David Frum & David Brooks: Honorary Passionate Moderates

The election is over for me as I have already voted. And it's too late to persuade anyone else except that I urge you to go vote for whomever. There are still bigger principles at stake than this current presidential contest.

My freshman college son sent me a link to a video from his American Heritage class. He asked me for advice on an essay he was required to write about the video. I was pleasantly surprised to see the video myself as it is a wonderful presentation of many of the themes I have tried to express in this blog. The video was by David Frum, a conservative columnist branded as a heretic by the far-right for criticizing Sarah Palin, among other things. The video follows the jump:

There was also an editorial just the other day by another conservative columnist ostracized by the right-wing for similar reasons - David Brooks in the New York Times. It encapsulates a lot of my philosophy as a passionate moderate. I strongly encourage you to read it.

Regardless of who becomes President (And my reliable statisticians, including my son, are pretty sure about who it will be. See e.g., Nate Silver and Sam Wang.), these principles remain important to make our great nation work. I still maintain that compromise is the most important divinely inspired principle of the U.S. Constitution because the whole structure of the document leads us to it - not to compromise deeply held beliefs and commitments but to find the common ground to work it out with all those who have different deeply held beliefs and commitments.

Maybe Frum and Brooks understand all this better from what they went through with their conflicts within the conservative movement. Sometimes it takes a conflict or a loss to reassess and recognize the need for moderation in all things. Here's hoping we can all learn a little more of that however this comes out.