Sane conservatives!, take four
They're out there I tell you! One of them has finally figured out the consequences of being the party of NO.
David Frum, of all people.
Labels: conservatives, politics, Republicans
posted by Clemens @ 1:53 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
You lost me here. Due to space limitations, I have to break my reply into two parts.
To start with, I don't think Frum has the strongest argument in the argument to which you link. Republicans have been portrayed as settling on an obstructionist strategy, but when the majority party refuses to listen, what other option do you have? I have read multiple times that Republicans have tried to contribute, but have been pushed away because the Democratic base's vision of health care is too radically different from anything a Republican might suggest. Indeed, Republican ideas that Democrats derided during the 2008 campaign have been incorporated into one or more "Democratic" bills, most memorably McCain's proposal to close the tax loophole on employer-provided health insurance benefits. Obama mocked McCain mercilessly for that, but now Democrats seem to have no other ideas for paying for their proposals. But even if I were wrong (and, to quote Mr. Monk, you know I'm not) that isn't my main beef.
Frum is really only sane on a few topics. Once you get outside his expertise he becomes not merely insane, but hypocritically insane. To wit:
Frum has repeatedly criticized Limbaugh et al., and rightly so, for their reckless choice of words and even vulgarities, for their coarsening of the public debate. Yet Frum recently stated, quite absurdly, that Sarah Palin is a woman who has come to power by sending out "strong sexual signals."
Come again? When Mark Steyn mocked him for this, Frum dug in his heels and quoted the words that probably got Rich Lowry into trouble with his wife (if Lowry's even married; I dunno).
While this may have been emotionally satisfying, it's flat-out wrong, and Frum ought to know better. Lowry's quote may explain why Palin remains popular with some people, but it certainly doesn't explain how Palin rose "to a position of power." It's a stupid argument on its face, and Frum should be embarrassed for making it.
Palin may be sexually attractive to some men. Okay, fine. I honestly don't understand attraction, just as I don't understand how supposedly smart leftists like Garrison Keillor can spout nonsense along the lines of Obama being America's first "literary" president, but I know that many conservative men find Sarah Palin sexually attractive. Big deal.
How she came to power is an entirely different story. Pre-McCain, Palin's reputation was that of a woman who had significantly cleaned up an ethically challenged state. She was competent, hard-working, and well-researched in the business of government. The government was doing much better than it had in a long, loooong time.
Now, how does she stay in power? She tells people (conservatives, anyway) what they want to hear, more or less in the same bomb-throwing way that Limbaugh et al. do, though perhaps in not quite as vulgar a fashion. In other words, she does what Democrats have been doing for decades. (See my previous comments on Howard Dean, but I could mention James Carville's description of Republican ideas as "thuggery".)
Palin does have problems as a spokeswoman for conservatism, and after her resignation I can't see myself voting for her. Using "strong sexual signals" as a way to obtain power does not strike me as one of them. Quite the contrary: her opponents seem far more obsessed with her sexuality than her supporters. Has Andrew Sullivan yet reconciled himself to the fact that the Trig Birther Conspiracy he pushed for so long was a lie?
End Pt. 1.
Pt. 2.
Besides Palin, Frum has a tendency to appear to personalize things. Two things pop immediately to mind here. First is his publication of, and subsequent attempt to defend, his wife's ill-considered broadside against Mary Ann Glendon. The article and its defense strongly suggest that neither of them really care why Glendon chose to decline the Notre Dame award. They saw it instead as an opportunity to distinguish their vision of conservatism by bashing social conservatives. Yet. Again.
Then there is Frum's obsession with his self-described "dear friend" Conrad Black. Now Frum is not the only conservative to say that Black got a raw deal; Mark Steyn does as well, which makes sense given that they're both Canadian. But Steyn doesn't gush about Black the way Frum does. In fact, Steyn's writings on the subject have fun with the matter the same way Steyn generally writes about most things.
For all his talk about serious, erudite, and/or elite conservatism, Frum's website exudes nothing of the sort. Some of the writers are quite good, but too many of them are awful, by which I mean that they frequently devolve into amateurish topics, arguments, and modes of speech. The linked news stories in the sidebars exhibit an unhealthy obsession with celebrity and/or yellow news, to which the editors attach images based apparently on how funny or stupid the person depicted will look. I've lost track of the ridiculous photos they've put up of Palin and Pelosi.
Finally you have Frum's implicit message that his is the only sane conservatism, which is deeply offensive given writers like Ramesh Ponnuru and Jonah Goldberg, who recently wrote positively of an Ezra Klein op-ed (someone they're usually disagreeing with).
So I read Frum, I usually enjoy what he himself writes, and I think he has good, important ideas on economic matters—but I increasingly dislike what he writes on social matters and even foreign policy.
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