Dire are these days for conservatives. Leftist functionaries dominate both the legislative and executive branches of government as the media proclaims the demise of the conservative movement on a once-weekly basis.
Barack Obama — the physical and mental archetype of every Democrat’s politically correct, multicultural fantasies — owns the battlefield and is also the embodiment of the Peter Principle. He has been promoted far beyond his abilities. The president’s ascendance is the flamboyant fruit of corrupt affirmative action policies and his economic ignorance currently threatens our nation’s continued viability.
Obama’s first fifty days have been a tragicomedy rooted in incompetence and fervent partisanship. That he is an extreme ideologue is blatantly evident. He cares no more for our past and traditions than he does our oldest ally. The only change his years in office promise is the presence of a president with no leadership capacity whatsoever.
What then do recent events spell for persons on the right side of the political spectrum? Well, we must all recall a basic rule of history: every majority eventually becomes a minority. In 2010 the midterm elections will transpire and the makeup of Congress will undoubtedly alter at that time. The Democrats’ hold on the Senate and the House of Representatives will either gradually or significantly erode. The Republican base will energize and the number of GOP politicians will expand.
In order to get there from here, members of the conservative commentariat must devote themselves to critiquing our wayward masters, proffer alternatives, draw comparisons between liberty and tyranny, contrast the virtues of the free market against the sclerosis of socialism, and identify the travesty that is government impoverishing future generations out of a need to feast on pork today.
Cutting taxes, giving the people their money back, neutering bureaucracies, and encouraging citizens to take control of their lives are the core conservative principles. They also have the luxury of resonating across demographic groups. We would do well to celebrate our beliefs and doing so would be a great first step to recapturing the hearts of the electorate. Conversely, John McCain’s responses to the credit and mortgage crises in the fall were a potent lesson on things to do on the campaign trail when you’re dead.
Yet some conservative luminaries disagree. David Frum, a lawyer by training and former speech writer for George W. Bush, is one of them. In the face of Obamanian verbal gymnastics — such as confusing the inflation of government with economic “stimulus” — the Canadian journalist has decided to declare war on … Rush Limbaugh.
As practically every reader is already aware, Mr. Limbaugh is the most successful talk show host in America. In my personal opinion, he happens to be the most compelling defender of freedom alive.
Throughout the course of Limbaugh’s two-decade career, he has been a one-man siege engine when it comes to scaling back cultural Marxism and leftist political policies. His three daily hours of excellence in broadcasting enhance our civil liberties more than the labors of every conservative think tank put together.
Yet Frum has expressed nothing but disdain for the radio legend. He responded to Limbaugh’s address at the Conservative Political Action Conference with a withering blog post at his brand new website. Specifically, he juxtaposed the president with El Rushbo and found the minister of hope and change “soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry.”
In turn, our guy is “aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as ‘losers.’ With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence.”
Why Frum chose this bleak moment in history as the time in which to excoriate the strongest warrior in our ranks is not immediately apparent. It’s akin to character assassinating General Petraeus at the start of the surge under the pretense of feeling sorry for the troops.
Contextually, though, Frum is wrong at every level. When compared to Obama, Rush Limbaugh is the epitome of intellectual brilliance and courage, while the president is a glossy, cool, New Age deceiver.
Moreover, Frum’s observations are fallacious on their face. Obama is a politician whereas Limbaugh is a media analyst. In the words of Camille Paglia, “Limbaugh, like our own liberal culture hero Lenny Bruce, is a professional commentator who can be as rude and crude as he wants.” A pundit needs to be interesting whereas a “public servant” must be adroit at mouthing blarney, a skill at which President Obama excels.
My former senator’s entire life has been devoted to baritoning out vapid banalities while using jejune platitudes as a means to cloak his leftism. Without a teleprompter, he is more lost than Ira Hayes without an American flag.
On the other hand, Limbaugh’s ostentatious flaws and sins serve to humanize him. The president’s shiny, evasive, lean, and vacuous essence renders him as plastic as a Citibank Visa card. He has the splendid confidence of a college sophomore, which manages to hide his absolute bewilderment of worldly affairs. Deprived of his media applause track, Obama is a void of arrogance.
Sadly, merely pillorying Limbaugh on his blog was not enough for Frum. A week later he published a cover story at Newsweek entitled “Why Rush Is Wrong.” His choice of media outlets was suspicious. Newsweek does not present information; it sculpts, manipulates, and slants it.
Like the entity which owns it (The Washington Post Company), the weekly digest regularly propagandizes for the benefit of the Democratic Party. The publication is so open about its bias that it now is in business with left-wing radio entity Air America.
After all, not just any magazine would brazen its cover with the canard “We’re All Socialists Now,” as Newsweek did in February. Though we’re not all socialists, that their editors have always been sympathetic to the movement is a given.
As Jay Nordlinger illuminated, “Funny how eager publications such as Newsweek are to publish conservatives’ criticisms of conservatives! Would that they were as eager to publish conservatives’ criticisms of liberals. But that is an old, sad, irritating story.”
That Frum excoriated Limbaugh in the pages of a roach’s den of radicalism tells us much about his loyalties — he doesn’t have any. Like money deposited from the Reichsbank in the 1940s, there’s blood on the gold from which he was paid. His is a betrayal of biblical proportions: David slept with Goliath.
There is no point in being sensitive in regards to this fellow. He’s crossed the Oprahcon. Despite his Harvard education and bloated curriculum vitae, David Frum is not worthy of licking the tobacco from Limbaugh’s famously nicotine-stained fingers. In the foxhole that is contemporary politics, would you rather fight alongside a lion like Rush Limbaugh or a fop like David Frum? I’ll let readers decide for themselves.
Frum’s new organization aims for “the reform and renewal of the Republican party and the conservative movement.” Apparently, this can only be done by purging known heroes and replacing them with upper-class ninnies who are cherished by bloviating toadies like Chris Matthews.
The new millennium is not an era for milquetoasts. Only a turncoat bashes his own in the camp of the enemy. Traitors should not be mollycoddled.
If we want to build a new majority, Republicans should let David Frum go the way of Scott McClellan.
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