David Frum is ‘terrified’

January 6, 2008

Slowly but surely, former Bush speechwriter David Frum has been working to restore some semblance of credibility. After his White House stint — he is often credited for helping coin the “axis of evil” phrase — Frum remained a loyal Bushie in the conservative media for quite a while, until a few months ago, when he started to voice restrained concerns about today’s Republican Party.

In August, for example, Frum wrote a piece on Karl Rove’s tenure, which argued that Rove crafted a White House political strategy that was predicated on helping Republicans, instead of helping the country.

Last month, Frum went even further, publishing a piece accusing conservative Republicans in general of embracing an unhealthy, anti-intellectual worldview.

Today, he tells the NYT’s Deborah Solomon that he’s considered the Republican Party’s standing in the current political landscape, and he’s “terrified.”

NYT: As a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former speechwriter for President Bush, you’re surprisingly critical of him in your new book, claiming he has appointed “consistently mediocre people” to important jobs and made “a shambles” of the Iraq war. Do you see the book as a mea culpa?

DF: No. Mea culpa is a kind of hand-wringing, breast-beating, woe-is-me attitude that I don’t share. What I am saying is that there is exhaustion, intellectual exhaustion on the part of Republicans and conservatives.

NYT: And that their long winning streak in Congress has ended?

DF: What I am terrified of is that the Republican Party is heading into a period of political defeat. We lost the election in 2006. I am terrified that we can lose the election in 2008. We can lose in 2012, and it will take us half a dozen years to do the rethinking we need to do.

With any luck, it’ll take at least that long.

I can say agree with the entire sentiment, but Josh Patashnik’s assessment after the Iowa caucuses raised a valid point.

Politics is not rocket science. You have one party led by a deeply unpopular, unapologetic right-wing ideologue whom its presidential candidates nevertheless decided to embrace. You have another party that has spent most of the past quarter-century undergoing the painful but necessary process of taming its own ideological excesses and tacking to the center. As a result, it now boasts appealing, mainstream candidates with pragmatic policy proposals for addressing real problems. What, exactly, did people think was going to happen? “Nature cannot be fooled,” said Richard Feynman. Nor can the median voter.

Andrew Sullivan added:

[L]ook at how the caucus-goers defined themselves in the entrance polls. Among the Dems: Very Liberal: 18 percent; Somewhat Liberal: 36 percent; Moderate: 40 percent; Conservative: 6 percent. Now check out the Republicans: Very Conservative: 45 percent; Somewhat Conservative: 43 percent; Moderate: 11 percent; Liberal: 1 percent.

One is a national party; the other is on its way to being an ideological church. The damage Bush and Rove have done — revealed in 2006 — is now inescapable.

I guess that’s why Frum is “terrified.”

Out of power terrifies them. I wish it were the possibility of prison that terrified Frum and his scum brothers.

  • Frum fears that the Democrats have a historic opportunity in this election cycle to put together a new majority coalition that will last for a generation or more. And his fears are well-founded.

    I hope we don’t blow it.

  • Wow – “intellectual exhaustion?” Is that the more high-minded version of “we got nothin’?” I guess the guy does have a way with words.

    What does Frum expect from “consistently mediocre people?” – brilliance? Frum still does not seem to have figured out that those who were appointed to various posts within this administration were not chosen for their competence, or for their ability to think independently, but for their loyalty to the party as evidenced by their monetary contributions to it, and their willingness to further an agenda of near-total presidential power, without question.

    Frum’s conscience seems to be less troubled by what these people have done than that they weren’t able to parlay it into continued electoral control.

  • “…it will take us half a dozen years to do the rethinking we need to do. — Frum”

    No, it’ll take a psychic reawakening. Conservatism as presently expressed fits neither the modern world nor democracy, yet the fear, hatred, greed and black/white thinking upon which it is based is deeply seated in the psyche of it’s proponents. It’s going to take a lot longer than a half-dozen years for conservatives to give up those primitive views of the world. I’m thinking of something more on an evolutionary scale.

  • With any luck, it’ll take at least that long.

    That’s kind of needlessly partisan, isn’t it? To the extent that the Republican party can reinvent itself as a moderate, pro-science, pragmatic, and secular institution, I think that we should all hope that it happens sooner rather than later. At least, I’m a lot more interested in what’s good for the country than I am in what’s bad for the Republican party. And competing moderate viewpoints are good for the country.

  • The thing that terrifies me is that the present rotten hard-right theocratic authoritarian GOP might ever return to power. Half a dozen years? How about “not again in my lifetime.”

    Frum is onto something in starting to notice the damage the past seven years have done to the Republican brand. We haven’t seen a presidency in the modern era that was this unpopular for this long. An entire generation has had it seared into their skulls what a nightmare it can be to let these clowns get into power. With luck we might see again what happened after the Great Depression, with over two decades elapsing before we see another Republican president.

  • If Frum admits that Bush consistently hired mediocre people, what does that say about Frum? If he admits he is mediocre, why should we bother take his lamentations seriously?

  • Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha! Bwahahahaaa!

    The people who have for several years filled their beds with stones, broken glass and rusted bits of metal suddenly roll over and say they aren’t very comfortable.

    If Frum admits that Bush consistently hired mediocre people, what does that say about Frum?
    -jen flowers

    Hee, you notice how he takes a big step away from that idea in the answer to the NYT question. “I didn’t do anything wrong, there’s nothing wrong with me, it’s those other guys who are the problem.”

    These guys must be trying to keep us laughing long enough to make a get away.

  • Brooks @ 5–I strongly agree, and I have this hope that Huckabee’s awareness of economic realities, McCain’s sense that the country needs to retain its honor by forswearing things like torture, Paul’s injection of common sense on foreign policy and even Romney’s attention to governing detail and data-driven approach to issues might somehow resonate among Republicans to create a party that differs from Dems in ways that traditional conservatives could appreciate–skepticism about what government can do, budgetary hawkishness, even regard for “tradition” if that doesn’t serve as a fig leaf for bigotry.

    But I’m not seeing it. What I think Frum–who’s misguided but no idiot–grasps is that this is party in severe denial, hoping that it can blame its problems on Bush as it always finds scapegoats (immigrants, gays, Bolsheviks, whoever) for the woes of the world rather than dealing with its true areas of blindness. They won’t change until they loosen the grip of the Norquist/Club for Greed faction, which holds every governance goal hostage to the dream of a tax-free existence for the rich.

    And until they do, I say: screw ’em.

  • Despite Frum’s admonishments, such as criticism of Repubs holding “an unhealthy, anti-intellectual worldview,” (hit that nail on the head) none of the current crop of right wing presidential candidates is acknowledging that point. Like lemmings to a cliff, conservatives have to prove just how anti-intellectual, anti-science and anti-reality they are to gain their party’s nomination.

    Conservative politics isn’t intellectually exhausted — the problem is that they have spent absolutely no time thinking and instead followed without a thought their party’s morally and intellectually bankrupt precepts. Last night’s Republican debate proves that point. If there was an innovative thought expressed last night, it was well-hidden behind extreme manifestations of the party’s staid talking points.

    When Frum says, “it will take us half a dozen years to do the rethinking we need to do,” what will instead happen is it will take a dozen or so years for conservatives to repackage the same crap they’ve been selling us since Nixon into more carefully focus-grouped concepts that this nation may once again swallow, proved there’s another opportunity like 9/11 to make the US that gullible again.

  • The redistricting after 2010 will give the GOP chances to recover in 2012–unless we continue the 50 state strategy. We need grassroots party-building, community organizing, etc. We need to be building progressive ideas and not write off anyone. Some Democratic stronghold states are projected to lose Congressional seats after 2010 and currently deep Red places like Texas are expected to gain seats. So, we have to work to build strong progressive movements in Red states.

    We need progressive think-tanks turning out position papers, articles in the popular press, etc. To shift the debate and move the center (which has been moved so far right since 1980!) will take work.

    My fear is that progressives and Dems will just rejoice in the current national feeling of rejection of Bush and everything associated with him (including the GOP and conservatism) and then get lazy. If that’s true, the Right will come ROARING back in 2012.

  • If it were just a matter of country vs. church, reality vs. fantasy, reason vs. insanity, I’d rest easy.

    But we’ve seen these people literally steal presidential elections. We’ve by fashion-consulted (Gore) and swiftboated (Kerry). We’ve “played by the rules” in Congress even when we’ve been up against people who have utter disregard for rules (Miss Manners vs. a street thug).

    No, I don’t think it’s time to rest easy until we’ve kicked the Republicans’ asses thirty ways from Sunday.

  • Here’s to the PERMANENT demise of the Greedy Old Prick’s party! WOO HOO! I am tired of fascist Amerika and total lack of concern for the majority of citizens in this country. RIP you bunch of immoral, unethical, greedy, jerks. No, I take that back, I hope each of you spend eternity spinning in your graves (hmmm…new energy source? They might prove useful in death for they certainly are a waste of oxygen now.) And I pray for the day that I can go to The Hague for those tribunals.

    Let THEM eat cake! (And if alot of them do it in prison, so much the better!)

    That said, the MSM is going to drive the next election so I can’t wait to see what $hit they throw at the wall in hopes of it sticking. Beit haircuts, religion, immigration, they will twist those 10 second sound bits into whatever they want. Fractional sentences can say whatever anyone wants them to and we’ve seen it before. As corporate media begins to fear for its existence, we will see more and more of it. And I am sure it’s going to be a real hoot seeing what the 527’s have to chime in. We’ve added swiftboating to our lexicon. What else might we add from these people? I can only hope that since the dems tend to be a little more civil, that we can get some dem 527’s who are not above playing true hardball against other 527’s AND the MSM. We’ve definitely not won yet!

    I will also say I am disappointed at how the dem candidates are tearing each other up. As an avid follower of politics for a long time, it’s sad to see what the whole process has degenerated into.

  • I really don’t like this.

    First, if the GOP embraced pro-choice, budget balacing, Iraq withdrawl, defense speding cutting, aggressive renewable energy policies tomorrow… Why why wouldn’t we be just as happy to hand the reins over to them.

    I became a Democrat because they championed these causes. In 1992 the Dems elected a man who felt victory was obtainable by turning the party’s collective back on these things and instead solicit money from business which cared nothing for the traditional concerns.

    In 2004, Howard Dean brought these issues back and called them “progressive” because “liberal” had become synoynomous with “leprous” and liberals had let it happen. Kerry defeated him and ran on precious little, still fearful of being accused of standing for something.

    Two years after crazy loose cannon Dean became party chair and squandered precious funds in angry red strongholds like Montana telling his loony “progressive” base to stand up for what they believed in, America handed both houses back to the Dems.

    The Dems didn’t tack center to win. They pulled liberal causes out of mothballs, slapped a new name on them and proceeded to kick the bad guys’ derrieres.

    The DLC is the very definition of moderate and they aren’t running the show any more. The liberals are back with a righteous vengeance. It just defies the current memes to suggest it.

  • Brooks said: “That’s kind of needlessly partisan, isn’t it?”

    Wrong, buster…that’s NEEDFULLY partisan. Or maybe you’re in favor of a tattered Constitution, an ignored Rule of Law, torture and Corporate Feudalism?? I’ve borne witness to the fundamental erosion of this great nation at the hands of thugs and fools and criminals in the name of a cursed conservative ideology which is, at its core, both anti-democratic and un-American…and I have HAD ENOUGH.

    So, to quote a friend of mine “…just as soon as Fixed News goes off the air, Bill O’Reilly’s audience finally dodders away into their unquiet graves, AM Hate Radio goes back to the business of broadcasting farm reports, traffic and high schools sports, and Dominionists are flogged back into the ignorant Bronze Age sewers from whence they came, I will gladly hang up my guns and play nice.

    And not a moment before.”

  • For those who are worried about single party rule (this includes me) the question is: Will the ReThugs make sincere changes and rebuild from the ground up or will they play nice until they get back in power and start this shit over again?

    If the former, fine. Welcome to the human race.

    If not, fuck ’em and the pony they rode in on.

    Time spent wringing hands because these guys have been systematically made their party into a farce is wasted time. How many times have people, even their own people, called for just a little tiny bit of moderation and the insiders have replied by shrieking about terrornazi coddling cut-n-running baby killing bible burners? And now the best the remaining not-completely-fucking-insane GOP voters can muster as a defense is that single party rule is bad so … um … well … You better watch out because the GOP shall return!

    Don’t count on it, and if voting R is really that important to you ask yourself if you want to go through the same soul shriveling embarrassment again 20 years from now?

    My hope is that at least one, but hopefully more parties will step in to fill the swirling vortex left when The Party of Suck implodes. In the meantime I gleefully dance around the roaring flames of the elephant roast. Call it my take on compassionate conservatism.

  • WilliamJacobs, I hope the GOP is dead and gone. I, for one, wouldn’t trust them to tell me the grass was green or the sky blue. They have lied, manipulated, or ignored us into war, recession (and you’re fooling yourself it you think we’re not in one), disintegration of the middle class, looting the treasury for their pals; I could go on but you get the drift.

    There is NOTHING the GOP could say that I would trust. They can embrace anything they want, but it would be more of the same; lies, pandering, etc. Could they mean it? Possibly. Could I ever trust that they meant it? Nope. Never. Dead in the water.

    The GOP ruined the America that I grew up and have lived in for almost half a century. They did it intentionally and willfully. I cheer their death and demise.

  • The AIE has given Frum a sinecure, and he’s using it explain away his own mediocrity for not having understood earlier on just how bad the Bush thugocracy really is. Like Greenspan, the wind is now blowing from a different direction so Frum has to reinvent himself as having nothing to do with the pending disaster. He’s “terrified” that “we” could lose this election? The only way the church of the Grand Old Pricks can win this year is by stealing the election. Oh, I forgot. They know how to do that.

    The greedheads, monarchists, fascists, and religious wingnuts who are the current Rethug party aren’t going to go through a cartharsis very quickly, if ever. This bunch never goes away, like a case of herpes they emerge periodically to make everyone else miserable while they enrich themselves, or enforce their worldview on everyone else. May they fight with each other forever, and become ever more insular. Maybe at some point the beast will become small enough to drown it in the bathtub. May I live so long.

  • Everything seems lined up for a grand Democratic success next November. The Republican candidates could hardly be worse, and the reputation of the republican party and its policies could hardly be more discredited. However, it is sobering to realize that despite all these advantages, the election will probably be close. By flirting with both theocracy and fascism, and by making a mockery of the constitution and turning us into a nation that practices pre-emptive war and which officially sanctions torture, Republicans should have earned political extinction, but they’ll probably be back all too soon. We just have to be prepared to do a better and more protracted job of fighting them off.

  • LOL Rich. The analogy of modern Republicanism to herpes is a little twisted, but in a brilliant, hilarious sort of way.

  • Can we send David Frum back to Canada and exchange him for a cow with “mad cow disease”? We’d be the gainers in the deal.

    Watching these incompetent traitorous little failed-confederate scum get their fat little asses kicked is truly heartwarming.

  • The unfortunate reality is also that once ‘progressives’ take office, and make all the changes we hope will be made, and ‘need’ to be made to go back where we were… Fixes for: constitution, habeas corpus, torture dilemma, Iraq quagmire, housing bubble bursting, financial markets, deficit spending, political appointees, cronyism, etc……

    That environment is perfect for the GOP to also do what the Bush administration and the Republican congress did when Clinton was in charge in the 90’s

    They used the existing laws to warp them into what they ‘feel’ (no thinking involved) should be. When given a chance they will do it again. That’s the thing with progressives, they don’t worry about the little drop at a time…. They usually only open their eyes when the bucket is full. That’s what the Republicans have done before, and they will do it again, if we don’t watch their every move…

    Yes republicans act like irresponsible teenagers, and like any good parenting book will tell you: You need to supervise them, and know where they are, and what friends they are hanging out with…. etc… They hate it, but it’s good for them in the end….

    As Obama seems to be willing to do: Listen to them, but that doesn’t mean agreeing with them.

  • With any luck, it’ll take at least that long.

    Overwhelming force can do a lot that cute maneuvers sometimes can’t do. With the guns of the media still blazing for the Republicans, they can still do a lot.

  • The Republican Party has been the anti-intellectual collection of thieves,perverts, criminals, back-alley assassins, traitors and bank robbers they are today since 1868. They’ve reveled in being on the wrong side of history on every issue ever since. The Party of Lincoln? More the party of Garfield, they were happy as hell to sell out everything Lincoln had stood for 16 years earlier, so they could stick their faces back in the trough and continue their crimes. They revel in being “Babbitt.” Outside of that once-in-a-century fluke, Theodore Roosevelt, there hasn’t been a Republican with an original idea since Lincoln was assassinated.

    Like my great-grand-uncle said of his experience working for Harry Truman: “the only ‘good Republicans’ are pushing up daisies.” It’s as true today as it was 50 years ago when I first heard him say it.

  • There would be entirely different polling results if the terms used were changed. How about ‘progressive’ or ‘very progressive’ rather than liberal. Defined by their stances on the issues most democratic voters would fall under the heading of progressive or very progressive rather than moderate. They want single payer not for profit universal health care, a reversal of government spying powers, do away with NAFTA and WTA, and a complete withdrawal out of Iraq and increased veterans health benefits. It is a progressive agenda which does not connect with the word “liberal”.

    The DLC is nothing more than republican light…the beltway insiders, the dinosaurs of pork, the porky pigs and the democrats call this conservative not “moderate”. They have shown themselves to be Bush enablers giving Bush everything he has asked for and more, sometimes jumping at the chance to do so as with telecom amnesty. The polls indicate that most American voters are against telecom amnesty, so if this is moderate then most American voters are not interpreting the word “moderate” the way the DLC does eh?
    The terminology used in the polls is mis interpreted with no base as to what the terms actually mean to those being polled. So conclusions based on this poll does not accurately define how voters would actually classify themselves. The term ‘progressive’ doesn’t just replace the word “Liberal” because it implies so much more but it does suggest getting the liberal agenda accomplished as long as it gets the country moving in a direction where it’s ideals and principles can flourish for all.

  • Bush and Co. delivered just about everything that the “Republican Base” ever dreamed of, short of overturning Roe v. Wade and trashing Social Security. Now that they have it all, the American People that are realizing that the Republican Utopia was, not unsurprisingly, a dystopia. DUH!!!???

    Of course Frum is terrified, the country is mired in foreign entanglements that it will take generations to remove us from and tottering on the brink of economic disaster and they’ve got nothing but “stay the course” and “cut taxes”. And try as they might, they will not be able to blame the Democrats. Oh sure, there will be a lot of talk about how the coming (maybe already here) recession is the fault of the Democratic Congress, but there is nothing there to blame it on. And I am sure that out of the fever swamp there will come cries of, “it’s all Clinton’s fault!!”, but that won’t fly either. When all is said and done, as the country falls into chaos, the Republicans are left holding the bag…and rightly so.

  • Overwhelming force can do a lot that cute maneuvers sometimes can’t do. With the guns of the media still blazing for the Republicans, they can still do a lot.

    Or, the political analog of that is, sometimes you can accomplish a lot with a really big megaphone even if you don’t have a lot of fresh new messages or great new ideas for policy.

    Would you rather have a great quarterback and head coach and a bunch of wimps for the rest of your team, or an alright quarterback and coaches teamed up with a bunch of big, strong defensive players and astoundingly great athletes as receivers? The conservatives perhaps can do a lot politically even if they are intellectually lightweight and don’t have a single new idea to improve the country, so long as they have an effective political machine.

    Why has the message about Mike Huckabee in the mainstream media for the past couple of days been about how he’s a cuddly bassist in a band? It even started with Times’ Mike Scherer, nestled in at the end of a blog post ostensibly criticizing the media’s treatment of the Republican candidates. And it’s lasted through today. The implicit message is clear: “Left-wingers, stop pointing out Mike Huckabee’s crazy policy positions and stupidity. Like him for the points we are trying to emphasize as his warm ‘n’ fuzzy features.”

  • I agree with what Dale said:

    “Out of power terrifies them. I wish it were the possibility of prison that terrified Frum and his scum brothers.”

    I do not usually wish misery on others, but just compensation is apt in this case. Those who bluffed and lost need to concede the pot. At this point, the only way they do not lose is by continued undemocratic means. Undemocratic means might explain why out country looks the way it does today.

  • It occurs to me that the Conservative & neo-con-tingent of the Republican Party is more or less the South of the Civil War… Trying desperately to cling to an old, dying paradigm in the face of frightening change and a reordering of the world as they know it.

    The end result will be the inevitable same – they’ll lose, at great cost to us all, and then they’ll spend some decades denying the loss and waiting for the old order to rise again.

  • This is just a background note about Frum, he is canadian, not that that is bad I am a dual citizen myself living in canada. His mother Barbara Frum was a very popular commentator. Her views were extremely liberal. David Frum was a very conservative columnist who wrote in canadian publications. He may have made a move to the US because he was too conservative for canadians, or Canada was too liberal for him.

  • There sure is a lot of counting chickens before they’re hatched upthread. The Dems have to win the GE first and it’s just not going to be that easy. The GOP is cornered now and maybe wounded, but that really does make it more dangerous.

    This is going to be a horribly ugly autumn and it really depends on who the Dems nominate as to how strong the party will be Nov.8. Sen. Clinton has undergone their Lord of the Rings treatment for 15 or so years and has emerged stronger; John Edwards went through a brutal campaign at their hands and apparently also emerged stronger; Sen. Obama has never had a difficult campaign, so I have no idea how he would come out of it. There is a tough choice to make during the primaries and the MSM is certainly not helping with their pack mentality and thrill in the trivial and easy.

    If I were a Democrat, I’d leave the counting of my chickens until Nov 9 2008 and would work really hard until then to get my candidate nominated and then elected.

  • MsJoanne @ 17.
    I never said I thought the GOP could change….
    I am merely advising against the mindset that invokes mindless party loyalty.
    In the wildly unlikely case that the GOP were to embrace my values better, I am not wedded to the brand name “Democrat”.
    I am committed instead to the things Democrats used to (and once again???) stand for.

    We had good Republicans in the northeast.
    Alas, they filled the seats that allowed a batspit crazy Republican majority to run our nation.
    Truly moderate Republicans are a very good thing for our country. They provide a backstop to how far right the Democrats are allowed to go. Without them, the Democrats could become a party of Sam Nunns and Joe Lierbermans and sweep the table producing a Democratically controlled country worse than we’ve ever seen (if you can imagine that.)

    Our vitriol for the opposition should be less reflexive than that of our opposition.
    Let us not become slaves to our prejudices.

  • Here’s what Frum is terrified of: Unlike voters of old, nearly every single new voter coming online is fully net-savvy. They have full access to readily disseminated information, and thereby have easy access to the tools necessary to see the bullshit the GOP has been selling all along. The old voters got all their information from corporate controlled entities; radio, TV, “news”papers. And with control of the media, the corporationwhores in the GOP could always manage to (just barely) win enough elections by fooling people.

    But all of tomorrow’s voters are able to see the man behind the curtain. And to have the first generation of truly information-empowered voters coming on line now, at a time when the GOP is imploding, is doubly horrific for Frum and his criminal friends. In general, these new voters will keep their self-selected party identity, no matter if the GOP reforms itself or not. From the larger perspective, unless the Republicans can gain control of the internet information stream (not bloody likely) they’re dead meat.

    Frum sees nothing short of an electoral tombstone with his party’s name on it. The only thing he can hope for is for a truly progressive party to emerge and split the Dem votes. Unfortunately, this is not just an idle hope, since Nancy and Harry are doing their best to piss off all these new progressive voters.

  • More on Frum:

    David Frum attended Bilderberg 2002 along with Conrad Black. Conrad Black gave Frum his job at the National Post… Frum admits to working for Guiliani and writes articles in the National Post in Canada criticizing Ron Paul and other GOP candidates… His mother, on the other hand, was a well respected journalist.

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