Frum’s Fall is the Right’s Loss

David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog ^ | 3/25/10 | John R. Guardiano

[Michael van der Galien]

The Right’s response to David Frum’s perceived heresies has inflicted serious intellectual and political damage on the conservative movement.

I’m a full-spectrum conservative of conviction. But even if I leaned to the left, I still would find it laudatory that, in recent decades, political conservatives in America have been the most steadfast defenders of freedom of speech and the most vigorous champions of free and open intellectual inquiry.

Indeed, no graduate of an American college or university in the past quarter century cannot help but notice that the biggest threat to free speech today comes not from the political Right, but from the academic Left.

And it’s not just America, but Canada, too, which suffers from this problem. Why, only this week Ann Coulter was prohibited from speaking at the University of Ottawa.

So it is with great sadness and disappointment that I read today of David Frum’s forced resignation from the American Enterprise Institute.

AEI, of course, has long been home to some of the world’s greatest scholars and academics, including many who have been shunned by the academy for their right-leaning views.

But David, it seems, has pushed the intellectual envelope too far even for AEI’s tastes.

On Sunday, for instance, David charged conservatives and Republicans with helping to bring about the healthcare debacle because, he alleged, they were unwilling to negotiate in earnest with the Democrats.

I think David’s mistaken about this. I don’t think Obama and the Dems ever showed any real willingness to negotiate in good faith with conservatives and Republicans.

Nonetheless, David’s view is hardly extreme or beyond the pale.

[Dahoser]

Oh yes, things went so swimmingly well with Frum on board.

[gwilhelm56]

Frum’s ouster is only a loss to the RINO LEFT

[muawiyah]

David's point of view is so extreme as to defy reality. One thing Conservativism doesn't need is criticism for not discussing things with Obama and his running dog lackeys.

They believe they have all the votes they need to do anything they want. The result is they lecture and hecter, but do not discuss.

It is foolish for Conservatives to waste time and money trying to get Leftwingtard attention to this problem ~ and that's all Frum had to offer us ~ advice to waste more time and money.

[jazminerose]

Oh for cryin out loud. They didn’t execute the guy, they dumped him. Businesses to that all the time to clear the deadwood.

Spare me the melodrama. Nobody is worse off if Frum doesn’t have a job.

He can still blather nonsense.

[kevkrom]

Frum’s ouster has nothing at all to do with “freedom of speech” — he’s free to keep spreading his ill-conceived drivel whenever he wants, just no longer with the backing of the AEI.

Frum is free to speak his mind, but he’s also responsible for what he says. When his words no longer coincide with the principles he allegedly represents, an organization like AEI is under no obligation to continue to support him.

[TokuMei]

Love Horowitz, but throwing Frum overboard into the much will “encourage the others”. I hope.

[rockrr]

Frum’s scribblings were politically motivated and intellectually dishonest. Should the AEI be compelled to retain a dishonest “employee” just to placate the insatiable appetite of political correctness?

[Rockingham]

David Frum is intelligent and a capable writer. Yet Frum is not entitled to a paying perch at AEI or anywhere else, and him losing his position with AEI is not a loss to conservatives. Frum will no doubt be able to find a venue in which to express his views and make the case for them as consistent with conservative principles.

[Pietro]

David, is the so-called conservative that attempted tp belittle Tea Party protesters the day before the final house vote. And then laughingly called HCR the GOP Waterloo.

I'd say Mr Frum wrote his own ticket out of town.

W/ conservatives like that who needs liberals.

[MissesBush]

Gag me. Frum isn’t a conservative. He’s a liberal who loves being the left’s little darling. Frum is an Obama leg tingler who because Obama invited him to dinner before he was inaugurated sold his soul to the devil to be Obama’s little 5th column robot on the right. How can anyone be a conservative who would tell us to just learn to live with Obamacare, the most massive government instrusion onto the private sector in modern US history? Conservatism and the GOP would lose all reason for being if it acquiesed to this atrocity. Just what does Frum want conservatism to stand for exactly, having a man crush on Obama like he has??

This bill is hated by the public and the political opportunity it presents for conservatism to re-assert itself and for the GOP to finally find a way to re-make itself into the party of fiscal conservatism is once-in-a-lifetime. If we listen to idiots like Frum, we’d just become a permanent minority. The GOP will never come to the fore again just being the wimpering, sad little spineless creature fools like Frum want to make of it, nothing but a permanent shadow party to the Democrats. Frum is nothing but a stooge to the left and anyone who thinks this guy being a loss to conservatism is equally clueless. The guy represents nothing to the right other than being a big, ludicrious joke. Good riddance to bad trash. Frum isn’t one of us. He’s a co-opted Obama zombie operating under the pretense of being a conservative while standing for nothing conservative.

[dirtboy]

But David, it seems, has pushed the intellectual envelope too far even for AEI’s tastes.

Frum has been trying to define conservatism leftwards for some time. The AEI finally wised up to it. And Horowitz confuses getting no longer getting paid to write with censorship, which is nonsense. Frum can blog away to his heart's content, but if he wants conservatives to pay for it, he needs to start acting more like one.

[SmokingJoe]

But even if I leaned to the left, I still would find it laudatory that, in recent decades, political conservatives in America have been the most steadfast defenders of freedom of speech and the most vigorous champions of free and open intellectual inquiry.

This guy doesn't get it. This is not about free speech. David Frum is free to say whatever he likes..on ABC, CNN, New York Times whatever. What he is not free to do is to pass himself off as a representative of a conservative think thank, when he is in fact a flaming, loony left radical of the 0bamabot persuation. AEI has every right to terminate a lunatic, who spend his entire time bashing what AEI stands for.
He is free of course to continue spewing as much as he like, just not as an AEI fellow.

[Breto]

There is a cluster of ex-60’s leftist passing themselves off as modern day converts to conservatism that always seem to have a harsher tongue for the right than they do the left. Horowitz is one, Michael Medved is another. I have no idea what they try top prove with their gentlemanly concern for the poor left and rino class. They seem always quick to condemn many in the grass roots conservative movement.

[matginzac]

Sorry but don’t let the door hitcha...
Frum is a distraction, a publicity ‘hoe, a RINO and an enabler for the leftie media...
Let the leftie media get their own stooges...we don’t need Frum being their ‘hoe...

[wardaddy]

you just described many Neocons who also used to write for the New Republic too

they are simply not social conservatives

many are yes...Jewish named...but not all

I’ve observed this for 25 years since I used to read Chuck Krauthammer and Barnes and O’Rourke in the New Republic in early 80s

Kristol seems more above it.

David Brooks was another...just like Frum.

We simply don’t need any “what culture war?” types leading conservatism...they can choose sides

Horowitz is hard to peg but while he eschews Socialism he is no Mark Levin...

[Tex-Con-Man]

And it’s not just America, but Canada, too, which suffers from this problem. Why, only this week Ann Coulter was prohibited from speaking at the University of Ottawa.

So it is with great sadness and disappointment that I read today of David Frum’s forced resignation from the American Enterprise Institute.

Huh? AEI deciding they don't wanna pay a guy $100,00. a year for not showing up is equivalent to a mob of angry leftists threatening physical harm to Coulter for a speech?

Again...Huh?

[Maelstorm]

David Frum has the same problem Noonan and others have they kiss the butts of the left. They choose to fight on the terms of the left and on a playing field on which conservatives can never win. They never write lengthly articals confronting the hate of the left but jump to lend credence to every perceived slight of the left.

[driftless2]

There have been a number of “conservatives” who’ve been kicked out certain conservative publications. Joseph Sobran, Samuel Francis, Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, and others have been told to take a hike from National Review. That does not stop them from spouting off in other venues. If in the minds of the people who own a particular political website don’t feel a certain scribbler does not represent thier interests, then that’s their business. Tough toenails for David Frum, but he’s hardly silenced.

[VOA]

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