Things that many conservatives tend to forget

Andrew Sullivan pointed me to this piece by David Frum in the New York Times magazine.  It is fantastic - thoughtful, realistic, and somewhat damning, without being harsh or overly partisan.  Although he is quite conservative from a policy-standpoint, I often find myself drawn to Frum's ideas for their measured, reasonable tones.

In this article, he argues against knee-jerk hypocrisy and closed information systems (think Fox News and MSNBC), among other things, and suggests that newly empowered Republicans and, most importantly, the nation would benefit from more cooperation and less political opportunism.  Read it - it's informative and honest.

The U.S. political system is not a parliamentary system. Power is usually divided. The system is sustained by habits of cooperation, accepted limits on the use of power, implicit restraints on the use of rhetoric. In recent years, however, those restraints have faded and the system has delivered one failure after another, from the intelligence failures detailed in the 9/11 report to the stimulus that failed to adequately reduce unemployment, through frustrating wars and a financial crash. The message we hear from some Republicans — “this is no time for compromise” — threatens to extend the failures of governance for at least two more years. These failures serve nobody’s interest, and the national interest least of all.