Levin: Frum is a disgraceful, petty, Palin-obsessed DC-insider

"As an American, Jew, and conservative, I consider Frum an embarrassment"
*
Mark Levin gives Vichy Republican and pretend conservative David Frum the drubbing he deserves via Facebook:

Here's a part of his post at CNN, where he is apparently a regular contributor, which makes the point:

"Ben Smith in Politico reports that the trip was booked through a Christian tour operator. But the real news is who did not book the trip: the Republican Jewish Coalition, the group that brought George W. Bush to Israel in 1998, Mitt Romney in 2007, Haley Barbour in 2011, and many other presidential hopefuls beside.

"Very likely you have never heard of the Republican Jewish Coalition. But then again, you probably are not seeking the Republican presidential nomination. If you were seeking the nomination, the RJC is one of the groups whose support you would certainly want.

"Joining an RJC Israel tour is a well-established ritual in gaining the support of the RJC's board and the group's 40,000 activist members."

The rest of Frum's brilliance is here.

By most accounts, Palin's trip was a great success. She stated her emphatic support for Israel. She met with several important Israelis. She was invited by the Prime Minister for a private dinner. And more.

But that's not good enough for Frum. According to him, she didn't use the RJC, of which he is a Board member, to handle the event. As an American, Jew, and conservative, I consider Frum an embarrassment. With rising anti-Semitism throughout the world and support for Israel weakening in the West, including among young people in the United States, he should be praising her visit and her commitment to Israel. He should encourage more such trips and meetings by more opinion-makers and politicians, regardless of the group that handles these events. Instead, Frum focuses on nonsense. This is why Frum is neither taken seriously nor should be by a growing number of thinking conservatives.

As for Ben Smith at Politico, why does it matter if Palin's trip was booked through a Christian tour operator? Indeed, why isn't that a good thing? Do we not want Christian organizations promoting Israel? Smith is another small mind.

More Frum dismemberment here by Sheya.

- JP

David Forsmark: Frum Freaks Over Imagined Palin Raaaacism

Amazing how Parker, Frum et al resort to leftist clichés and methods
*
David Forsmark catches PDS-afflicted Vichy Republican David Frum in the act of race baiting as the pretend conservative works from his dog eared page of leftist talking points:

So, in a little 59 word post portentously entitled, “Bigger Problems with Sarah Palin’s new book,” David Frum finds racism—yes, racism—in the following statement:

PALIN FROM “AMERICA BY HEART”: “But from what I’ve read, family life at the time of the founding was a lot like family life for Americans today: full of challenges, sure, but also full of simple pleasures.”

I’ll give you boilerplate, banality, throwaway, heartfelt cornpone… but racism? Really? Give up the Frum Forum, David, and get a column on HuffPo. You would have more readers and most importantly, you would be right at home with other PDS sufferers.

FRUM: For the 1 in 6 Americans who were held as slaves in 1790 – often unable to marry legally, and always liable to be sold and separated from spouses or children – family life was quite a lot different at the time of the founding than it is today.

A would-be president should remember that part of the American story too.

Even Frum Forum readers—who are still looking for a right of center reading experience—were put out by this, asking if we had to mention slavery every time we bring up the founders.

“ I don’t say so at all,” Frum protested, “I don’t call for national self-flagellation or self-disparagement.”

Then he proceeded to demand exactly that—or at least for Sarah Palin—for about 600 more words...

[More]

- JP

David Solway: Palin, Frum, and the Tea Party

*
Canadian David Solway, author of the recently-released Hear, O Israel, takes on notorious Vichy Republican and Conservative Lite^® David Frum for the latter's unfortunate Palin obsession in a Pajamas Media op-ed. Solway's full opinion piece is what we consider a must read, but here are some excerpts to prime the pump:

To my mind, Frum is tooling about in another galaxy; yet, oddly enough, his mugging of Sarah Palin in a series of newspaper articles belies his own recommendation. According to Frum, Palin is “rambling, angry, and self-pitying.” She self-immolated in the 2008 elections and is guilty of “dereliction of duty.” After having once dismissed her as a “neophyte” — what, one wonders, does that make Obama who, unlike Palin, had no governing experience whatsoever when he came to power? — Frum goes on to suggest that there is a “sexual dynamic at work” in the enthusiasm for Palin among a contingent of conservative men. What other reason, after all, could explain such advocacy? Palin is hot and conservative males are randy. “Whatever impulse it is that so excites Palin supporters,” he opines, “it is not shared by their wives.” Frum’s drearily incessant diatribes steer perilously close to unwholesome obsession, so much so that there seems to be something distinctly “Freudian” about his imagined relationship to the poor woman. It is as if, pace Frum, there were a “sexual dynamic at work” here too. Certainly, when it comes to Sarah Palin, he has not availed himself of the temperate address he solemnly urges upon others.

[...]

Frum is way too nuanced about the battle for America’s soul that is playing out before our very eyes. He may ride a bicycle to the Washington Mall — a nice little touch — but he would be far more useful, metaphorically speaking, doing yeoman service in a tank. Frum, I suspect, was always a PRINO, a Prospective Republican in Name Only. It’s consoling to note that Frum seems to be wrong about most things. He predicted that the economy will have improved by this November and that the advantages of Obama’s health care legislation will have become evident by then. He predicted that Sarah Palin’s career “seems headed nowhere positive” with her approval ratings in free fall. Perhaps we should take a cue from Lewis Carroll and “shun the frumious Bandersnatch.”

Palin, for her part, is constantly being savaged and grossly misrepresented by an “educated elite,” including many of a conservative persuasion, whose scorn and contumely seem to be a function of class. She is derided as grammatically challenged, but then she does not rely on a teleprompter and speaks extemporaneously, pretty much like any normal person. She is derogated as flaky and impetuous, as someone who would not fit in with the New York cocktail crowd or the Princeton intellectuals, and is regarded by the patrician cenacles as, in effect, a rabble-rousing commoner and uncouth provincial. Such taunting is truly beyond the pale, or beyond the Palin, and only reflects back upon the empty self-regard and caste pretentiousness of the accusers themselves.

I have heard people say — responsible, thoughtful people — that Palin is a one-dimensional dilettante, someone who has never read a book. Apart from the absurdity of this claim, it should be obvious that reading a book with understanding and profit depends upon sensibility and temperament. Obama has presumably read a book (apart from The Communist Manifesto and Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals), Van Jones has read a book, Larry Summers has read a book, Tim Geithner has read a book, John Brennan has read a book, Cass Sunstein has read a book, Valerie Jarrett has read a book, Rahm Emanuel has read a book, Hillary Clinton has read a book, Robert Gibbs has read a book, Joe Biden has read a book (well, maybe not), David Plouffe has read a book, Andy Stern has read a book, David Axelrod has read a book, Pete Rouse has read a book, Ken Salazar has surely read a book — some of these people have even written a book — and look at the mess they have created. Seriously, though, Palin strikes me as better informed than all of these political actors lumped together. She has most certainly read a book with understanding and profit and it wasn’t Lamont the Lonely Monster or Fun with Dick and Jane. Her recent speeches have been impressive and display a sure knowledge of American history and the intricacies of the Constitution — far superior, as it happens, to the president’s wobbly grasp of such matters.

There is another factor at work in the demonizing of Sarah among people who should know better. Even those who believe they are inured to the media’s disingenuous spin and are too savvy to be influenced by its microbial indoctrination are nonetheless subtly infected. The often unfavorable response to Palin by both liberal and conservative intellectuals is, without their being fully aware of it, in some measure a response to the media’s artfully crafted simulacrum. Palin’s one public relations disaster was the infamous interview with Katie Couric, but we forget that the interview was pre-recorded and that many hours of tape were afterward segmented and spliced to put her in the worst possible light. The gaffe-prone Joe Biden was treated very differently by Couric (who infamously let slide his remark about FDR going on television after the stock market crash of 1929), as was, for that matter, Barack Obama and his numerous howlers, displaying both unfitness for public office and wholesale ignorance. Palin, being neither liberal-left nor a member of the prestige class, was and is a customized victim of cliché knowledge, which circulates readily despite the supposed immunity of the intelligent. The media contagion goes deep.

The staple accusation that Palin is merely an uncultivated zealot who has no program to bring to the nation can be easily “refudiated” (lovely word!) by simply paying attention. Palin has strongly endorsed the basic Republican platform — limited government, reduced taxes, race-neutral justice, Constitutional oversight, sealed borders, a muscular foreign policy, closer ties with Israel — much of this before the new Pledge to America was released. So it’s not correct to say that she is merely reacting rather than proposing.

On the contrary, Palin should be respected for her natural intelligence, her stick-to-it-tiveness, and her patriotic instincts. She had no real material advantages, came from relatively humble origins, did not attend the best schools (had she been African-American, affirmative action would likely have lofted her into Harvard), yet rose to become the governor of a state whose political sewers she cleaned out despite determined opposition. This is not a feat that many politicians would have been capable of. Palin is indisputably miles above anyone on the liberal-left side of the ledger. If one compares her — on such criteria as personal integrity, logical consistency, moral authority, strategic insight, and political rectitude — to the other two most conspicuous women in the political theater, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton, well, it’s just no contest.

[More]

- JP

Frum throws Knepper under the bus

*
Alex Knepper is the troubled young writer who has been responsible for many vicious anti-Palin rantings at the website Race 4 2012 (formerly known as Race 4 2008), then at NewsReal Blog, and more recently at the Conservative Lite site Frum Forum. But no longer. Frum has finally thrown Knepper under the bus, but like the Vichy Republican he is, Frum is playing the blame game.

Calvin Freiburger does a nice job of exposing Frum's hypocrisy here.

h/t: Dan Riehl

- JP

Quote of the Day (August 4, 2010)

*
Craig Carter at The Politics of the Cross Resurrected:

"Why does David Frum criticize Sarah Palin so much? It is because she comes from the small government wing of the Republican Party. Why does he fear and seek to discredit the Tea Party? Same reason. Why does he not label Obama a socialist? It is because he is just as much a socialist as Obama and he is allowing the progressives to shape the narrative."

- JP

Quote of the Day (November 19, 2009)

*
Mark Steyn:

"David [Frum] seems to be channeling his inner Andrew Sullivan."

- JP

The Green Room's Doctor Zeroes In On Pompous David Frum

In the Green Room at Hot Air, Doctor Zero, scalpel in hand, shows that he knows how to use it to slice and dice Vichy Republican David Frum:

Writing on his website, which used to be called “New Majority” until he got tired of people laughing at him, David Frum published an essay called “The Palin Fantasy” over the weekend. Even as the House of Representatives was preparing to pass the most blatantly unconstitutional assault on America’s freedom in Congressional history, Frum found something really outrageous to write about: Matthew Continetti’s admiring essay on Sarah Palin’s populist appeal. It’s a good thing Frum has his priorities in order. We wouldn’t want Palin to get into office and drop a few trillion dollars of unsustainable debt on us.

[...]

Another of Palin’s qualifications is her relationship with her supporters. Contrary to the usual lazy dismissal, they’re not brimming with the kind of blind faith that put Barack Obama in office. Of course they like her. I’d be tempted to say every major politician is well-liked by their supporters, but I haven’t been able to forget about John Kerry yet. I’ve read a lot of blog posts and comments from enthusiastic Palin supporters, and they generally don’t strike me as hypnotized by the glory of her inevitable victory. They like what she says, they like her personally, and they take every opportunity to encourage her to run for office. Dismissing the ability to inspire such respect and affection as a liability is remarkably wrong-headed.

[...]

Palin’s qualifications are not merely academic. She’s been a lonely pair of boots on the ground, in conflicts where most of her presumptive rivals have been content to either sit on the sidelines or follow her lead. She’s demonstrated a willingness to take risks, and stand her ground under fire. Those are qualities Republican voters will be looking for, if they want a President who can do more than just negotiate lower monthly payments on the lethally overdrawn American Distress card.

The mocking dismissal of Palin as a pity fetish for her faithful worshipers has it exactly backward. Many of her strident critics enjoy using her as a voodoo doll to insult her supporters. They’re the real targets of accommodating “moderates” hoping to be chosen as valets to a permanent socialist ruling class. They’re the reason David Frum perches on his dreary web site, furiously scribbling equations that prove they don’t exist. Behind the endless nattering about Sarah Palin’s qualifications for President is the assertion that her supporters aren’t qualified to vote.

There you have the previews. Now go and read the full op-ed here.

- JP

Battle of the Books: Sarah Palin vs. David Frum

No contest.

- JP

As Conservatism Rises, The Faux Right Kicks and Screams

Donald Douglas, on "The Glorious Grassroots Conservative Comeback":

Check out David Frum's essay yesterday, for example, "Scorched Earth Conservatives." The post is a response to David Horowitz at FrontPage Magazine, and Frum argues that "the conservative intellectual movement has become subservient to the political entertainment complex." Frum is particularly incensed by Glenn Beck's ascendancy, but Frum has had Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin in the gunsights all year; and he lumps all those heavy-hitters together to allege that they are " inviting the Ron Paul contingent to take over as the new base and face of conservatism and Republicanism."

This is so patently stupid it obviously strains credibility. Indeed, the big deal last week was the potential feud between Beck and Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin has frankly emerged as the most prominent advocate for the U.S. military on the political right today (see, "Remembering 9/11: We Are Americans"). Ron Paul's hardly a Palin ally.

What we're seeing on the left - and the Charles Johnson/David Frum condominium is fundamentallly a left-wing project - is fear and horror that conservatives are making a comeback. And what's also interesting is that the right's unapologetic partisan pugilism isn't really new at all.

Folks might take a look at Ronald Brownstein's book from last year, The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America. Brownstein's introduction compares former House Minority Leader Tom Delay to Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. Under Delay, GOP partisanship was no less sharp and uncompromising that what we're seeing in today's tea party movement and anti-ObamaCare activism...

[...]

While Brownstein decries the "polarization," it's the case that an aggressive agenda against Democratic-socialism has long been in place on the hardline conservative right. And while the Johnson/Frum types endlessly denounce alleged "extremism" and "racism," the truth is that the grassroots right is winning the debate.

The conservative revival we are witnessing in this country has the Faux Right in a rage. They have worked for two decades to destroy Reagan conservatism and to remake the Republican Party in the image of Democrat Lite. Now more and more Americans are realizing that these ersatz conservatives have much more in common with The Left's radical elite than they do with the cause of ordinary Americans.

It's a reckoning that's been long in coming.

- JP

Frum's ignorance of Alaska constitution is obvious

Sister Toldjah, in what would be a "teachable moment" if only David Frum would be willing to learn, puts the dunce cap on the Vichy Republican in her latest blog post.

Frum showed his ignorance by trying to equate Sarah Palin's action as governor to increase the amount Alaska citizens receive from the state’s Permanent Fund with her warning about the dangers of federal government largesse. The liberal Republican columnist obviously doesn't understand the difference between the state and federal forms of government. Sister Toljah takes him to task for not realizing that Alaska's constitution defines the states resources both renewable and non-renewable as public trusts to be developed for the benefit of its citizens. To rub it in, she uses an excellent argument made by Nate Silver, who is hardly what anyone would call a right-wing idealogue:

"But apparently to David Frum, the Governor should have ignored her own State Constitution – which he also would have criticized her for had she done. That is, had he taken the time to read it in the first place, which he obviously did not – but probably would have eventually, or something."

Or perhaps ignorance isn't really the problem with liberal GOP elites like Frum. As Ronald Reagan observed:

"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so."

Update 1: Silly Sully appears to buy into Frum's argument, again proving Reagan's point. But in Andrew's case, we're willing to bet real money that he knows even more that isn't so than David does. As wrong as Frum may be about a great many things, we've never seen him advance the Trig Troofer delusion. But perhaps that's next, as Frum continues to drift, without benefit of rudder, hard to port.

Update 2: Ben Cohen also buys into David Frum's flawed POV. So is Frum writing talking points for leftist Democrats now? Honest work must be hard to come by since he left National Review.

- JP

Flea Fly Foe Frum

David Frum has now pontificated on the Palin resignation, so the Vichy wing of the Republican Party can stop holding its collective breath and exhale.

"On reflection" Frum has it all figured out. It's all about the money:

"2009-2011 will be her peak years for speaking fees. If she runs for president in 2012, she'll be obliged to cut back her paid speeches in the fall of 2011, and if she does not run, her speaking fees will dwindle away soon after."

Notice that Frum has nothing to say about about how much money bogus, politically-motivated "ethics" complaints are costing Alaska's taxpayers, nor does he even mention the legal debts the complaints have imposed on Gov. Palin's family. He tries to make it seem that the Palin resignation is some sort of coldly calculated  personal enrichment scheme by the governor. Frum also ignores the fact that Sarah Palin's book contract will provide her with sufficient income that she won't even need the speakers fees which he says motivate her.

Frum also has another imagined reason for Gov. Palin's resignation:

"Palin has visibly lost interest in the governor's job and she's fed up with criticism."

Visibly? Frum doesn't understand that its not that Sarah Palin has lost interest in the governor's job, it's that the ethics complaints are preventing her from doing it in an efficient manner. He must have missed the part where she mentioned that eighty percent of her time and that of her staff is tied up in dealing with the complaints and the numerous FOI requests her political opponents keep piling up on the state of Alaska. But its easy to see how he missed it:

He.Does.Not.Listen.

I've noticed this about Frum and other Vichy Republicans (VRs). They are so focused on filibustering that they do not listen. Like a government burdened with frivolous complaints and FOI requests, Frum's mind is so burdened with keeping up his non-stop rant that it cannot process input. This VR trait is a behavior which we have all seen in liberals when they are debating an issue. There's no give and take on their part. They try to talk louder and longer than their opponents so they can get all of their talking points in.

To illustrate the point that the VRs have more in common with liberal Democrats than with conservative Republicans, listen to the exchange between Frum and Mark Levin here and here from Mark's show after Frum had viciously attacked Rush Limbaugh:

Frum:

"We need to have a more relevant approach to economic issues that understand that it is health care that is crushing the incomes of middle income Americans. We need a new approach to the environment that accepts the legitimacy of… (Ten seconds) We need a softer line on social issues and an emphasis on competent, intelligent and fairer issues."

Levin:

"Basically, we have to surrender our principals. I get it."

Notice how Levin throws Frum off his game with a few well-placed points. It's like a cat playing with an insect.

So it's not only positions on issues that VRs share with the Left, it is tactics also. Like liberals do, Frum uses the ad hominem rather than the philosophical argument. Like some imitation mind reader, he pretends to know the motivation of those he attacks. This is another liberal trait. They always think they know the inner thoughts and motivations of those they attack. Who knew that tinfoil hats had clairvoyant properties? Like a hungry flea, he bites at his target and is as annoying as a fly that won't stop buzzing around your head until you swat it. Conservatives should be able to see that like liberals, Frum and his VR ilk are more foe than friend.

- JP

Frum shows why Vichy Republicans will kill the GOP

David Frum has done conservatives a great favor, and we should be thankful. The favor is not that he has written another negative piece about Gov. Palin. No, that's nothing new for Frum, who has been bashing the governor since she stepped up onto the national stage. Frum's gift to conservatives is that in the article, he clearly demonstrates why Vichy Republicans cannot be trusted to act in the GOP's best interests.

Referencing Todd Purdum's VF hit piece which has caused such a stir, Frum itemizes Purdum's anti-Palin talking points from the VF smear job, and then he makes this eye-opening statement:

"If true, the leaks constitute an urgent warning and public service. I believe they are true."

And there you have it. Vichy Republicans of Frum's ilk prefer to believe liberal Democrat media hacks and anonymous leakers rather than thoughtful and honest GOP moderates such as Fred Malek. Admittedly, thoughtful and intellectually honest moderate Republicans like Malek are all too rare these days.

Here's what Malek wrote about Purdum's anonymous sources today:

"I am not sure who the unnamed Vanity Fair sources are, but without question they lack chivalry and have acted in a craven manner. They also lack the facts. I am ashamed of my former campaign colleagues, whoever they are."

Of Purdum, Malek had this to say:

"The writer clearly had an unshakable point of view from the start and talked only to those who would criticize."

About Gov. Palin, Malek wrote:

"I have known many political leaders over four decades including all Republican presidents and VPs. I have come to know Sarah Palin over the past year and can state unequivocally that she is smart, curious, hard working, charming, and effective. She also has something her detractors clearly lack – a sense of honor and loyalty."

[...]

"I have seen Sarah up close with leading heavyweights, and have seen her hold her own and then some. At the dinner at my home referenced in the article, she engaged comfortably and deeply with people ranging from Alan Greenspan to Madeleine Albright to Mitch McConnell. She asked for a foreign policy discussion on her June 7 trip to Washington, and I saw her engage in an informed and spirited manner with Frank Carlucci."

We know that Vichy Republicans dismiss out of hand any argument made by conservatives. But one thinks they would at least consider what Fred Malek says. After all, he is no right-wing idealogue. Far from it, Malek is a moderate. Frum, however, totally ignores Malek, who knows Gov. Palin and has watched her closely, yet he believes Purdum, a leftist who acts as a Democrat operative. And he believes Purdum's hearsay  about what McCain staffers with a common agenda (saving their careers after running a presidential campaign into the ground) whispered into  Purdam's ear.

And that's why Vichy Republicans are such a threat to the party of Lincoln and Reagan. They trust liberal Democrats implicitly and refuse to entertain the ideas and advice of conservatives and even intellectually honest moderates. Ronald Reagan knew better than to trust liberals unconditionally. He dealt with them in the same manner he did with the Soviets,  i.e., "Trust, but verify." Vichy Republicans want to turn the Grand Old Party into a virtual clone of the Democrat Party. The American people want real choices between the political parties, not between Democrat and Ersatz Democrat.

Frum's timing was terrible. Rather than back off on the Palin attacks for a while, he instead showed his solidarity with those who are so desperately engaged in trying to destroy her. This comes at a time when many Americans have grown tired of the constant dissing of the governor, and also at a time when her favorability ratings among independents and even Democrats are on the rise.

So conservatives owe David Frum a debt of gratitude. He has demonstrated that Vichy Republicans have more in common with liberal Democrats than with center-right Republicans. Now we have a clear example to cite in the arguments we make in the battle for the heart and soul of the Reublican Party. Had it not been for Sarah Palin, who unhinges the Vichy Republicans as much as she does the liberal Democrats, Frum and others of his ilk might have kept their cool and not made this critical error.

Thank you, Mr. Frum. Keep up the good work.

- JP

Quote of the Day (May 27, 2009)

*
From Sgt Tim at Mark Levin Fan:

"Sarah Palin’s life, work, and political experience was at least the equal of Barack Obama’s community organizing, time in the Illinois state Senate, 3 years as a junior Senator, one junket to Russia with Senator Lugar, and ineffective dabbling (some say damaging) in Kenya’s internal politics. [David] Frum chose to attack the very candidate he said he would vote for come November without even taking the time to get to know her. What a guy."

h/t: Dan Riehl

- JP