costly and likely futile.

This all broke when McCain chose Palin as his running mate. Conservative punidts were saying this illiterate, proudly ignorant twit represented "real" America. It was an embarrassment and high profile conservatives like Frum, George Will, and Peggy Noonan bolted for the exits.

Bad Debt the Problem? Let's Solve it By Making More

George F. Will has been the best main stream critic of the bailouts. (Before this fall, I wasn't even sure he was still writing.) In his syndicated column he points out the sleaze and the wishful thinking of the recent GMAC bailout. (Here)

Right after GMAC became eligible for TARP money, GM reduced to zero the interest rate - for up to 60 months - on certain models. This, of course, penalizes GM competitors, including Toyota, Honda and other "transplants" whose cars are made in America by Americans for Americans, and Ford, which doesn't have the freedom of maneuver conferred by TARP money because Ford isn't taking any.

This redundant evidence that no good deed goes unpunished might be a reason for Ford to take some. Then it could join GM in using taxpayers' money to produce more troubled assets. The New York Times reports that GMAC has begun making loans to borrowers with credit scores as low as 621, a significant relaxation of the 700 minimum score the company adopted just three months ago as it struggled to survive. America's median credit score is 723. GMAC's lowered standards will increase the number of people eligible for its loans by an estimated 50 million.

What should one call loans made to applicants who, three months ago, were thought to be trying to buy more expensive cars than they could afford? How about "subprime loans"? Thus does the economy, which is suffering a fierce hangover after going on a bender of reckless borrowing, try a familiar remedy - the hair of the dog.

This is getting worse and worse. I reminds me of that Johnny Cash song about the flood waters:

How high's the water, mama?
Three feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Three feet high and risin'

Well, the hives are gone,
I've lost my bees
The chickens are sleepin'
In the willow trees
Cow's in water up past her knees,
Three feet high and risin'

US Congress Becoming the Roman Senate: No Real Power

I was wondering how, a week after the Senate shot down the bailout for the automotive industry, the Bush administration went ahead and bailed them out anyway? George F. Will takes notice in this Washington Post piece:

On Friday the president gave the two automakers access to money Congress explicitly did not authorize. More money -- up to $17.4 billion -- than had been debated, thereby calling to mind Winston Churchill on naval appropriations: "The Admiralty had demanded six ships: the economists offered four: and we finally compromised on eight."

The president is dispensing money from the $700 billion Congress provided for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The unfounded assertion of a right to do this is notably brazen, given the indisputable fact that if Congress had known that TARP -- supposedly a measure for scouring "toxic" assets from financial institutions -- was to become an instrument for unconstrained industrial policy, it would not have been passed.
....

For decades, imperatives of wars hot and cold, and the sprawl of the regulatory state, have enlarged the executive branch at the expense of the legislative. For eight years, the Bush administration's "presidentialists" have aggressively wielded the concept of the "unitary executive" -- the theory that where the Constitution vests power in the executive, especially power over foreign affairs and war, the president is immune to legislative abridgements of his autonomy.

The administration has not, however, confined its aggrandizement of executive power to national security matters. According to former representative Mickey Edwards in his book "Reclaiming Conservatism," the president has issued "signing statements" designating 1,100 provisions of new laws -- more designations than have been made by all prior presidents combined -- that he did not consider binding on him or any other executive branch official.

A healthy Republic needs its Legislative Branch. Lame Duck Bush is spending unprecendeted amounts of the public's money, seemingly illegally and law makers are standing by without comment. Is anybody paying attention? Does anybody care? Where are the checks and balances?