Frum’s Firing
By now, many Chronicles readers have no doubt heard that David Frum was fired from his cushy job at the American Enterprise Institute, following an online column claiming that the passage of Obamacare was the GOP's "Waterloo," which could have been avoided if the GOP had been more willing to negotiate with Obama. Frum is now charging that AEI tossed him because it was responding to pressure from its donors, a charge eminent AEI scholar Charles Murray has denounced at National Review Online as "despicable," since it is unsupported by evidence and is calculated to appeal to the leftist media. But if Murray is only now discovering the nature of Frum, he has not been paying attention.
From the beginning, the Canadian carpetbagger has sought to climb the greasy pole by attacking those on his right, in ways designed to curry favor with the left. As an undergraduate at Yale, he joined leftists at Yale in urging the university to take control of the Yale Literary Magazine, then run by future Chronicles editor Andrei Navrozov. He made his first big splash in America by attacking Pat Buchanan in The American Spectator. And back when he was welcome at all the places neocons congregate, Frum wrote a cover article for National Review attacking Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis, and Tom Fleming as "unpatriotic" for having the good sense to oppose the Iraq War. There was no evidence supporting Frum's slander of these men, the despicable nature of which was confirmed by my good fortune in knowing them and knowing that their opposition to the Iraq War was rooted in a deep love for our country. Frum's despicable attacks on those on his right continued, with Frum making false statements about Pat Buchanan's position on the use of military force against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as I noted for this website.
More recently, Frum has expanded launching fusillades on those to his right into a more or less full-time job, as an examination of his modestly named Frum Forum website shows. The only difference is that Frum's new broadsides are no longer aimed solely at paleoconservatives. Indeed, Frum was rewarded with a cover article in Newsweek to attack Rush Limbaugh. Along the way, Frum has picked up some strange new friends, including writer Alex Knepper, still featured at Frum's website even after Richard Spencer pointed out that Knepper is an admirer of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan and a member of the Facebook groups "F**k Christianity" and "F**k the Pope." (It takes little imagination to realize how Frum would react if someone who wrote for Chronicles was a member of a "F**k Israel" Facebook group). Frum has also picked up many new enemies, as evidenced by the fact that National Review Online is now publishing attacks on Frum, something that did not happen when Frum was attacking far wiser men than he as "unpatriotic."
Frum is defending himself from his new enemies in typical fashion. Frum's website now features testimony to his wonderfulness from such leftists as Joe Klein, Ezra Klein, and Jacob Heilbrunn, as well as a paean to Frum's greatness from his wife. (Somehow, I don't recall Shelley Buchanan or Gail Fleming writing about how their husbands really were patriotic after Frum attacked them.) The criticism from former friends seems to be getting to Frum: He is particularly incensed that former colleague Tunku Varadarajan has portrayed him as a Beltway social climber rather than as a brave martyr to the truth. To illustrate his bravery, Frum tells his readers that when he was in London during the runup to the Iraq War, he was recognized on the London streets and then singlehandedly debated an enraged mob of anti-war Britons. (Leave it to Frum to tell a tale that involves his being recognized as a famous man, the way Frum no doubt sees himself.)
Still, if Frum wishes to dispel the charge of being a Beltway social climber, there is an easy way to do that: Leave the Beltway. America's best magazine is published in Rockford, Illinois, a city Frum disdained as a "rusting industrial city" in the same essay in which he besmirched the patriotism of anti-war conservatives. No one can accuse Tom Fleming, Scott Richert, or Aaron Wolf of being Beltway social climbers. He can join me here in Cleveland, though my preference would be that he live on the other side of town if he comes. Or, better yet, he can return to his "home and native land" and leave behind the hard life of being a Beltway pundit. Perhaps he can become an insurance salesman in Waterloo, Ontario, while continuing to favor us with an occasional blog from the Great White North. But my guess is that he will stay in Washignton, and continue to do what he can to be noticed in the media.
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If it took the Obama health care bill to have Frum sacked, well, the bill can't be a totally bad thing.
Great piece, Tom.
Since Frum's real forte is doing hatchet jobs on anyone who deviates from the politically correct strictures of Cultural Marxism, perhaps Frum could look into a job at the SPLC?
No, Mr. Frum stay far away from my home in Arkansaw, Wisconsin. We have enough cow manure to foul up the air.
Frum could have learned a thing or two from Walter Mitty it seems.
Mr. Piatak,
Thanks for this good article. I am afraid that weeding out neo-cons is like killing ants: You stomp one and there will be a thousand more attend the funeral.
I've always loved that we can be lectured by foreigners such as Frum and fellow Canadian Krauthammer about how one is to be a 'patriotic American'.
I found it quite mysterious that Frum went after the conservative base in the way that he did at FrumForum -- every week there was something on how Sarah Palin is uncouth or how Glenn Beck said something embarrassing. Such criticism isn't totally unfounded, of course, but what Frum didn't seem to appreciate was the fact that it was that unwashed Republican base that elected all the neocons' horrible candidates and supported all the neocons' horrible wars. Why would Frum alienate himself from his base of support? -- and, more importantly, do so on issues like global warming, gay marriage, healthcare reform, which the neocons have always ranked far, far below Israel and war?
It's a mystery to me... I mean, are Sarah and Glenn really less sophisticated than, say, David Frum's old boss, Dubya?
Frum is a bum whom anyone can beat,
And now he has lost his AEI seat.
This is a wholly new development--
And should cause the neocons to relent
In their strange and crazy hostility
To anyone who just wants to be free
Of the clammy tentacles of AIPAC:
Why, oh why, put paleos on the rack?
Does anyone know the reason for the change in name of his blog from New Majority to FrumForum? New Majority always seemed so obviously silly to me. As if there is a potential majority coalition based on economic and social moderation and extreme hawkishness on defense. Social and economic moderates tend to be defense moderates as well. Go figure. I guess you could speculate that FrumForum was self aggrandizing, but I wonder if Frum himself recognized the snicker inducing quality of dubbing a clear minority coalition a new majority.
Red Phillips asks: "Does anyone know the reason for the change in name of his blog from New Majority to FrumForum?"
The title "FrumForum" rather reminded me of an anecdote to be found in Hesketh Pearson's Life of Oscar Wilde:
"His [Bernard Shaw's] subject was a magazine, the founding of which he had in mind, and he held forth at great length on its scope and outlook. When he came to a halt, Oscar said 'That has all been most interesting, Mr. Shaw; but there's one point you haven't mentioned, and an all-important one — you haven't told us the title of your magazine.' 'Oh, as for that,' said Shaw, 'what I'd want to do would be to impress my own personality on the public — I'd call it Shaw's Magazine: Shaw — Shaw — Shaw!'; and he banged his fist on the table. 'Yes,' said Oscar, 'and how would you spell it?'. Shaw joined heartily in our laughter against him."
One doubts that Frum would be able to laugh at himself with a tenth of the willingness that Shaw (who differed from Frum in being a major writer) demonstrated.
This is wonderful news.
What ever happened to the "make David Frum's face vanish" fund raiser?
McCallum
"Frum tells his readers that when he was in London during the runup to the Iraq War, he was recognized on the London streets"
What a laugh! The great man , along with his lovely wife Danielle, could spend days wandering the streets of their hometown Toronto without fear of being recognized...
If America was a real country, we never would have even heard of Frum, much less be discussing him.
Frum was canned by the Bush White House, National Review, and now the AEI. He was even supposed to be the editor of National Review. Will it finally be 3 strikes and you are out? I think not. Look for this dolt to land another fat job. All the neocons seem to, after they fail over and over again.
Mr. Frum can now consummate his progession - perhaps the Brookings Institute has a spot for him?
I actually had some hope that Frum's attempt to refashion himself as the leader of some new centrist majority coalition would cause him to moderate his hawkishness a little. He will always be an Israel-firster, but the man is not stupid. He has to realize that GOP defeats in '06 and '08 were at least partially if not primarily because of the War and foreign policy and that there is no majority centrist yet uber-hawkish coalition. So I thought maybe he would tone down the calls for war. But I haven't really seen a change.
Any pity for Frum or belief that he didn't get what he clearly deserved would be akin to believing that Robespierre was finally guillotined unjustly.
What kind of country is it where a talentless foreign conniver can get posts in the White House and the major media? There are several million real Americans who could fill any of the positions Frum has held better. And Americans are too befuddled and cowed even to resent it.
And, of course, we owe it to that wonderful old bulwark of American values, the Republican Party.
Red Phillips asks: “Does anyone know the reason for the change in name of his blog from New Majority to FrumForum?”
The name "New Majority" already had several claimants, including a California GOP group. Frum explained the change in a Nov. 3 post titled "A Note to Readers"
Thanks Mr. Jones.
"What kind of country is it where a talentless foreign conniver can get posts in the White House and the major media?"
Dr. Wilson,
According to Frum, he was once briefly arrested by a White House security guard who did not believe that a Canadian national could have a job working at the White House.
The security guard had evidently not been briefed that "after 9-11,everything had ...." The way I see it, Romney has already been selected as the stalwart's pick this time around while Palin will try to rally the grass roots to "restore American values" It should be another comedy of errors full of blue smoke, mirrors, lots and lots of money. lies, false promises and of course all to "restore American values." For a wise man like yourself, who has seen the same rotten old play over and over again, with different actors but same ending, it should bring a few big belly laughs too.
Frum wrote after 9/11 that those conservatives who opposed the Iraq war were unpatriotic. He included such people as Pat Buchanan, Bob Novak, Justin Raimondo, Taki, Lew Rockwell, and others. It is nice to see him ostracised now.
From what I am given to understand, the "egregious Frum" was let go for that most vanilla of reasons: not getting his job done. He was drawing a $ 100,000 salary, reportedly, and yet not producing much in the way of any columns, research, etc. Supposedly, he wasn't even coming into the office to get his mail; packages and letters were piling up in front of his office door.
If I did things like that, I'd probably get fired, too.
I actually discovered Chronicles and the now defunct Rothbard-Rockwell Report through reading Frum's book Dead Right. So I guess I should at least be thankful for that.
While Frum has always been a buffoon, he used to be decent on issues like immigration and affirmative action. Now it seems he is trying to pull a David Brock and go to where the real money and power resides (on the establishment left).
As Sam Francis wrote about George Will 20 years ago, "He has every hope of a bright future."
"Now it seems he is trying to pull a David Brock and go to where the real money and power resides ......"
Bernie,
Thanks for this observation which I also share. Without any understanding or familiarity with real truth or goodness, one really can't blame these guys for following the money trail. It remains always and everywhere one of the three great and corrosive temptations. Or as an Italian gentleman put it:"“To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth, that is not living, but existing.” When one is just existing, as chameleons like Mr. Frum and George Will must surely do, making large amounts of money or telling lies for a living are as worthy of the goals in life as anything else. You must have already noticed this differnece in your attraction to Chronicles. It is good to read your posts.
Tom Piatak wrote "Or, better yet, he can return to his "home and native land" and leave behind the hard life of being a Beltway pundit. Perhaps he can become an insurance salesman in Waterloo, Ontario, while continuing to favor us with an occasional blog from the Great White North."
While I can't speak for all Canadians, I for one don't want him back. He ought to go to the only country he has ever displayed any real devotion to. I doubt he'd be able to make it very far there, though. Netanyahu seems to be a man who would have more sense than to trust or put up with self-serving, backstabbing, dishonorable social climbers like David Frum.
Frum simply expresses the unexceptional opinion that the Republican Party would have more success if it tried to appeal to normal people, not those who pretend to live in an alternative universe like creationists and teabaggers, and put forward appropriate candidates, not oddballs like Palin. Bash him as you will, but I think he's largely on target.
"who ... live in an alternative universe"
You mean like people who use the obscene slur "teabaggers" and think it is funny and original.
Frum is a real piece of work and has been for years. Maybe he should move to San Francisco. He could probably land a position on Nancy Pelosi's staff.
"Frum simply expresses the unexceptional opinion that the Republican Party would have more success if it tried to appeal to normal people, not those who pretend to live in an alternative universe like creationists and teabaggers, and put forward appropriate candidates, not oddballs like Palin. Bash him as you will, but I think he’s largely on target."
But the GOP does give us candidates that appeal to "normal people." McCain, Bush, Guiliani, Kemp, Dole, Cheney and the rest are what the GOP gives us. These worthies are all people that Frum supports. The Republicans are already a Frum party. They share your disdain for the rednecks, subhumans, Bible-thumpers and KKKers that oppose immigration, offshoring, affirmative action, taxes and socialism. Why should Frum - or you - complain?
"But the GOP does give us candidates that appeal to “normal people.” McCain, Bush, Guiliani, Kemp, Dole, Cheney and the rest are what the GOP gives us. These worthies are all people that Frum supports. The Republicans are already a Frum party."
Bernie,
Yes and the next candidate will proabably be a man such as Romney. The only thing they are using Palin for is to get out the vote. The Republicans have managed a long life in American politics by extolling the virtues of the common man while despising the very thing itself. Thanks for the reminder.
Robert,
Yes, and I see that Palin is campaigning for the odious McCainiac as we speak. Demographics have already sealed the fate of the Stupid Party so these arguments are somewhat irrelevant.
Frum will likely end up at Brookings or Media Matters where he can better scare suburbanites about the dangers of the evil rednecks who no doubt control the GOP. Perhaps the SPLC is hiring?
As Dr. Wilson has said, the Republican Party is and always has been the Court Party, but since the 60's give or take, it has been trying to convince us yahoos in flyover country that it is really one of us. But it seems that this sales job may have worked a little too well. It has also managed to convince Frum and his ilk, who should know better, that they are REALLY one of us and it has little David frightened. Someone needs to whisper in David's ear, "Relax David. Everything is going to be OK. The GOP is still a centrist party on everything except using all our clout and treasure to protect Israel. All this limited government nonsense is just red meat for Bubba."
That David Frum has earned his many arrows from many different directions can not be denied. What normal person can't find some mirth in Frum's distress? What is most illuminating is that the American Enterprise Institute evidently paid David Frum $ 100,000 yearly for his musings along with a 17th Street office and access to AEI researchers. The direct mail which helps fund large enterprises like AEI with donations from the rubes who Frum obviously detests must be so successful that even a David Frum can live the comfortable life of a Washington dilettante.
A beautifully on-target piece by Mr. Piatak.
Calling Frum a disgusting sophist would be grossly unfair -- to the Sophists.
One of the most amusing moments in radio is where Frum's son calls the Mark Levin show to complain about the way Mark takes down Frum all the time. The next day Frum calls in himself and Levin makes minced meat out of him. Priceless. It was in late October last year, it may still be in the archives of the show.
Red Phillips @ 36:
That particular problem arises from the corrupting ballot-access laws. At least here in New York province, we have (nominally) 5 or 6 parties that make it onto the ballot, signature-gathering requirements notwithstanding.
I remember reading about the Populists, Prohibitionists and the like in my US history classes; there used to be 4 or more serious national candidates every election. Now there are usually one-and-a-half (recalling 1996) candidates, or at most two-and-a-kook if the extra ones self-finance. (Ross Perot ! Rollicking Ross Perot, please call your office...) Tall order it may be, but I suspect that only a radical change in the way political parties are enabled to get on the ballot will solve that problem; something on the order of a Supreme Court decision overturning all the provinces' access laws as biased (on viewpoint-discrimination or free-association grounds) would do it.
Naturally, I'm not exactly holding my breath waiting.
Maybe I am off the mark here, but it seems to me that ever since George Wallace's third party candidacy made it on all fifty state ballots in 1968, the Two-Partiers (as opposed to the Tea-Partiers)put the squeeze on third (or more) party candidates. Someone with more knowledge about this than myself respond. Isn't is much harder for minority parties to get on ballots these days than it used to be? Or am I just imagining that?
Mr. Schaeber, part of the problem with modern politics is that the explosion of both wealth since the advent of the Industrial Age and the steady growth of government power has made it so that two corporate political entities- the Republian Party and the Democratic Party- monopolize political access due to each's command of money. In turn, the two political parties allow themselves to be used by the donors of the two parties. Donors fund the parties and the parties do favors for the donors. Some might say it is an incestuous relationship. The dominance of the two big parties will remain until the 150 year paradigm that created it implodes as it appears possible sometime this century.
With the kind of incompetent leadership both parties are putting forward, I can't see the country lasting long enough to recover. In all honesty I think the Republicans are slightly better. That isn't saying much. They are both run by the military industrial complex and a lot of crooked lobbys. I sure don't have the answer.
About a decade ago I visited a GOP think tank called the Claremont Institute. After being asked to join...which I declined on ideological grounds........I wondered about the purpose of these types of 'clubs' for 'intellectuals'. After reading the above article about the neo-Citizen Genet fake at NR, I revisited Claremonts's website and under ongoing projects came across the following....."....dedicated to victory in the War on Terrorism. Through the shaping of public opinion, the encouragement of a foreign policy based on the founding principles of America, increased research about Islam and Islamism, and a steadfast commitment to attacking those who would blame America first and defending those who wouldn't.....(Claremont) will work toward victory in this first great war of the 21st century." Now, I am not an 'intellectual' but a foreign policy based on the founding principles of America is isolationist rather than a commitment to attacking other nations. This describes the insanity of hoping for a Republican victory when these types are itching to get back in power and justify their perniciousness.
What is rather amusing is that R. Emmett Tyrrell is out with a new column slamming David Frum for Frum's attempts at "self-promotion" by "disparag(ing)..other conservatives." The column is called "Odious Conservatives." Yet wasn't it the same Bob Tyrrell who commissioned the callow and relatively unknown David Frum to take a hatchet to Pat Buchanan back in American Spectator in 1991? One wonders where Mr. Tyrrell has been the last twenty years as it was he and his magazine who were the primary launching ground of David Frum's dishonest and turbulent career. Bob Tyrrell's surprise at Frum's antics reminds me of Captain Renault's shock at discovering a gambling casino at Rick's in "Casablanca".
#45 and #46
Yes, this is the problem with lieing. One soon forgets the last lie, for the next to the last lie,and the next to the next to the last, etc.. If Tyrell and Erickson get too far down this path of darkness, we might be forced to start defending Frum as a known and notorius liar against the more dangerous and seductive unknown liars.
Or we can always take Dr. Wilson's sage advice and just leave them to fight among themselves until there is simply nothing left of the Republican party except little pieces and little people shouting absurdities at each other. Which is what Tyrell,Erickson and Frum are beginning to do.
I expect Richard Spencer's characterization is on target. He expects that Frum will resurface soon, as he has the survival instinct's of a cockroach. The Canuckistani Cucaracha Carpetbagger probably has a half-life of 800 years or so.