Advertisement
Advertisement
 |
Why I Like David Frum |
|
| American conservatism owes quite a lot to this Canadian Tory | ||
 by Michael Weiss, October 30, 2008 |
||
National Review contributing editor and former Bush speechwriter David Frum is probably the most intellectually honest conservative in American journalism. Having led (and subsequently won) the fight against his old boss's shambolic appointment of the unqualified Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court, Frum has continued to oppose his own side on principle by pointing out the many deficiencies of John McCain's running-mate, an act of heresy for which he's been tarred by his fellow NRO bloggers as a dandy arriviste more fond of attending D.C. cocktail parties than blindly supporting any old candidate the Republicans toss up this year.
Though Frum still supports McCain, that he does so with avowed reservations and that he sympathizes with others who have abandoned the GOP makes him an unwelcome figure in his own house. And never mind that, for all the recriminations he's put up with on the right, he still finds the time to risk his good reputation with the effete liberal media types by telling the overrated Rachel Maddows to her face, on her own show, that she's lowering the level of political discourse--a charge that, when Jon Stewart made it of Tucker Carlson, was greeted with yelps of joy on the left.
Anti-intellectualism, like wealth, is best when it's evenly distributed. And it's good to see a man standing his ground. Frum's latest adult intervention into the playpen that is NRO's Corner blog is to defend the excellent Ann Applebaum. A Thatcherite conservative with an independent cast of mind, Applebaum wrote a column for Slate in which she explained why she couldn't in good conscience vote for John McCain this year. She did not technically endorse Barack Obama, but just being anti-McCain was enough to tweak the epigones of William F. Buckley, some of whom were even more strongly anti-McCain when Mitt Romney was still a nationally saleable dreamboat. The problem, of course, is that Applebaum has done more for the cause Buckley made the New Right's raison d'etre -- anti-Communism -- than anyone now running around at National Review. That includes the magazine's deputy editor Kevin Williamson, who wrote:
There are all sorts of good reasons to not vote for McCain — e.g., if you prefer Obama's policies — but this bit from Applebaum is shabby nonsense. And I find it difficult to believe for a moment that this was some sort of wrenching, soul-searching exercise for the one DC-born/Sidwell Friends-and-Yale-alumnus/Europe-dwelling member of the Washington Post editorial board who was seriously thinking about going Republican this year. Spare us the opera; you're an Obama voter. Big deal.
Everything in here smells, from the reflexive and laughable biography-bashing to the suggestion that Applebaum's piece was some flamboyant sturm und drang exercise in apostasy. (It wasn't; read it here.) Anyway, Frum called bullshit on this in very handsome terms:
Williamson omitted one item from Anne's appallingly elitist biography. As well as graduating from Yale, as well as living in Europe, and as well as writing for the Washington Post, Anne Applebaum is the author of the definitive history of the Soviet Gulag. Anne's history won a Pulitzer Prize in 2004, and has been acclaimed by (among others), Richard Pipes (ex of Ronald Reagan's National Security Council) and Robert Conquest (who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in 2005). Anne's politics are more centrist than center-right, but she was a vocal and important supporter of Margaret Thatcher during her years living in the United Kingdom. In the 1980s, she lived in Poland and reported sympathetically and at some personal risk on the Solidarity anticommunist resistance movement. I've known Anne for almost a quarter-century, and if Anne did not cast her first presidential ballot for Ronald Reagan, I would be very greatly surprised.
Has the tradition of Burke and Chambers really degenerated into such hands? Buckley, of whom I'm a lesser admirer than most of the so-called "Obamacons," could at least keep lifelong friendships with liberals such as Murray Kempton and John Kenneth Galbraith. And Robert Conquest, I have it on excellent authority, was quite the gentleman to Susan Sontag when they were first introduced. (The author of The Great Terror, who fired a rifle on behalf of the Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, once lived in Europe, too.)
I'm under no illusion that an Obama administration will usher in a period of American "healing." The politics of polarization has always been with us, and it's in no danger of expiring in the Age of Blogorrhea. But how sad that those paid to do the hard thinking about the future of conservatism should all rush to prove that they've got the intellects of four-year-olds, and the temperaments of Comintern agents.
- How to Avoid Ferociously Bad Relationships
Sixteen of the magazine's 75 Most Influential People are Jewis...
One novelist's erotic adventures with the hot governor of a cold...
One Community Resident Reacts
Meet a Haredi Doctor Who is Trying to Remove Sexual Stigmas in...
| Advertise | Privacy Policy & Terms of Use | FAQ | |  | | Comment Policy | About Us | Contact | Submissions |
| Hosting provided by Tilted Planet | ||
David Kelsey
Does that make you a frummie?
Phantom
Apparently you missed the point in the show when the "overrated" Maddow politely, but firmly, put Frumpy in his place and made him look like a complete idiot. For Frumpy to argue that the Maddow Show lowers the level of political discourse at a time when his candidate was running around accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists" was the height of hypocrisy, and Maddow certainly didn't let him off the hook. Amazing how you somehow missed all of that Mikey.
Michael Weiss
Interesting, then, that Frum was invited onto her show to discuss how much he disagreed with his candidate.
"Amazing how you somehow missed all of that Mikey." Only corporeal beings are allowed to call me Mikey, Phanny-pack.
Phantom
That just shows that Rachel is a forgiving person and doesn't hold a grudge against an asshat that tried but failed miserably to blind-side her.
Michael Weiss
As the late, great David Foster Wallace once put it, your propter hoc isn't even post hoc. Frum was invited on the show before he challenged Maddows, so she had no opportunity to "forgive" him, and anyway there'd be nothing to forgive if, as you say, she shellacked him. (How is it "blind-siding" to directly confront a TV pundit?)
Phantom
I thought you meant he was invited back after their debate. But since that's not what you meant, I'm totally at a loss for your reasoning. He was initially invited to talk about topic A, and immediately almost before she had time to welcome him, he tried to blind-side her with topic B, the infamous "your show reduces political discourse" flip off. How is that not a blind-side? Unfortunately for Frumpy, Maddow is obviously much smarter than he is, and was easily able to turn his crappy argument against him without even having had to prepare for it. That's what impressed me more than anything else about Rachel Maddow. This a-hole comes in for the discussion with his fifth column all prepared to go and Rachel is totally shocked, but still manages to decisively route him and shoves his argument right up his Frumpy butt. That was one of the most entertaining pundit interviews I have seen during this election cycle, and maybe ever.
Michael Weiss
His point about sneering anti-intellectualism in politics cut both ways, and criticizing the forum in which he was invited to present his case was perfectly legitimate. Was it asshole-ish of Jon Stewart to tell the Crossfire hosts that they were "hurting America"? Or of Andrew Sullivan to accuse Bill Maher the other week of his simplistic anti-religion tendency on Real Time? Surely they weren't invited on to do that.
Btw, I don't think you know you begin to what you're talking about when you invoke a"fifth column."
Phantom
Sorry, I know the terminology "fifth column" is very sensitive to Armenians and Jews. I'll stop using it so casually.
DexterManley
...I was fairly friendly with AA when I lived in London and she wrote for the Express. Everything you write about her is true. She's married to a Polish USSR-dissident and did a world of good in her writing about the foulness of the Soviet system.
I didn't agree with a lot of Buckley's views but I always enjoyed his writing and I loved the Buckley v Galbraith and Buckley v Vidal debate series on PBS. I liked FIRING LINE when I went to college and grad school in the States.
But as a Russian-Jewish-Latino-Capitalist-Left-Libertarian, with tough old-school parents and without any feeling of Americanness at all. I loathe Frum for the weak image of Ashkenazim he presents. I loathe him for his bullshit Axis-Of-Evil thing. I loathe him because he's such a nerdy little huevado puto yeshiva bucher de mierda that he preaches capitalism but doesn't practice it except to write his corny books. He's never risk a penny in his life.
Moreover, given my ethnic makeup, I HATE anyone who agreed with the REAGAN/KIRKPATRICK "Castro, Ortega, Allende are TOTALITARIAN DICTATORS; "Pinochet, Somoza, Duarte and Stroessner are AUTHORITARINAN MEN OF STRENGTH AND PRINCIPLE" line of thinking. I'm just as much Andino as I am Jewish and was very lucky to duck the "dirty wars" in the States and the UK.
But all of those dildoes totally lost Latin America. Cuba's an ireelevancy. And there are democratic republics from Mexico to Patagonia and only four Presidents are Right-Wingers: Calderon, Arias, Uribe and Garcia. Yes, Negroponte and Reich and Abrams and little Davey Frum LOST Latino-America! jajajaja
David N. Friedman
David Frum might be a bit weak-kneed in his conservatism but unlike someone like Chris Buckley and a couple of other RHINO's--he strongly supports John McCain in his battle to save the nation from Obama.
In his sit down with the little Rachel Madow liberal-idiot-child--he properly blasted her for the tone on the network--MSNBC and NBC's voverage has been pointedly pro-Obama in the extreme.
David Frum is therefore clear--he supports McCain-Palin over the con man who wants to be President and he does not appreciate news networks who are so shrill and stupid. BTW, independent research confirms (as if we needed any confirmation) NBC leads al the major networks as the most pro-Obama while only Fox News is actually fair and balanced with exactly 40% negative reports about Obama and 40% negative reports about McCain.
As for Anne Applebaum--the fact that McCain is not getting 100% support is tragic and Kevin Williamson has it right.
Phantom
"Fox News is actually fair and balanced"
You must be posting from a pit somewhere near the core of the Earth where you don't get cable. Otherwise, you must be talking about some other Fox News.