What's Right: The New Conservative Majority and the Remaking of America

In his latest tough-minded gathering of essays and reviews, conservative pundit Frum (Dead Right) advocates individual medical-savings accounts to reinforce thrift and self-reliance, elimination of federal subsidies to businesses, forced labor for inmates of the federal prison system and caps on Medicaid benefits at their present level, with monies converted to block grants to the states. Frum contends that Patrick Buchanan, a populist given to resentful rhetoric, has forsaken the basic tenets of postwar American conservatism--small government and U.S. global leadership--and he advises that if the Republicans chose ""uninspiring"" Bob Dole as their presidential nominee, Newt Gingrich will further consolidate his dominance over the party. Frum, based in Toronto, argues that Canada should acquire nuclear weapons. He attacks political analyst Kevin Phillips as a flawed soothsayer who purveys middle-class resentments; lambastes Harry Truman's economic policies; excoriates Keynes (""his influence has been almost entirely bad""); and champions Southern novelist Peter Taylor as ""the outstanding master of late twentieth century American fiction."" (June)