You're right. Frum is more of an attack dog than a real thinker. He's fighting for his own causes, and he's never been very fair to those he disagrees with. Much of Frum's argument amounts to guilt by association -- the policies he supports must be right because of the connections of some of those who oppose them -- but as Frum himself has apparently come to realize, such an argument doesn't prove that the policies in question are the right ones.
I'm no fan of Rockwell and his crew, and I've gotten disillusioned with Fleming, Bradford, Francis, and Gottfried over time, but what gets left out of Frum's picture is just how much of a new departure Bush's policies were. Right or wrong, they surely merited discussion on their own terms, and not such a string of ad hominem attacks.
Thanks for your insight.
As a reader who can read a bit of history and who actually enjoys books on political theory and political science, I have spent the last 15 years trying to catch up on the field I somewhat knew in the sixties in my undergrad work. Working outside those areas since that time, I have had a lot of catching up to do.
However, the general reader of this forum may read some of these articles and be totally misled if a little background isn't shared, so I try to give my two cents without just taking a side, since the author can't engage in any dialogue. I know that I rely on and appreciate the insight offered by those when other threads run into topics where there insight give the reader background to understand the importance or frame of reference that the author has when writing the article.
I am not unlike others on the thread however, in that, since 1992 we have watched Buchannan and others that we had some common ground with, marginalize themselves and get further and further afield as they carve out divisions and get narrower and narrower in their agreement with the general conservative population.