David Frum's Diary

NR.com ^ | 11/14/03 | David Frum

[swilhelm73]

A number of readers offered a very astute response to my forebodings of yesterday. They said, to summarize: “The analogy you’re looking for, David, isn’t Chicago 1968 – it’s Caracas 1958. When a Venezuelan mob attacked Nixon’s car and nearly killed him, Americans saw his courage and cool. Nixon returned to receive a standing ovation from both houses of Congress.”

It’s an interesting point. Although the optics of the president’s UK visit will be ugly for him, on further thought they may well turn out in the end to be more dangerous for the Democratic front-runner, Howard Dean. If next week’s visit to London goes as I fear it will, the Democratic candidates for president will have to decide what, if anything, to say about it. In 1958, Senator John F. Kennedy condemned the Caracas rioters and joined the ovation for Nixon. I doubt that any of this year’s crop will have the wisdom and discipline to do that. They will be tempted either to keep silent – or else possibly to blame Bush for the rampaging of left-wing and Islamic extremist mobs. Satisfying as that will be to them, it will also tend to identify them with those mobs.

In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower skillfully condemned the Truman administration’s conduct of the Korean war without ever flirting in any way with isolationism or (as goes without saying) the anti-American hard left. The antiwar Democrats of the 1960s and 1970s lacked Eisenhower’s skill – and discredited their party for a generation. The antiwar Democrats of the 00s are repeating the mistakes of their youth. It won’t be just the American flag that the London protesters will burn – it will also be the last remaining vestiges of the antiwar movement’s image. After next week, Americans will see that movement for what it is – and will almost certainly come closer to seeing those national Democrats who have lent aid and comfort to that movement for what they are.

On to London

The Daily Telegraph has invited me to London to cover the president’s visit. I will be blogging from the United Kingdom all next week. My Telegraph articles will be available at www. Telegraph.co.uk – an essential conservative site if there ever was one.

Shedding Surplus Pounds

After years of monopolizing most of my house’s storage space, I have reluctantly been persuaded by wife and family that the time has come to part with my extra copies of my old books. So, question: would any NR readers be interested in purchasing signed copies?

I have surplus copies of

(a) Dead Right, my 1994 critique of the post-Reagan Republican party (both hardcover and paperback); (b) What’s Right, a 1996 collection of essays (the larger Canadian edition is available in both hardcover and paperback; the U.S. edition in hardcover only); (c) How We Got Here: The 70s – the Decade That Brought You Modern Life, hardcover and paperback.

Hardcovers are available for $27 (or $34 in Canadian funds); paperbacks for $16 (or $20 Canadian). We pay shipping. Please send checks or money orders to

[billhilly]

It is interesting to be reminded of Richard M. Nixon and his Caracas visit as Vice President. I have another memory of him as president.

In mid June of 1974, after his return from a triumphant visit with President Sadat of Egypt, I sat all morning in the office of one of his speech writers as the President held a cabinet meeting. At home he was under vicious attack from the media and the left, and just two months later, he would leave the office, but that morning he was elated as he regaled his cabinet with stories of the huge reception he had received from millions of Egyptians who lined the streets from the airport upon his arrival. They cheered his every mile, for indeed, Richard M. Nixon was a great world leader. Those Egyptians were, after all, arabs.

The speechwriter with whom I visited that morning was a jew, as was his father, who I was there to meet at the son's request. Herb Stein was Economic Advisor to President Nixon, and his son, Ben Stein, now an actor, was the speechwriter. Another prominent Jew, Henry Kissinger was in that meeting as Secretary of State. We cooled our heels in Ben's office, with him calling his father's every thirty minutes or so to inquire if he had returned from the cabinet meeting. Until I die, I will never forget the comic timing of Ben's remark to me after about the fourth call to his dad's office. Placing the phone in its cradle, he deadpanned, "Oh God, the president must be showing his slides."

My point is this. There was a time when a President of the United States, in the post WWII era, during impeachment threats, in a cold war, had already exceeded any subsequent "Camp David Accords" or other showy middle east "solutions.

It was a different world then, but already the destruction of the republican party was underway. They almost succeded.