The Right and David Frum: The Real Issues to Confront
PJM seems to be the only website that has not had a single posting on the recent brouhaha over David Frum, and the reasons for his leaving — or being fired from — the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). So I have decided to join the fray.
First, on the issues of whether or not Frum was dismissed suddenly and without good reason, or whether he voluntarily left, I have no great insight on to what happened behind the scenes — only opinions derived from what Frum and others have recently said. There has been vitriolic comments on all sides, the most harsh coming from his former colleague and friend, Charles Murray. Frum’s own response can be found here on Frum’s own website. Readers can go to all the links and reach their own judgment about what happened.
I think we can all agree that if AEI decided to let him go for what they thought were valid internal reasons, the timing itself was quite bad. It took place immediately after Frum penned a piece arguing that Republicans could well have dealt with the Democrats in forging a different health care proposal, his now famous Waterloo column. That was followed by a rather unprecedented Wall Street Journal editorial condemning Frum as “the media’ s go-basher of fellow Republicans.” AEI President Arthur Brooks’ dismissal of Frum certainly made it appear that he was worried about donors contributing to his institute after Frum had been subject to such major condemnation from influential conservative figures and newspapers.
What has been forgotten in all of this is that if you regularly read Frum — and respect his serious analytical mind, his sharp insights and his willingness to go where he believes the evidence leads — what one can find is the judgement of a man who believes the Republicans must succeed in advancing alternatives to ObamaCare and other Democratic programs that he believes are ill founded and dangerous to the nation’s eventual health. What he is arguing about are really tactics — the question of how to reach a population that has serious grievances with the current Democratic agenda, but that is equally repelled by the rhetoric and approaches of what we might call the hard Right. This includes many conservative Republicans, moderates, and of course the centrists who are quickly making up a majority of voters and who do not register as either Democrats or Republicans.
Frum, along with John Avlon and others, regularly makes a strong argument that without obtaining the support of this center — a necessity for governing a center/right nation — it will become more and more impossible for Republicans to succeed in gaining both houses of Congress as well as the White House. Frum, Avlon and Scott McClellan made the case for this the other night on Larry King Live. You can see the video here, or read the entire transcript.
Frum explained himself in this way: “And what we’re hearing right now from a lot of people are our fantasies, delusions, things that can’t work. And that means — that opens the way to an easy run for Democratic and liberal success to expand government. We saw the catastrophic result of that with passage of this health care bill. I think that is not an effective way to proceed. I’m a competitor. I want to win.”
I happen to disagree with David in his judgement that “there were opportunities to deal [with the Democrats] on the Senate Finance Committee,” and thereby Republicans sought instead to “break” Obama, and failing in that goal, succeeded only in allow an Obama victory that led to “tremendous political success for the President.” But this is a judgement call, one in which good people can differ. I think that the Democrats never were serious in accommodating real Republican concerns, and preferred to gain a victory for their own agenda even if it meant trying to govern when half the country is against the bill they used reconciliation to pass.
Unfortunately, Frum allows himself to be used by the very forces he says he opposes.
At this point, the center is the one who must make a choice, not Sarah Palin or even Barack Obama. Pragmatism and go-along-to-get-alongism is why we are here in the first place: the “center” refuses to make a choice about what kind of country they want to live in. That’s not Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck or Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity’s decision to make. Make a decision and stick with it.
By the way, I must disagree with argument that you say that Norman Podhoretz established a strawman with his argument about appealing to the center. Indeed, he gave the names of several prominent conservative “intellectuals” who believed the tripe that the Left spewed about her or had preconceived notions themselves. In fact, you yourself display the same sort of dismissiveness that he espouses: why exactly must Sarah Palin appeal to the center? Are you saying that she must lie to gain your favor? After all, Obama lied about who he was and peeled off a lot of “centrists” to boot.
I’m not the biggest Sarah Palin supporter, but I have always felt the hatred shown towards a woman who hasn’t made any type of national policy except to say “yes” to an undeserving McCain campaign was the height of irrationality. Then again, even the “elites” are prone to irrational behavior because we are human after all.
If by tacking to the center, Frum means sticking to the core values of strong national defense, fiscal prudence, and promoting individual determinism (ie, the American Way), while marginalizing the social busybody fundamentalist strain of the right, then count me in. If by tacking to the center, Frum means Grahamnesty, McCain-Feingold, and a bunch of “yes, buts..” then let the doorknob hit ya’ where the good Lord split ya’. The New Democrat (ie, fascist statist) would never win a majority if Repubs stuck to the Big Three of Defense, Fiscal Discipline, and Determinism.
“…do not like Palin because he argues that they mock her poor “oratorical gifts” compared to Obama’s smooth delivery and persona”
Sarah Palin is vastly better educated and knowledgeable concerning the issues of the day than Barack Obama. She simply refuses to sound like a pseudo-educated Harvard elite. Obama’s Ivy League credentials are mostly fraudulent. He obtained them primarily because of the lower academic standards that became the norm some 35/40 years ago. David Frum and John Avlon are also pro-abortion and despise the more traditional members of the Republican Party. They are, for all practical purposes, committed secularists.
This is something you can you take to the bank: the political term “moderate” is almost certainly a code word for pro-abortion. The pro-lifers are not going anywhere! They may be our last great hope of preventing Armageddon. The anti-baby crusade has already resulted in the probably destruction of much of Western Europe. Many of these nations do not have enough children. It is only the orthodox Jews who are saving the Jewish people. More liberal Jews have few children. We can likely take it for granted that Reform Judaism will die because its congregants refuse to have a sufficient number of babies. Needless to add,the same can also be said of so-called moderate Catholics and Protestants.
the left lets everyone project their desires onto the platform and then they go into a tizzy when they find out they are useful idiots. the right wants to make everyone that isn’t the same, to go away. as i hear the protest about how much white christian males are being put upon. i can’t say it enough America is more than that, it wasn’t just the pilgrims who were at the first thanksgiving. make room at the table for all who want to join us.
I can agree more with Norman Podhoretz I’ll take Sara Palin over the guy in the White House. All Ivy League Schools are overrated. Look how far Harvard educated
George W Bush and BHO got us. As for you Ron and Davit Frum, there no such thing compromising with socialism. Either you are for individual freedom or authoritarianism. Mr Radosh If you do not realize that socialism is evil. You have vested your intellectual capital for nothing
One can be a good conservative and still believe that Palin has great potential in the future, probably as VP to Romney, without believing that she has shown nearly enough yet to be viable at the top of the ticket. That said, the visceral distaste shown by the East coast Ivy Leaguers is still a bit overdrawn and thus discomfiting. David Frum’s immediate reaction to McCain’s choice in 2008, along with Kathleen Parker’s, et al, justifies a certain understandable level of suspicion. I have heard nothing at all about any of these NY and Washington Palinophobes, other than Kristol and Barnes, ever reaching out to her to take a closer look at what she really is.
And Frum is probably wrong about the tactical opportunity for compromise on Obama-yech-care over the last year, but on the strategic issue he is correct. The center-right has demonstrated for 20 years that it has no interest whatever in actually solving any problems associated with health care- except when the opposing candidate campaigns on or introduces a bad idea, in which case the tactics are all blocking or feeble defensive (“OK, if you insists, association health plans!”)alternatives.
If the Republicans had tackled smart health care in 1995 with any of the zeal with which we address gay marriage, there would have been a decent, market-based program already on the books, HSA’a would have been pushed like crazy after they were legalized in 2003, and so on. These endless comparisons with auto insurance don’t hit home, because they are inapt.
My wife professes that Sarah Palin is not qualified for the highest office, but she cannot state why. I am baffled by the intellectual’s attempts to prognosticate the electoral success of various potential candidates some 30 months ahead of time.
The victor is ultimately the candidate that seems the most appropriate at the time of the election. Whoever is the front runner by early October, may not be the eventual winner if something big happens by Oct. 15. It could be a surge in the price of gasoline after some Middle-East upheaval, it could be any other unexpected “big thing”, and it may well re-shuffle the ranking of the candidate’s chances a mere 2 weeks before the election.
Who knows? The much-touted “oratorical gifts” of today’s president might just come to be recognized as perilous fluff, and the authenticity of plain-spoken candidates may suddenly become a prime consideration.
I can’t say whether or not Sarah Palin is qualified to be president but, I can say she in more qualified than the president we have now.
Ron, I think it time that you and millions like you come clean and give millions like me specifics about what this means:
Socially modern? What, another 50MM legalized abortions with approval from mealy-mouthed justices of the Supreme Court? Embryonic stem cell research publicly funded? To hide our heads in the sand about social mores?
If so, I think it is time you understood something. I’m not caving on my basic tenets anymore to accommodate our decaying culture to save some money, or have defense, or even a health care option of my choice.
I’m certainly no prude or even a Sarah Palin sycophant (though I find the hatred of her completely irrational) and you can call me hard right, fundamentalist, homophobe, Neanderthal, or any other list of pejoratives the conservative “intellect” wishes to use behind closed doors, but I guarantee you sell me and my type down the river this election cycle, and I’m through with your American ideal.
I would say it is time you choose. You want the Obama tools – or do you want me? The choice isn’t mine; it’s yours.
I think Frum represents the McCain wing of the Republican party– that sort of “democrat-lite,” go-along-to-get-along wing that got seriously trounced by an unabashed liberal/progressive spouting unabashed liberal/progressive beliefs.
The center of this country responds to well-supported ideas, ably transmitted and strongly defended (this is how Reagan did it by the way.) This has to be, in the end, an ideological battle and not a political one. This country trends toward judeo-christian beliefs and conservative (personal) values, and that should be what the Republican party builds it’s ideas around and champions, not build itself around the tired excuse that “the bill could have been worse if it wasn’t for us…”
Republicans have to stop putting the values/fiscal conservatism lipstick on the Federal government pig and start talking about having BLTs for lunch tomorrow. That is not only the only way to win (and if we don’t win, it doesn’t matter– Republicans as they are now will only stall the inevitable, and if it’s going to happen, I would prefer we get it over with quickly) but the only way to turn this country from it’s leftist “progressive” track, which started in the mid-30s or so.
I understand Frum’s animal– he lives and breathes for the politics of it– his “I wanna win, I’m a competitor” statement shows that as clear as day. That can’t be the arena in which this is fought, because true conservatives are woefully under-gunned and unprepared for politicking in general, and the Democratic Party’s dirty politicking in particular.
Remember the D3 question in Battleground poll.. do you self identify
1 very cons
2 cons
3 mod
4 lib
5 very lib
the first two always add up to 59-60%… the last two never add up to more than 37%.. year in, year out.
THIS IS A CONSERVATIVE COUNTRY.
The masses are not repelled by conservative talk. It just isn’t true. The media has engineered a mistrust of conservatives among a certain segment, but it IS NOT THE MAJORITY.
Reagan’s lessons cannot be forgotten. CONSERVATISM WINS, if we can only find the @#$%^& stones to DO IT.
Frum says we cannot go back to the Reagan platitudes but that the “center of gravity of American politics [is] strong on national defense, fiscally conservative, socially modern.” Mr. Radosh, you are a self-described conservative intellectual, could you please tell me how that differs from Reagan? I guess the social modern part is code word for abortion and Reagan was pro-life, thus, the other two “platitudes” do not count. But the problem, Mr. Radosh, and what other conservative intellectuals like yourself and Mr. Frum do not realize is that people are more pro-life today then they were in 1980. Two generations have been raised under Roe v. Wade and have seen its lies. Why does a conservative intellectual like yourself just not get that?
I don’t agree that what conservatives need is advice from Avalon, Scott McC. or Frum. Larry King had the media savvy to book all three as a team for a reason – and it has to do with ratings – not what the combined intellectual capital could provide as far as a road map to bipartisanship let alone advice on fixing the Republican Party.
Frum lost his gig at AEI? Well, I think Charles Murray did a pretty smack job of suggesting why.
Conservatives have become extinct in northeast representation for good reason. In all those states – from Maine down to Deleware – one important common denominator is they all consist of the highest taxed states in the country. It’s also the region of the oldest establishment – be it economic or academic – & this includes (outside of state and federal gov) whats left of the old order of Big Labor. In fact, if one could magically rearrange the USA map it would be entirely appropriate to affix California to it and lable them for what they are in toto – THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF BIG GOVERNMENT.
They don’t elect conservatives because they DONT WANT THEM. They only exist there in remote pockets and caves. It’s an enormously liberal/progressive place where opposites do not attract.
Yet Mass broke from that now longstanding tradtion with Scott Brown.
Was Browns insurgency some kind of ephiphany his strategists (mostly Romney supplied)reached because they were listening to the likes of Scott Mc (I can’t stand this guy so much I can’t bring myself to spell out his whole name…) – whose sole purpose when opening his mouth is to qualify why he broke with his former boss….to become one of the most slithering of self-loathing conservative critics in my lifetime?
or Avalon – a one time Guiliani speech writer who is a hit on Morning Joe & gets a Daily Beast gig – to basically rehash his book that political incivility in America is a conservative problem that threatens to break out in violence any moment now – his latest report comming on the heels of the extremists arrested in MI, Ohio & Indiana – in turn convienently coming on the heels of Tea Party accusations of racists outburst during Pelosi’s victory march?
Avalon is the guy most certain to get into a head nodding contest with any Bat*&^% crazy liberal that Nixon’s southern strategy is basically still the racist DNA of modern conservatism. Which furthers what dialouge – outside of liberal cant?
Or Frum – in his many unique (I guess)suggests?
No Ron. Scott Brown was supported by direct funding ads you see on this website and others like it. He got tons more money from people who don’t live in his state. From people like me. A lot of it in $25 donations. Modest earners – working and middle class folk. HE DOESN’T CONTEND WITHOUT THAT MONEY.
And while both he and Palin were in Az recently to stump for McCain, J.D. Hayworth (and others who will follow) never would have entertained a challenge without Browns example.
This wasn’t a legislated change – it was a cultrual change. In the same way Andrew Breitbart is a cultural change and an anticdote to a toxic MSM. Ok? You following? The same way I can follow you on PJM.
And folks like me – we listen – but we aren’t in the mood to have any top down kind of command and control forced down our throat. We are at the table and we are not going to shut up.
What is disheartening Ron is that a lot of your misgivings about Palin don’t sound that much different from Frank Rich, only you are not as crude when criticizing.
I also belive that INTELLECTUALS IN ANY MOVEMENT ARE HIGHLY OVER RATED RON! And are particularly over rated in conservatism today – ranking somewhere between CIA analysts missing the ’08 Soviet invasion of Afganistan – and number crunching auditors in W’s basement missing the near total destruction of conservatism.
That doesnt mean they aren’t worth listening to. Ok? Then again I’ve never met one conservative intellectual in a phone room doing the grit and grind in a campaign either. It seems a lot of intellectuals are also alergic to knocking on doors – cause I don’t recall meeting one there either.
But either way, I don’t think Frum’s really gonna get reduced to any dumpster diving should he suddenly find fewer of his calls getting answered by conservative editors in the months ahead.
Here’s the skinny and I’ll let off the rant;
Ron I think you and Frum can’t understand why Palin connect to people like me. Because you never had a temp worker slip signed for 40 hours worth of work from Manpower @ less than ten dollars an hour – in the last ten years or so – if ever.
Norman, dispite you both residing figuratively in the same intellectual circles and similar tax brackets, does seem to get it.
Maybe what you need to do is a lot more listing than anyalizing. As I understand it, a real hard thing for intellectuals to do also.
Frum tells us the war is lost, so let’s just try to make socialized medicine better. Well I’m still at war. It is a cold civil war that is heating up. The progressives didn’t believe their extreme agenda was impossible. It took them 100 years but they have obliterated the American idea. We need to take the long view and stick to our goals just as they did. We need to work to restore the American idea no matter how hard it is and no matter how long it takes. I have no patience for those like Frum who want us to just accept this tyranny as inevitable. He’s either pusillanimous or a shill. Either way I have no use for him. Don’t tell me resistance is futile. It has been done before. It will be done again.
“This is something you can you take to the bank: the political term “moderate” is almost certainly a code word for pro-abortion. The pro-lifers are not going anywhere! They may be our last great hope of preventing Armageddon. The anti-baby crusade has already resulted in the probably destruction of much of Western Europe. Many of these nations do not have enough children.”
David Thompson #5 – Nice to be “chatting” with you again. I have a suggestion for Republicans that I think will lessen abortion and be political poison for liberals – push to put what most consider “social issues” (abortion, gay marriage, etc..) not as national issues, but strictly state issues. More over, to have such issues decided by state ballot questions rather than by state legislatures (national R’s push for these issues to be decided by states, state R’s push for them to go the ballot route). So if MA wants to have abortions and gay marriage, so be it. If TX wants to have no legal abortions or gay marriage, that’s their right.
I think such a platform would get the support of conservatives because they would have a much better chance of resisting legalized abortion, independents and libertarians will like it because they wouldn’t feel that social conservatives or social liberals would be foisting *their* values on them via federal law. And liberals would go apoplectic because it would fly in the face of their Narrative. This is all win-win-win if you ask me. Abortions will be more rare I think. The liberty of the citizenry will increase. And the left will, alone, be forced to fight against everyone else in the political ring.
If it’s really all about tactics, isn’t Frum’s problem that he has been an inferior tactician, proof of which being his failure to find a way to appeal to the vast majority of Republicans? So, if you acknowledge that he’s not really introducing new ideas, why should we trust his tactical instincts in dealing with enemy and the neutrals when he has done so badly with his supposed friends?
Moderate is a relative term. It depends on what your unmoderated starting point is.
The Egregious Frum is a Quisling,
who welcomes our new Progressive masters,
and urges Republicans to meet them half-
way, repeatedly, one step at a time, from
Right to Left; Has he made any comments
on the good points of the Chinese Way,
or was that another Counselor of Despair ?
In the MSM lingo, “moderate” is code for Democrat & pro-Democrat choices; in other words, a moderate Republican must be like a Democrat. Hence, Senator John McCain’s embrace of the MSM as a “maverick,” yet he was rejected by the same MSM when he ran for POTUS given they supported anti-capitalist radical Marxist, Senator Obama. A moderate Republican can also define the Maine sister, Senator Olympia Snowe, Senator Susan Collins, & even once former Republican, Democrat Senator Arlen Specter.
Frum is a lost cause. He needs to go the way of the DoDo bird. Moderate Republicans need to follow staunch Conservative Republicans.
This is another thing lost on the MSM: The moderate Republicans are always followers. Followers cannot lead. Just ask Senator John McCain.
I read Frum’s book from a couple of years ago and was very disappointed. He might be looking for electoral advantage from looking more like liberals but that’s NOT why we need conservative public intellectuals.
We need people who can offer reasons for the center and the non-committed to support conservative ideas. The battle is for the mind and the soul of our fellow citizens. Most importantly, we need TEACHERS. That was Ronald Reagan’s great strength as a leader. For tacticians, we’ve our Karl Roves and other consultants and campaign marketers.
Frum has regularly failed in the mental arena and is of little use or value.
If being a Republican or a conservative means I have to let David Frum, Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, Christopher Buckley, etc ‘back into the tent’ – after they stabbed us all in the back during the last election – I quit. I’m willing to forgive Frum for this sin, but forget? Never.
You pointy-headed intellectuals don’t seem to understand how the real world works. It’s not going to be the fraction of the general public that “likes” Sarah Palin that will vote her into whatever office she seeks in the future. It will only be that fraction of voters who don’t automatically vote Republican or Democrat in a given election. Obama trounced McCain, yet he won with what? less than a 10% difference? Do you think people like me, a conservative Republican, voted for John McCain because we “liked” him or his past performance? Get real. We voted for him because we knew he would be vastly better than Obama no matter how RINO-ish he became. It’s funny how I, a member of the vast unwashed out here, am supposed to be broad-minded enough to hold my nose and vote for a RINO, but people like you want to defend some turncoat who belongs to your tiny group of self-described “intellectuals” who can’t stand to vote for someone who went to ‘Idyho A&M’ or whatever.
I agree with Frum in one respect: the conservative movement and Republicans etc should’ve headed this stuff off long ago. It’s not like we didn’t know that the petite-fascists wanted socialized medicine 20 years ago. So instead of letting the problem fester and doing as little as possible we ought to have gotten ahead of it and made reforms that harness the market. It’s here where I diverge from Frum et al. No point in offering a different version of socialized medicine. But each of the issues that make medicine cost more and health insurance premiums constantly rise could’ve been fixed, or at least we might’ve started to fix them. The problem is one of focus. We try to do everything in Congress. The Republicans never had a working majority of conservatives in the 12 years they ran the House, and they didn’t run the Senate for all of that time thanks to Jumping Jim. They had to compromise to get ANYTHING done, and that included funding a couple of wars.
We should’ve started in the states, and still should. Lots of governors and state-legislatures are Republicans, so what’s to stop them forming a compact and fixing the issues in their own states–in an interstate alliance of like laws and regulations regarding torts and insurance?
The focus on the federal government is a mistake. It’s important, yes, and many battles must be fought in Congress. But if 36 states had vastly improved health care systems right now not only would Republican/conservative stock be higher, but the Dems in Congress would have a lot more trouble convincing anybody that the only solution is socialism. Conservatives especially need to start thinking federalism instead of centralism. Make our reforms at the city, county, state AND federal level. That’s the American way, after all, and if we did that while keeping Congress gridlocked, the President would have to twiddle his thumbs and hum along. There’s no reason to wait for November. Commence the repeal NOW by starting real reform in every state possible.
“center of gravity of American politics [is] strong on national defense, fiscally conservative, socially modern.”
If you actually read Frums site you will find that the “fiscally conservative” Frum is now an admitted Keynesian.
Frum and Radosh don’t get it and never will get it that anyone who is not staunchly conservative is by default a statist. That’s why RINOs must be driven out and will be driven out of the Republican Party if liberty is to be reclaimed in the fight to the death with statists of every stripe.
I finally understand why David Frum was canned, he’s much like yourself Ron. You just can’t see the “big picture” and how the “center” of this country knows exactly what they want and need in their lives.
Frum “wants to win” even if he has to ignore the meaning of the word victory to do so. If democrats passing the health bill the way they did isn’t enough to convince Frum and others like him that there is, in the end, no way to cooperate with democrats, then nothing will. The leftist have never cooperated with anyone, they have only accepted surrender or agreed to a temporary truce they would then abandon as soon as they felt it was in their interest to do so.
Frum is no Republican, and in reality he isn’t conservative, either. He is a player who wants to play the game even if, like a degenerate gambler, knows the game is fixed. He can stay addicted to the crooked game if he likes, but there’s no what his idea of “winning” helps to roll back the decades of corrupt legislation the democrats have put in place. It’s fun to win, but the slave Frum doesn’t have the stomach to really win so he calls getting minor concessions from his masters in the democrat party victory. That way he can rationalize continuing to play the same old rigged game without having to admit that his ways haven’t worked and cannot work.
Nobody is going to get very far in life
listening to much of what David Frum has
to offer. Frum is obsessed with the notion
of turning the Republican Party into the
wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat
Party. What exactly do conservatives have
to gain from that?
Barack Obama and his Congressional shock
troops have a truly warped view of America
and a rancid, desructive agenda. What part
of this should conservatives compromise
with? Besides Obama has shown no inclination
towards compromise of any kind, though he
will allow Republicans to worship at his feet.
Conservatives are tired of Republicans acting
like liberal Democrats when the chips are
down. If we want to vote ‘liberal’ we can
just cast our votes for the Democrat Party.
Me-too Republicanism has been consistently
shown to be destructive for the Republican
Party and it’s adherents (see George Bush
versions 1 and 2).
After all there is another term for a
cravenly liberal Republican Party. It’s
called the Minority Party.
Phoenix48 writes, “Ron I think you and Frum can’t understand why Palin connect[s] to people like me. Because you never had a temp worker slip signed for 40 hours worth of work from Manpower @ less than ten dollars an hour – in the last ten years or so – if ever.” You’ve got it.
Most Americans don’t know that Frum, a Canadian, is the son of multi-millionaire parents—not a bad thing at all or anything against him. But, yes, besides his smarts, which earn him lots of money, he comes from mega money: his mom was Barbara Frum (deceased), a very talented journalist in Canada. She was a bright light on our altogether left-wing, lamestream media CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). His dad is Murray Frum a very wealthy dentist and investor.
I admire David Frum for not doing the knee-jerk left-libby thing, which would probably not please his parents and their (his) posh, in-group friends. But, he’s been drifting left for quite a while. And I have the feeling, especially now that the stakes have been set so high by Obama and his Chicago thugs, that David’s not willing to be removed from the Washington A-List.
Sad . . .
This situation has been repeated countless times: Person “A” acts in what they consider to
be their best interests, but then the interests
of Person “B” are downgraded, it is a safe bet that Person “B” will counteract so that their interests are compensated via Person”A”‘s interests being downgraded.
Standards are not there for warfare, and other unsavory synonymous attributes, but rather so that people can find out, at least one way, how things are supposed to be done – because they measure up to standard.
This is something that is opposed by the likes of Frum. Well, in that case he shows that he second guesses the Magna Carta, which
sought limits on the power of the Crown, because too much power invested in one area is potentially destructive, and usually destabilizing.
In other words, there are limits to government, and frankly when those limits are
not respected, trouble happens.
Which is more the pity, because if David Frum
were to look at the Maccabean revolt, he would see that a man who is king and Pope, has too much on his plate. For example, when Caesar Augustus (at least I think it was him) reportedly said when he received word that the Senate declared him to be a God, “What am I supposed to do when someone prays to me to cure him from his gout?”.
Mortimer Adler got under the skin of the Lion of Columbia, when he pointed out that Dewey’s early research arrived at vastly different conclusions than later research. Well, I point out that Frum’s early conclusions, before he signed onto the Giuliani campaign, were different than the conclusions he arrives at now. Therefore, he has the same lack of credibility as that Brezhnev era apparatchik referred to by Daniel Hannan, in Hannan’s 3 and a half minute rebuttal of British Prime Minister Brown at the European Parliament, which was added to youtube, and then went viral.
I like the article, am stunned and disgusted by many of the comments. Palin is as smart and educated on the issues as BO? Hit you where God split you? Is there a maximum IQ that commenters must not exceed? Everyone on the east coast is an Ivy Leaguer? Grow up.
Aren’t any of you concerned that Palin quit before even completing one term? She says, “Reload,” but then says she really didn’t mean, … “like, with a gun.”
As long as the right….far, far out in the boonies, insists on their family values (anti abortion) plank, they will not attract many American voters. They are sitting ducks for the snide remarks about ‘creationism, bizarre beliefs about homosexuals, and probably a lot of other things. I think the Republicans should prepare themselves for People leaving to join the ranks of the independents.
You want to win the center? Speak the truth, unvarnished and have solutions to fix the rot. And When elected, get to work and get it done.
Frum “wants to win” and then proceeds to heap calumny on the party he ostensibly favors by accusing them of a refusal to cooperate. Apparently, nobody inside I-495 returns Mr. Frum’s calls anymore — or maybe, pace Murray, he’s been too indolent to make any. But here’s a news flash to Frum and all of the other “conservatives” who hold this idiotic stance: The President made no overtures of any kind to the Republicans, except to pressure them to vote for whatever bill the Democrats cranked out of their weenie machine.
Luckily nobody caved, or we’d now be subjected to Frum’s indignation over how “we don’t have more people like Senator X.”
What Frum is talking about isn’t “winning” at all. It’s domestic realpolitik. We’ve heard it before and it’s crap: “The Soviet Union is here to stay, we have to find a way to accept that and create a world where both systems can exist. If our ideas are really superior, eventually we’ll win.” Meanwhile, one domino after another fell in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. Reagan had a better idea: “We win. They lose.”
And that’s the bottom line that neither Frum nor Radosh can understand. We are now at a point where in order to win, the Left must lose. There really isn’t any room remaining to split our principles down the middle. We’ve been doing that since 1937. The truth is that had any Republican been willing to compromise we would have wound up with a significantly worse bill than the one we finally got.
Sometimes, you get the best win you can get, by not playing the game. Congratulations to the Party of No. And good riddance to David Frum.
Look. Judgment has one “e,” got that? Unless you’re British.
The guy in the oval is the biggest bunch of crap this nation has ever produced; bear with me, I’m just getting started.
Frum and his like are no friend of this nation. Oops. Did I say something wrong? Not empathetic enough? Too judgmental?
Well then, let’s have it Frum’s way. Let’s all be libertines. Why let conservative, Christian, moral prudishness get in our way — let’s go whole hog for an orgiastic culture, everyone seeking his own hedonistic fulfillment. By all means, let’s reach the vast majority of Americans, open up that big tent to include — well just about anybody, so long as they dilute and overpower the GOOD folks of this country, the bitter clinger types, with God, guns, and their Bibles in tow.
Let’s just make of ourselves nothing more than a shadow of the godless, elitist, snobs, so drunk with power they think they RULE US. Let’s just have more of “us” be like them. That’ll solve everything.
Mr. Radosh: you and Frum go away.
I’m struck by the tone in this essay that the ‘intellectuals’ know better than the rest of the people as to how the Republican Party should move forward. This is similar to the unconstrained vision described by Thomas Sowell in his book “Conflict of Visions” and yet it is usually attributed to the more left leaning crowd. I guess elitism doesn’t have a political home, it infects them all.
Frankly, the intellectuals aren’t the ones that get punished if their ideas are bad, society does. While I will listen to or read their ideas, I know enough about life that they are just ideas and the proof of whether their idea is a good one is in the implementation.
Phoenix48 did a good job of saying the above in ‘people-speak.’
And as for the move towards the states to fight in this battleground, well, that’s what we’ll do – actually move to the states where the conservative approach is used to govern and then influence nationally from there – at least there will be some cover at the local level from the national wet blanket approach to imposition of their world view on me.
Q1. “PJM seems to be the only website that has not had a single posting on the recent brouhaha over David Frum, and the reasons for his leaving — or being fired from — the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). So I have decided to join the fray.”
A1. Not a hard question. Neocomrade R. Radosh is still, in his hormones, though not his brainpan, with the Seventh (or whichever it was) International. Still sentimentally attached to icky Equality remains RR, though it must seem a somewhat stunted and warped neoëquality from outside the monkey house.
Such is the general answer, Dr. Bones. The particular application is that Neocomrade R. Radosh is reluctant to admit that most of his ideobuddies are nowhere near bein’ on the windswept and radiant hiegts of intellectual _radoshchina_, and in fact couldn’t think their way out of the average paper bag. [1]
___
Q2. “What has been forgotten in all of this is that if you regularly read Frum — and respect his serious analytical mind, his sharp insights and his willingness to go where he believes the evidence leads — what one can find is the judgement of a man who believes the Republicans must succeed in advancing alternatives to ObamaCare and other Democratic programs that he believes are ill founded and dangerous to the nation’s eventual health.”
A2. That’s the same question reworded, Dr. Bones. (You can’t fool ME, sir!) And the answer is still the same: at the pajamatarian or e-gutter level, anyway, sweet puppies of Party an’ Ideology do NOT “regularly read Frum.” If they tried, they’d give it up in a few minutes as bein’ distressin’ly like School.
___
Q3. “I happen to disagree with David in his judg[e]ment that “there were opportunities to deal [with the Democrats] on the Senate Finance Committee,” and thereby Republicans sought instead to “break” Obama, and failing in that goal, succeeded only in allow an Obama victory that led to “tremendous political success for the President.” But this is a judgement call, one in which good people can differ.”
A3. Not *altogether* a bad question, sir, though I believe I have already answered most of it in note [1]. Your run-of-the-mill Party base ’n’ vile utterly do NOT believe in good people differin’ about anythin’ much more excitin’ than which flavor of ice cream is tastiest.
Meanwhile, the Vanguard neocomrade has evidently some idiosyncratic notion of judgment calls. Though the motives of G.O.P. geniuses on the Finance Committee are not available for scientific inspection, yet neither are the craters on the far side of West Uranus. Both are factual matters, surely. They are not made “judgment calls” merely by one’s inability to judge what the facts are.
A real JC would be more like the neokiddies’ choosin’ between pistachio and _tutti frutti_. A matter of “What shall I DO next?”, that is, rather than of “What would you guess the facts are, ma’am?” But Father Zeus knows best.
___
Q4. “For one thing, Reagan was not only a successful Governor who stayed in office, but he had first cut his teeth in politics decades earlier as an anti-Communist liberal who supported the Humphrey wing of the Democratic Party in its fight against the left-wing of the Democratic Party.”
A4. A very easy question. History is indeed Fordian bunk and “a pack of tricks we play on the dead” when Ms. Clio gets deployed like this, with Neocomrade R. Radosh bein’ prepared to take an interest in Ronald XXXIX only after the corpse has been tarted up to look like a neocomrade. Again, this is not the plain vanilla self-narcissism of Cindy from Wasilla and Wombschool Wally, for RR. is a couple of notches up the Great Chain from those two. All the same, there is a plain streak of Master Narky Dexter in Neocomrade R. Radosh. [2]
___
Q5. “David Frum is continuing to make THE STRONGEST CASE POSSIBLE for a Republican alternative that can reach the wide public at large.”
A5. Quite right. I certainly *would* call that an authentic judgment call. Also quite a defective one.
___
Q6. “If we are ever going to be able to change America and move it away from a growing movement to Europeanize the country and create an American style social democracy, we need the biggest tent possible. That means listening to people like David Frum, and stopping the storm of attacks seeking to isolate his voice from being heard in conservative circles.”
A6. None so blind as she who *will* not see what her own supposed ideobuddies are up to! Typical sweet puppies of the Kiddie Selfservative Movement are not worried about “[e]uropeanize the country,” they are worried about drownin’ in the tempestuous Sea of Blacks and Tans. [3] “Brasilianize the country” would be far more to the point.
___
Q7. So what is Neocomrade R. Radosh worried about when he worries alone about “[e]uropeanize the country”?
A7. Not an easy question. All questions about alleged discrepancies between noises emitted inside the monkey house and conjectural original intents behind the noises that are quite different must be classified as Hard Questions.
Still, the obvious guess is that Neocomrade R. Radosh is mainly thinkin’ of Hyperzion when he bashes Old Europe. Most of what he has scribbled around here has been about Neojerusalem the Golden™ when it was not unsolicited free psychoanalysis of the good folks on Rupert’s List. [4] [5]
Healthy days.
___
[1] Sinking to a footnote for pure gossip, as is but seemly: I betcha Neocomrade R. Radosh was as incongruous with Baní Schachtman of old as with the Banôth V’sillâ here and now. On the following basis: to assume one continuous flow of hormones that underlies the fickle dance amongst factionettes and apparent turnin’ of coats is reasonable enough, is it not? In which case, RR will have been heathpalinisin’ for Trotsky (or whomever) before he took to trotskyatin’ for Wasilla Woman.
It would follow that RR has never been cordially (hormonically) in sympathy with *any* cage full of comradely simians. He coulda been a contenda, maybe. Or rather, the specific quality of the impossibility of a Neocomrade R. Radosh ever havin’ stood up against Endarkenment casts light for the student of neocomradology on how Endarkenment works. RR is definitely not one of that vast proverbial herd or stampede of “independent thinkers,” and THEREFORE one sees at a glance that such independence cannot be of any great value in itself. _Audi sapere_ is not enough to make you Immanuel Kant, Dr. Bones. I fear _audi sapere_t is perfectly compatible with your turnin’ into a Fabulous Flyboy from AZ like the former J. Sidney McCain, a mere petulant Mugwump. Or with your bein’ a Neocomrade R. Radosh from the many-storied Isle of Manhattan.
Now that we have distinctly sighted two different sub-Kantian possibilities, it seems reasonable to conjecture that there may be many other such syndromes in which mere crankery and self-esteemin’ &c. &c. usurp the place at the table in _Le Grand Casino des Événements Humains_ reserved for Mlle. de l’Éclaircissement.
[2] Since the neocomrade seems not to be on speakin’ terms with Neocomrade Governess S. Heath-Paling of AK-49, strike “Wasilla Woman” above and insert maybe “Mitt Romney.”
[3] Neocomrade Herr Prof. Dr. Ch. Murray, co-inventor or, as the case may be, -discoverer of the ever-immortal Herrnstein-Murray Curve (Pat. Pend.), speaks more decorously of “the Underclass.” Wink, wink, nod, nod.
As you know, Dr. Bones, I have decided to settle on “the Bad Poor” myself, a formula that at least formally leaves open the issue of what the neocomradely community suppose the badness to consist in, exactly.
Obviously it consists in nothin’ at all that looks the least bit like Stockholm. Or even much like Milano, south of the Alps though that town be.
[4] You remember, Dr. Bones, that we agreed so to refer to the hypothetical conflation of all the neokiddies’ many and extensive Enemies Lists?
[5] As might be expected of a Seventh (?) International alumnus, Neocomrade R. Radosh does at least display a pretty sound instinct for tactics and strategy. There is no doubt at all (he conjectured) that Jewish Statism groupies do better to align themselves with what used to be called “regular Republicans” than with some fake-populist scum of astroturfbags that is unlikely in the extreme to last 146 (I think it has been) years. (Even 146 months is longer than I’d give the turfbags, myself.)
I pay little attention to Neocomrade D. Frum, Dr. Bones, but this seems to be his view of the correlation of farces, and there can be little serious objection to it as far as it goes. Hence Neocomrade R. Radosh should be scored twenty-five (24.99) points for thinkin’ so too. Unless, that is, he is passionately sincere about his “reach the wide public at large” tripe and baloney, in which case you should award only ten points.
Hyperzionism is (believe it or not!) a foreign policy matter, and everybody knows that one can hardly ever “reach the wide public at large” with such far-fetched stuff. Also well-known among the knowers is that on the rare occasions when one *does* so reach, one usually winds up wishing one had not tried to. BFZKB.
I do not believe Frum means what he says if this apologist author accurately quotes him as saying that the “center of gravity of American politics [is] strong on national defense, fiscally conservative, socially modern.”
Limited government is not in his vocabulary today. Probably not in Mr. Radosh’s either, unless he’s in extreme denial.
But that’s the only thing that counts today. Without that, you can forget debates about all other policies; the emperor will decide that for you, peon.
“Frum, Avlon and Scott McClellan made the case for this the other night on Larry King Live. ”
Just the fact that Frum agrees with Scott McClellan on anything, other than something like the sky being blue, does not speak well of Frum.
What does Frum not understand about ‘fundamental transformation’ that is the supremacy of public power over private enterprise, in health care, education, energy through cap n trade,. Which in turn makes us less likely
to confront the Wahhabi and other threats. His first instinct was mistakenly to consider Obama any kind of moderate, to banish Palin from
the public square, in part because she happened to be right, And to the
same to Limbaugh. The fact that a plan that was ‘rammed through’ against
the will of the people, explains why the “New Majority” is now merely the Frum forum
This sums it up nicely:
http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2010/03/gop-outcasts-graciously-offer-advice-to.html#links
… how to reach (that part of the population so befuddled and confused it) has serious grievances with (“Democrats” and iss or is perceived by self-anointed pseudo-intellectuals and the other usefully idiotic) equally repelled by the rhetoric and approaches of what (“Democrats” and RINO’s) call the “hard Right?”
Simple. Fiercely resist the mewling of such self-styled pseudos as Messrs Brum and Radosh and, following determinedly in the footsteps of America’s greatest modern-era president and armed-forces commander in chief, Ronald Wilson Reagan, elect only such well demonstrated principled conservatives as United States President-Elect Sarah Louise Ronald Wilson Reagan Heath Palin, who knows both the meaning and the import of the words, “We the People,” who understands the Declaration of Independence, Who believes the feral gummint need be made to limit its activities to those enumerated by the American Constitution, who never for a millisecond forgets that, given a choice between a “Democrat” and a “democrat,” (AKA a “RINO) the American electorate will every single time choose the “Democrat” — and would rather be governed by the owners of the 2,000 names in the Wasilla ‘phone book than by the usefully idiotic of the lock-stepping Goebbelsesque propagandists and pamphleteers who comprise the commentariate.
PALIN/BOLTON/2012!
We do not need mush from a cringing,self righteous David Brooks wannabe.We are in a cold civil war with the left,that will get hot when the debt tsunami created by Obama,and the fecklessness of Bush “Republicanism” washes over us, and drowns the possibility of conventional politics.Under such circumstances,listening to self righteous “moderates” would be suicidal. Had republicans helped write the virulent pig’s swill that is the Obama care bill,they would have compromised their chances to succeed in November by revealing themselves as collaborators.A third party movement would have have then become inevitable,dividing the conservative vote and preventing the catastrophe at the polls that will effectively neuter Obama.Frum would have been rewarded with a commentator spot as house “conservative”/lapdog at CNN,just like his fellow collaborator,Brooks, at the moribund NY Slimes.
Frum is a traitor conservatives. I vowed to never read him again after what he did to Palin and I havn’t.
The conversation is quite confusing. Compromise with regard to Constitutional principles just doesn’t work. Constitutionally the federal government is responsible for defense of the country. There is no Constitutional responsibility to provide health care. So we compromise and provide half of each?
Do we want candidates that tickle the ears as Obama et all or candidates that provide inspiration and education toward true Constitutionally and morally based governance? The reality is that the country’s success is based on a heritage that is clearly Judeo-Christian. This does not mean those of other beliefs can not live here in peace. It does mean though that basis for actions are rooted in a spiritual heritage. Inherent in that heritage is care for all people, but it is a care that says “if you can fish, we will teach you to fish, we are not a fish a day program unless you can not fish”. Inherent is a respect for all life from conception to unassisted death. Inherent is fiscal responsibility that says you don’t spend what you don’t have and you don’t rob from future generations to pay for gluttony now. And so on.
So the candidates should raise the vision and the true purpose of governance. They should differentiate between nanny state and personal responsibility. They should expose the creation of dependency on government entitlements.
It is so easy. Doesn’t anyone of rational thought find headlines like “NC loses out on federal education grants” “NC to get millions for road improvements” etc to be problematic. Why are we begging the federal government to give back what they should not have taken minus the huge bureaucratic fee to process it?
Why do we allow federal, state and local governments to spend every dime taken in plus some and then take a tax hit for the mismanagement?
Reagan set a vision for turning this around. A generation later Obama set a vision for increasing the mismanagement to a point of no-recovery sold because the other party missed their opportunity when they were in charge.
Governor Palin does a better job of explaining this than Senator McCain. In the Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh world, who is promoting the ideals vs a political party? Ronald Reagan did not become President of the United States because he was a Republican. That is the key. Think about it.
Did the Democrats choose a moderate leader so that they would get the support of the moderate electorate?
No, they chose a socialist, and a man so culturally radical that he voted for infanticide 4 times. Obama not only doesn’t ignore the cultural wars, he’s fighting them with everything in his power.
Frum is clueless. And he’s no conservative. He’s trying to remake the GOP in his own pro abortion image.
I dont want a social democracy. Maybe Frum does, but I dont. All Frum is doing is slowing the move toward social democracy, which is a policy of slow defeatism, but defeatism none the less.
Ill pass.
The problem for the right is their own hypocrisy. Take Health Care Reform. Nothing more than repeal (a pipe dream, sorry the genie is out of the bottle) will please the wingnuts who want no government at all (except of course for their own Medicare, Social Security, unemployment benefits, etc.). David Frum is absolutely correct in his “Waterloo” analysis.
What is this squishy obsession with “compromise”? Should we compromise between good and evil, or health and sickness? The meaning of “compromise” between the right and the left is a ramshackle patchwork of incompatible ideas that grind against each other and curdle into a rancid broth that nobody likes the taste of.
The GOP should never become, or stri
ve to be, liberalism-lite. As Ayn Rand said, in any struggle between movements which share the same basic premises, the winner is whomever sticks to those premises more consistently. If the GOP promotes policies which send the message that statist liberalism is OK, then the public is ultimately going to go with whomever they perceive to have the most consistent, unambiguous statist agenda. The trouble with modern conservatives is that they allow the left to frame the debate and as such, they’ve become wet apologists for the conservative pillars of free markets, strong defence and constitutionalism. It’s time they stopped apologizing for their ideas and it’s time they cast aside the pseudo-intellectual platitudes of vanilla-blandies like Frum. This is NOT the time for compromise, we have to make a firm choice about the ideological direction of this country. Because the Democrats sure have and it’s not pretty.
#48, you haven’t spoken to all conservatives so don’t make generalizations. THAT BEING SAID, there is a major difference between benign socialism (making sure granny and the unemployed have benefits to cover the “vicissitudes of life”) and malignant socialism (determining what medical a person can have). David Frum is only justifying his own existence and wanting to make peace with inevitability. Well, as long as I am able to breath there will not be peace with inevitability.
My comment is directed at Praetorian.
Is there any Republican politician that David Frum supports? If there is any such person could he please tell us who that is? And if no one currently active qualifies, perhaps Mr. Frum should begin running on the ideas he espouses. If they are as popular as he believes he will become more influential.
No, no, no. I am now hearing Repubs buying into the Orwellian term “insurance for pre-existing conditions.” Insurance for houses that are already on fire, cars wrecked, and insuring dead people with life insurance…why not?
Are Frum and Radosh in favor of compromising with this travesty? If the gimme, gimme citizens are to be appeased for their unwillingness or so-called inability to buy insurance, let them apply for a direct government payment to take care of their unreasonable requests. Fine. But let’s be honest about it and take “insurance” for something that has already happened off the table.
I have also heard Repubs support the childhood ends at 27 years of age absurdity. Is this open for Frum-like compromise? A 17-year-old, with permission from mom and dad can shoot enemy combatants in Iraq or elsewhere, but when he returns and is discharged he once again becomes a simple child whom mommy and daddy (and all the childless out there who pay taxes) need to protect from the cold hard world. You want conservatives to be open to idiocy like this? Not muggins, as the Brits used to say. This kind of stuff is for libruls only. No Romney for me, thanks anyway.
“…a man who believes the Republicans must succeed in advancing alternatives … What he is arguing about are really tactics”
I used to believe that, but how did Frum help Republicans by providing ammunition to the liberal media? By trying to split Christian conservatives from the coalition that got Reagan into office? What kind of tactic is that?
Frum was right on some things, wrong on many others. For example, he wanted the GOP to take a tougher line on illegal immigration but give up on opposing abortion. Contrary to the received wisdom, both would be disastrous for the GOP. Even if you´re not much of a “social conservative” you can understand polls and demographics.
It’s all moot. There is no more money to pay for these schemes. We face unemployment, at levels that make the Clinton – Bush years look like heaven, for the foreseeable future. Unexpectedly, except for those who have been paying attention, layoffs are up again.
The bills are due, kids. The credit card is maxed, and no one will give us another. The tooth fairy and the Easter bunny are fighting to tell you all how great it’s going to be. Who’s getting the first IOUs? Social Security recipients? Medicare? The Military? The Federal Bureaucracy? The Feds are taking bigger slices of a shrinking pie. Somebody is going hungry, soon.
My one wish is that those who caused this feel the wrath of the idiots who bought into the Ponzi schemes.
If you think “let’s keep going broke, only slower” is a winning strategy, keep reading Frum.
It’s interesting that one standard putdown from the left is that the right is inherently anti-intellectual, citing examples of right wing denunciation of academia in general. Conservatives everywhere deny this charge.
Meanwhile, Radosh speaks what is self-obvious truth re the center of voter gravity, and the response is to… denouce.
In other (past) news, gays protesting what they saw as an unfair sterotype of being effeminate decided that the proper memorial to gay AIDS victims was to get together to sew a very big blankie.
There are times I think I know how Jane Goodall must have felt.
#53 Fred B — I am now hearing Repubs buying into the Orwellian term “insurance for pre-existing conditions.”
You’re 30. Married 5 years. Your wife has put her career on hold to be with the 2 kids until they start school. She’s covered by your work insurance plan. One day she says she feels bad. Next thing you know she’s being treated for cervical cancer. She’s now uninsurable (she has a pre-existing condition) and you better pray your job doesn’t fold up, get sold, or there’s any change whatsoever, because you’re stuck there until you retire. And if there is a change, why, it sure sucks to be you.
This is what ‘pre-existing conditions’ addresses.
I am a long-time admirer of your work, and I have known David for more than 30 years. I can still remember a dinner when he explained his thesis work on how the Watergate Congress contributed to the collapse of South Vietnam. This must have been in about 1980. It really opened my eyes to the problems with the conventional squishy Left narrative in which I had been immersed. David played a big role in bringing me over from the Democratic Party, so I have to give the guy some credit, even if we aren’t close now.
Nevertheless, David’s behavior has become increasingly erratic and counter-productive from a point of view of political effectiveness. Alienating people who are basically your friends and aligning with people who can never be your friends is just a bad trade, and a ticket to the wilderness. If he wanted to become persona non grata, he could hardly have chosen a more effective strategy, going all the way back to his public rupture with the Bush White House over the Harriet Miers affair. I can only conclude that he has been in the grip of some powerful emotions that go way beyond differences in philosophy or disagreements about tactics.
He’s not the only one affected. David Brooks has become unreadable and irrelevant. We could probably add any number of New York and Washington right-side intellectuals and pundits to this list. Perhaps it is something about being affiliated in any way with the “stupid people” in flyover country, of whom Sarah Palin is a potent symbol. I wouldn’t rule out the role of class and religion, either. Perhaps you have here a perfect storm of factors that produce social anxiety in certain conservative public intellectuals and pundits.
All this is not surprising in some ways: they have spent their whole lives trying to escape from the charge that they are part of the stupid party.
Anyway, I hope David–and others–can make their way back over time. It would be a shame for them to waste their gifts in the wilderness.
Acouple of points:
Frum’s ridicule of the Tea Party, on the day of their biggest battle, is unpardonable. He may believe that their was a compromise available w/ Dems, perhaps a $920USB bill instead of the $960BUS, but that simply waters down the brand. And oh btw, contributes to the perception that the GOP is no different than the Dems; that both parties are complicit in the rape of America. If Frum is the future of the GOP, then lets bury it now and move on to the coming bloodbath.
Concerning Ms. Palin it’s important to point out that she is still young when compared to RR’s ascendancy. RR’s ground work you spoke of is precisely what she is now doing. Will she be ready in 2012? No. Perhaps in 2016. But you cannot dismiss the fundamental power of her message and it resonates more than any other leader on the right. Her time will come and in the meantime she is doing valuable work for conservatives and herself.
Your trite dismissal of her resignation as gov. ignores the vicious nature of our opponents and what they were doing to her and her family in Alaska. They hate her because of her message. They are trying to destroy her and will use any weapon available, including useful idiots on the right that have spent too much time in the salons of power and not enough time w/ those of us that pay for that endless cocktail party.
I respect your serious approach to these topics but I belive the time has past for accomodation w/ the left. Given the events of recent weeks the battle before us has never been more clear. They are coming for our future, they want to end the era of free men. Let the political battle be joined so that we may yet still avert the destructive battle that must surely follow if we fail.
Ode to Frum the Odious One on Occasion of his Fall from AEI
He who coined the phrase
“Axis of evil”
Got axed from AEI
Because of his drivel.
Obama, says he,
Waterlooed the GOP
And that right wingers
Are on the wrong side of history.
Well if individual liberty
And free enterprise
Are on the wrong side
Then the Soviet Union
Would’ve been paradise.
And the US economy
Would be booming
From Obama’s taxation
And redistribution.
AEI axed Frum
Because he’s a fool
Who needs to return
To Conservative grade school.
As for Frum being
“the balls of the GOP”
Mark Levin cut them off
On his show last year.
Google my name ApolloSpeaks (one word on Townhall) and read my piece: David Frum, Obamacare and the Republican Waterloo?
Lets see:
The Dems are, in effect, communists.
They do all kinds of evil, crazy things.
The Reps say most of the right stuff; most of the time.
But, when in power, do zip.
So, we have the Do Wrong Party and the Do Nothing Party.
How about a Do Right Party?
Anyone for that?
I have had great respect for Ron Radosh’s intellect until now. The problem with most so called conservative intellectuals is they still think of the current political climate in terms of 20th century American politics. We on the right are not struggling against Hubert Humphrey or LBJ or even FDR we are in a life and death struggle with Lenin and Stalin. As 40% of Americans self identify as conservative that would be the bigger political tent. We shouldn’t compromise with principals or truth in order to entice the delusional moderates into voting against those who clearly are planning on destroying their way of life. The Social Democrats have tipped their hand and shown the muddled moderates the truly evil nature of their plans, their party and their vision for this country. If the moderates, after all that the Bolsheviks have done and announced they intend to do to our Republic, are still willing to vote for tyranny then we are done for. Compromise with the left gains us nothing more than the slavery to government that the left has been slowly but surely achieving for the past century. We don’t need a conservative party willing to compromise with the Social Democrats or work “across the isle”. We will not save our Liberty, our Republic or our economic system by compromising with those whose only goal is to control every aspect of our personal, political and economic lives. What we need is a conservative movement dedicated to the extermination of the left as a viable relevant force in this nation’s political, social and cultural life. If this can still be done through the ballot box we may yet save our country with our institutions intact. Time is running out.
“What has been forgotten in all of this is that if you regularly read Frum — and respect his serious analytical mind, his sharp insights and his willingness to go where he believes the evidence leads — what one can find is the judgement of a man who believes the Republicans must succeed in advancing alternatives to ObamaCare and other Democratic programs that he believes are ill founded and dangerous to the nation’s eventual health. What he is arguing about are really tactics — the question of how to reach a population that has serious grievances with the current Democratic agenda, but that is equally repelled by the rhetoric and approaches of what we might call the hard Right. This includes many conservative Republicans, moderates, and of course the centrists who are quickly making up a majority of voters and who do not register as either Democrats or Republicans.”
There absolutely was a need to create a kind of West Berlin to Obama’s East Berlin, a more free market approach to health care that could also deliver lower costs, at least in the long term to compete with the ‘savings’ of Obamacare. Opening Cuba up to medical tourism would be a good place to start. After all, Nixon went to China and didn’t see the hooves when he met with Chairman Mao, the 2nd greatest mass murderer in history behind Adolf Hitler.
But if you advocate normalizing relations with old Raul Castro while Fidel remains on life support, you can be excommunicated from the AEI. This from an institute that once played the Imperial Death March from Star Wars at a debate hosting Niall Ferguson, “Resolved: That America is and Should Be an Empire” in the summer of 2003. What a joke all official conservative Washington really is and no wonder the Tea Partyers should only trust the Wall Street Journal marginally more than they trust the New York Times.
After all, it was National Review’s Editor in Chief who wrote leave poor Helicopter Ben Bernanke and the Fed alone and save them from crazy uncle in the attic Ron Paul auditing that institution. And David Goldman (aka Spengler over at First Things) dismissing Paul as a crank also does not help him in insulating himself from the charge that in the end, it’s all about Israel rather than actually supporting someone who agrees with 90% of his views on economics!
“Nevertheless, David’s behavior has become increasingly erratic and counter-productive from a point of view of political effectiveness. Alienating people who are basically your friends and aligning with people who can never be your friends is just a bad trade, and a ticket to the wilderness. ”
That sounds like the Obama’s Administrations foreign policy.
Aren’t any of you concerned that Palin quit before even completing one term?
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Have you ever investigated why she quit? The fact that the left was filing lawsuit after lawsuit against her, and the costs were bankrupting her family?
No, you just want some excuse to dismiss her. If it wasn’t this non-issue, you’d find another.
“When Podhoretz argues that the conservative intellectuals — I count myself in this camp, as well as Frum — do not like Palin because they mock her poor “oratorical gifts” compared to Obama’s smooth delivery and persona, and hate the Tea Party movement because they think it composed of “base enthusiasms and simian grunts” that lead to what one observer he quotes calls the “loathsome Tea Party rabble,” he is setting up a straw man to knock down and evading the big issue of whether or not Palin could ever be a viable candidate who could appeal to the necessary center.”
Where I would draw the distinction is that true conservatives don’t catagorize people as “intellectuals” or “simian grunts”. These are tools that the left uses to justify their totalitarian forms of governance. No, the real conservative values people in their own right and recognizes the person in terms of their individual strengths, weaknesses, and accomplishments rather than the numbers of advanced degrees.
Ronald Reagan was no great intellect with respect to leftist measures. He didn’t attend Columbia or have a law degree from Harvard, yet Reagan was a giant; an irrepressible leader who had tremendous command of the issues and an uncanny ability to connect with people. Listen to Reagan’s speeches, read his diaries and papers and his genius, despite what the left would have you believe, is readily apparent. I dare say, many of the Founders shared similar talents and like RR, were men of great intelligence and principle.
In contrast, Sarah Palin struggles with constructing a consistent message and demonstrating that she is able to process the issues (yes, she is able to regurgitate talking points but I have yet to see her develop and project clear principles). Still, for whatever reason she is able to forge that connection with people. So, in my mind Ms. Palin’s problems lie not in her lack of advanced degrees, or accomplishments, but in her questionable ability to build and project cognitive constructs.
Let me turn to the question of appealing to the center. The worst thing that the Republican party can do is to recruit candidates based on centrist appeal. This “McCain” effect is an abject failure and not a strategy that we should embrace. Instead, we need to find people of character and integrity who can project these qualities and more importantly abide by them. In effect we need to find more Ronald Reagans and fewer self-serving career politicians.
Frum bores me… Because Frum does the one thing that just kills any interest in his commentary. His willingness to compromise. Frum’s argument is that the GOP should have worked with the Democrats to modify the bill. Utterly wrong. Why? Because they’d then own it. But far worse, they would have agreed to further moves in the wrong direction.
Let’s imagine that Congress takes up the question of what kind of new airplanes to buy for the armed forces. Experts and military people all have differing points of view, and in fact, often they are correct AND conflicting. And, once you get past that, there’s still issues that require negotiation and compromise about, and then finally, you buy or build.
In this case, that’s not the question. About the matter of, say, subsidies to people to buy insurance. I, for one, see no legitemate case to make that the federal government has any such business. Compromising with Democrats about the size or who or income levels of the recipient, is to bless the notion of such subsidies along with structured dependency for the middle class in our society. In this case, opposition – from end to end – is the only option, since there is nothing about the premise with which to compromise upon.
Bad joke: Ten people are in a diner, late at night and suddely, in burst a few guys with guns, and tell everyone to sit down and don’t move. Finally, the lead guy takes the waitress outside for a few moments and then she returns. In she walks and says: “People, I have bad news. This guy says we have to die because we’ve seen his face. But I also have good news, He’s willing to compromise.” What compromise? Is there a “less dead” version of “dead”? Of course not, the whole idea is myth.
The GOP did offer amendments to undo parts or bits of the bill. They were all voted down. That’s the limits of compromise. Even if they had, nothing would have actually changed. The problem is the very concept of what they’re doing, not its details. To bless or approve or to aquiesce to even some details, is to accept the concept, and the concept itself, is just plain not something up for compromise. All versions of Obamacare, with our without compromise or “help” from the GOP were overreach of government. You can’t put your blessings on any of that without being equally guilty of doing wrong.
Frankly, Frum’s problem is that he has no principles.
Superbly articulated, sir, from start to finish.
The Damn useless coward Rino’s(Both Bush’s , Dole , Ford , Nixon , Graham, McNut among many caused the Tea Party Movement . Duh !
As for Frum …… A Thousand Frum’s is not worth One Thomas Sowell .
Sowell is Reagan’ thoughts today ….. a Million miles from Frum.
David Frum just slandered the Confederacy on Tavis Smiley.
Apparently, David Frum’ new improved inclusive Republican Party means that those who honor their Confederate heritage need not apply. Inclusiion through exclusion and villification. You are one brilliant man David Frum. Some groups sensitivities are more important than others, heh, David.
I grow to dislike David Frum more and more with every utterance. I think he will soon be an Arlen Spectre Democrat soon. And the sooner the better, I say.
Get lost you hater, Frum. Better yet go back to Canada, where you can villify the French Canadians, and call yourself a new inclusive style Conservative. Chump.
It is false to claim that conservatives today want to go back to “Reagan platitudes.” They want to go back to Madison’s timeless philosophy. They are right. Frum is wrong.