David Frum: As I Feel, So Feels the World!
I’ve had just about enough of David Frum; he is the epitome of the ‘personally betrayed’ conservative whose support for the President who used to employ him is so thin that a Supreme Court nomination, for cryin’ out loud, has derailed it. David, chill a little; it’s not the end of the Republic. Even more annoying is the tendency of Frum to think that his own outrage is mirrored in the populace at large.
Perhaps I’ve been guilty of underestimating the damage the Miers nomination has done to the President’s standing with the base, but does anyone doubt that Frum is overstating it by orders of magnitude?
Offending your supporters has real-world consequences. With one grave misjudgment, George W. Bush has shattered the coalition that brought and returned him to power in 2000 and 2004.
Please…here’s more Frum:
[The President's nominatino of Miers] disregards and insults the seriousness with which conservatives have worked for three decades to bring change to America’s high-handed courts. There is no domestic issue that conservatives care about more, nothing for which individual conservatives have made greater personal sacrifices than to get ready for the day when a conservative president and a Republican Senate would at last hold the power to fill that crucial swing seat on the court.
Well, forgive me for saying so, David, but that sounds like you’re looking for someone who will legislate from the bench. It’s okay for us, but not for the other guys? Or is your point too subtle for ignorant ol’ me?
This is one woman, of 9 justices, who, even if confirmed, will sit on the bench a finite number of years. By all means, oppose away, you may even sway some fence-sitters like myself…but not with this kind of fit-throwing. David Frum, you need to get a grip…if Bush has lost your support, fine…but stick to facts, and quit projecting your feelings onto the American public, or even the ‘typical’ conservative (if there is such a thing)…
Hear, hear! Good post, Mark. I think I support Miss Miers, just because there’s no guarantee we’d get anyone better. From Federalist 66, paragraph ten:
Hamilton was right. We might not get Luttig or Pryor or Owen or Brown. We might get someone worse, a real stealth nominee that might turn out to be a Souter, someone the President doesn’t know as closely as he does Miss Miers. I’d rather not risk it.
No kidding, Mark. If this president’s complete and total incompetence hasn’t forced Frum off the bandwagon yet, I can’t see how one instance of cronyism out of a million should be the last straw. George W. Bush is every day looking more and more like the worst president since Nixon, but Miers is a poor reason for abandoning him if nothing else has budged you.
Worst then Clinton?
Canadians…feh.
What we need is a short-handed way to identify these cronys. So why not use the intials “F.O.B.” for Friends of Bush? Oh, wait that’s been taken.
Hi Mark,
There is nothing better than a good fight among thoughtful conservatives. The Miers affair seems to show that many otherwise thoughtful conservatives can blow the hot air on occasion just like the other side. David Frum, Bill Kristol, and a few other pundits seem to be way too impressed with their self-perceived place in conservative leadership.
I can only speak for myself, but I see no reason why Ms. Miers won’t be a good judge or why her nomination will make any long term difference to the conservative cause anyway.
Good post. Thanks for adding a little perspective to the ranting of Frum.
Many thanks, David. Indeed, way too impressed is a good description…I don’t recall voting for David Frum or Bill Kristol in any recent elections…
Fred, how about FOW (Friends of ‘W’)?
Fred – Worse than Clinton? By about a mile. I suspect that history will rank Clinton as a fairly average president, while Bush may just get the award for most well-meaning idiot ever to bring the world to the edge of complete disaster.
Yeah, but Ryan, how do you REALLY feel about Bush?…
Bush’s legacy?
Iraq.
Clinton’s legacy-monica or hillary.
I have little doubt that there is going to be a winner in Iraq-it’s called government. Bush will get credit for it. Bush makes you sick? Get a tanker truck for the barf bag you will need for the rest of your life.
The victors write history. When every other country in the ME falls into representative government over the next 50 years, Bush will be the architect for world history.
Right or wrong? If the result of the ridicule Reagan withstood, played a modest role in establishing him as one of the five greatest Presidents, top ten to others, then the criticism bush faces now, in the face of what he will have accomplished, I have no doubt about his legacy.
Please tell me an alternate ending…that will bring endless shame to his two terms.
AbuGrahib, Gitmo, Plame/Wilson, The 14 words, et al. are meaningless compared to Iraq.
Gulf Coast Bandit, good Hamilton quote…nothing like a little Federalist to put things in perspective…
Given the level of vitriol Frum has hurled, I’m left wondering if he was on the losing end of some inner-court power battles that involved her during his White House days.
I’d be far more inclined to come out against Miers if so many of her critics didn’t seem so out of their minds on the matter. There’s good reasons to be upset that President Bush didn’t make a better choice, but acting like he deliberately tried to hurt your feelings and nominated Ted Kennedy for the job isn’t one of them.
mark the lesser – You’re playing some very brave speculation when you say that every government in the Middle East is going to have representative government in fifty years. You’re also betting that history won’t remember the PATRIOT Act, widespread torture, Gitmo, the incompetent response to the destruction of one of America’s largest cities, enormous deficits, and the worst cronyism since Warren Harding. Again, that’s awfully brave.
My suspicion is that Clinton’s legacy will be balanced budgets between two exorbitant spendthrifts (I’m not counting the senior Bush here). Again, no better than average, but I think that’ll be better than Bush.
And Bush doesn’t make me sick. I’m just tired of having to listen to people defend him when they should know better. He made two decisions that we like (War on Terror and tax cuts), neither of which appears to have been all that successful, and yet half of us are hailing him as the greatest thing since sliced bread. The GOP is wearing blinkers and it’s getting really, really old.
Frum’s inner child is showing, and it’s getting awfully embarrassing to watch.
But Ryan…what could be bigger than the War on Terror? All that other stuff pales in comparison…
“You’re also betting that history won’t remember the PATRIOT Act, widespread torture, Gitmo, the incompetent response to the destruction of one of America’s largest cities, enormous deficits, and the worst cronyism since Warren Harding. Again, that’s awfully brave.”
He was reelected-so there goes the patriot act, your belief in wide-spread torture…7 convictions? How many senators voted for the Patriot act, again?
George bush destroyed NO? Sipping koolaid? No one cares about it…the news is how much NO wants to rebuild…
Warren Harding? Can 5% of the population tell you who Warren Harding was? Can they name a Harding crony? Cronyism- The latest flavor of the month, you won’t be able to sustain the charge, becuase it is clouded by every other complaint.
Predicting that Iraq is a failure based on media reports, based on other media reports, based on other media reports…who is being brave? or simply naive?
All the complaints dilute the others…without having control of either house…the message just fades. Tsk, tsk.
Mark the first – Nothing is bigger than the War on Terror, which is precisely why it’s so troubling that our success has been pretty minimal. Afghanistan and Iraq are not in much better shape than they were when we got to them, terrorist attacks aren’t exactly slacking off (everyone likes to point out how we haven’t been attacked since 9/11, but how many times were we attacked before 9/11? The issue here is that terrorist attacks in the U.S. are rare, not that we’re actually doing much.), and we aren’t exactly making a huge dent in the causes of terrorism – whether you call them poverty, ignorance, tyranny, or radical Islam.
Mark the Lesser – My belief in widespread torture? Wow. That is a seriously disgusting claim to make. Do you honestly believe that groups like Amnesty International are lying when they make their reports? Do you honestly believe that the 90 senators who thought this was such a serious issue that they just passed an amendment clarifying our opposition to it? Does Ian Fishback not serve as a credible source for you? More than that, though, you’re measuring the amount of torture being done by the number of people convicted of torturing people? That’s an awfully bizarre measure, seeing as how the administration isn’t likely to punish people following its orders.
Point two: I never said anything about Bush destroying New Orleans. I said he sat on his hands while it was flooding. I don’t cut the local government any slack either, but that only makes it more imperative for Bush to have done something. He didn’t, and public opinion polls reflect the fact that Americans don’t think he did a good job either. In fact, opinion polls don’t think he’s doing a good job on much of anything. Shocking. Maybe it’s because he’s not.
And my final complaint is this, which I alluded to above: you accuse me of drinking the Kool-Aid at the same time you defend the administration’s position that there’s no torture going on – never mind the reports piling up that say otherwise – and then accuse me of believing what the media has to say about something. That’s a very strange position to take, claiming that the right’s defense of its own war is more credible than the reports from the news media. Who exactly is drinking Kool-Aid here?
“which is precisely why it’s so troubling that our success has been pretty minimal.”
I haven’t seen a definitive detailing of the failure-any good articles, recent, that cover it? The number of casualties is horrific…but it appears that a representative government with the most powerful army in the ME, was just overthrown from a dictatorship into a representative government. They are voting on their constitution in 4 days, and will elect a permanent parliment in december. Less than three years…yep, this is just as big a failure as the louisiana purchase and Seward’s folly, combined. history does funny things, it reports facts, and not sentiments.
“you defend the administration’s position that there’s no torture going on”
The administration has not denied it, on the contrary they prosecuted it.
It goes on in isolated incidents. It goes on in prisons, mental hospitals, and nursing homes across the US. Rather go after those criminals first, but it isn’t important that it happens in America, at least to these politcians.
“the incompetent response to the destruction of one of America’s largest cities”
Let’s see, there is a poll…
title-Poll: Bush Not Taking Brunt of Katrina Criticism
http://abcnews.go.com/US/HurricaneKatrina/story?id=1094262&page=1
44% blame bush, 55 did not.
FEMA-?
from a cnn poll
“18 percent said federal agencies are “most responsible” for the problems, 25 percent said state and local officials are to blame, and 38 percent think no one is to blame; 6 percent have no opinion.”
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/7/125349.shtml
NewOrleans screwed themselves. The levies, the buses, the governor not calling the President until Wednesday.
Check the hardball transcript for Monday night, matthews gets Balnco on the phone at the end of the show-
“Looks like New orleans dodged a bullet.
“Blanco: Yes we were very lucky.
Yep, those locals were on top of it.
Matthews: Governor, it looks like the Big Easy got a little break, because, last night, early, when we were reporting, it looked like you were going to get the right punch. It looks like that was delivered to Mississippi.
GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO (D), LOUISIANA: Chris, the downtown area of New Orleans did survive without as much pain…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9133330/