Rush vs. Frum
David Frum is in a battle against Rush Limbaugh for the soul of the conservative cause. Frum has scored a coup of sorts by getting the cover story in Newsweek - Why Rush is Wrong. Frum's old colleagues at National Review are up in arms at his impertinence.
What they all fail to see - since there doesn't seem to be any appetite for even the tamest bit of introspection - is that they are each and every one irrelevant in the wake of their unabashed cheerleading through the last 8 years of disaster. Frum is as responsible as anyone (not named Bush or Cheney) for the Iraq debacle. And Rush was a persistent apologist for each and every Bush initiative, as were the bulk of the editors at National Review. The only exception I recall was Bush's illegal-immigrant amnesty proposal - that was too much for even this crowd.
Did any of them sound any warnings about the hideous trade deficit Bush was cultivating - Or did they excuse them as being "pro-growth"? Were they critical of Bush's "ownership society", or inclined to embrace it? Did they wholeheartedly support the Iraq war and damn anyone who dared question it?
In short, none of them have any credibility with the American people. If Republicans hope to achieve any electoral success, they'll need leadership not associated with G.W. Bush.
In general, I'd say Frum is more confused than Limbaugh. He seems to feel that the future of conservatism lies in supporting gay rights and the hopeless cause of courting Mexican immigrants. There's no hope for Frum. If Rush, on the other hand, could somehow find a way to repudiate the Bush years while saving face, he might just be able to contribute to a Republican resurgence. I fear though that another year of Obama's scorched-earth campaign against Americans' net worth will leave the populace so demoralized George Washington himself couldn't successfully lead such a resurgence.
What they all fail to see - since there doesn't seem to be any appetite for even the tamest bit of introspection - is that they are each and every one irrelevant in the wake of their unabashed cheerleading through the last 8 years of disaster. Frum is as responsible as anyone (not named Bush or Cheney) for the Iraq debacle. And Rush was a persistent apologist for each and every Bush initiative, as were the bulk of the editors at National Review. The only exception I recall was Bush's illegal-immigrant amnesty proposal - that was too much for even this crowd.
Did any of them sound any warnings about the hideous trade deficit Bush was cultivating - Or did they excuse them as being "pro-growth"? Were they critical of Bush's "ownership society", or inclined to embrace it? Did they wholeheartedly support the Iraq war and damn anyone who dared question it?
In short, none of them have any credibility with the American people. If Republicans hope to achieve any electoral success, they'll need leadership not associated with G.W. Bush.
In general, I'd say Frum is more confused than Limbaugh. He seems to feel that the future of conservatism lies in supporting gay rights and the hopeless cause of courting Mexican immigrants. There's no hope for Frum. If Rush, on the other hand, could somehow find a way to repudiate the Bush years while saving face, he might just be able to contribute to a Republican resurgence. I fear though that another year of Obama's scorched-earth campaign against Americans' net worth will leave the populace so demoralized George Washington himself couldn't successfully lead such a resurgence.
posted by ziel | 3/09/2009 09:44:00 PM
8 Comments:
David Frum is a neoconservative Trotskyite, which are "the same thing" according to Taki Theodoreacoupolous.
David Frum can't say ANYTHING nice about Gert Wilders, and treats him as a sideshow freak. Read how he treats Wilders.
Frum is no conservative, dreams of an America with no racial majority, dreams of a pointless war with Iran and probably Pakistan for his favorite country, which isn't the US. Frum has nothing to say about our trade defecits, insourcing, outsourcing, and the effect of bazillions of illegals on government expenditures.
Frum is also a Canadian. Frum is part of the reason I wont resuscribe to NR, even though I read the mag from the late 80s through 2000.
Frum was also one of the formulators of the Bush doctrine, which was and is a horrible idea. David Frum is basically the David Brooks of NR. I despise them both.
It doesn't matter what any of them think, say, or do because politics is not empirical. If it were, any one of those numbnuts would have been ostracized, and any of those who correctly predicted the outcome of the Iraq war, courting illegals, etc. would have enjoyed a sudden burst of popularity.
Search Google Trends for "Frum," and you'll see that he's had a high search rate since 2005 -- no decline.
Search it for "Roubini" or "Shiller," and you see increases and spikes once it became clear that they had called the bubble long before, and that everyone else in the econ / business world didn't have a clue.
As pitiful as econ can be, at least there's a demand for truth, and something of a reward system for people who predict better than others -- word-of-mouth popularity, book deals, syndicated columns, lecture money, getting quoted at length in print or on TV / radio, etc. Nothing like that holds for politics.
Very well said. Thanks.
Zeil,
The neocons were underwritten financially to get into the positions to alter the Republican party.
The Weekly "Slandard" is operated at a loss by Rupert Murdoch. Fox News? Murdoch. Fox News has made conservative celebrities out of foreign policy hawks like Shawn Hannity and Bill Kristol.
Irving Kristol admitted that his brand of conservatism was to "bring the right, kicking and screaming against its will, into the mainstream". Its whole function is to drag the Republicans rightward until they are near where the Democrats were years beforehand, which allows the Dems to lurch even further left. DAVID FRUM'S entire CAREER according to those at Takimag, has been composed of him attacking people TO HIS RIGHT, ever attempting to drag the GOP leftward.
The takeover at NR is still something of a mystery, but its wholly appalling to me. I'll never resuscribe to Jonah Goldberg's and David Frum's magazine. Whats really saddeing is that NR's reputation, which was so good for so long, still lends it to be the first publication a young person will check out when they want to see "what conservatism is really all about" and not just what rants they have heard their professors go on about it. So via NR's legendary status, they get introduced into neoconservatism instead.
Neoconservatism, in my opinion, is a "holding movement" devised to sprinkle token conservative sentiment to please the GOP voters just enough, while the demographic changes marginalize them. When the nation is sufficiently leftist in demography (30 years from now or therabouts), the primary work of the neo-cons will be done.
Supposedly one in four public school kindergarters is now Hispanic (2Blowhard's blog). I hope thats not true yet............but the work of the neocons is truly reaching its fruition. Can such a nation as that have economic freedom much longer?
I was flipping through the channels last night during some downtime and happened upon Fox and the O'Reilly Factor. His guests were, I guess, two Republicans and the topic was what the party could do to get back on top. After a few minutes of them talking over each other, Bill says something like "to truly ensure an increase in appeal, we need to gravitate towards the moderate... CLICK. After that I watched the Poseidon Adventure. Didn't realize at the time how apropo watching a shipwreck movie was.
BTW the way, they found some girls with great legs for that movie. And they only killed one off! Have no idea why they had to strip down to shortie shorts to get through the ship but it was a great idea nonetheless
Ah yes, the Poseidon Adventure troika:
Carol Lynley. Pamela Sue Martin (the one with the little dork brother and later of Dynasty) and Stella Stevens, Ernest (Rogo) Borgnine's ill-fated wife. I believe she got down to her panties for that critical underwater swim. Thank God no such requirement was in place for Shelly Winters.
That's them. Brilliant casting!
Overall, of course, I found the movie to be ridiculously mawkish. But I could fully sympathize with Rogo's emotional breakdown after watching Stella plunge to a fiery death. I mean, what's the chance a guy who looks like that is going to wind up with a babe like that again?
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