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.

[EveningStar]

Horowitz did not write this. A guy named John R. Guardiano at Horowitz's blog wrote it.

Reading comprehension: 4.7%.

[Breto]

I believe your point does not invalidate my observation. Certainly not on Medved a self confessed libertarian hater and hard core move left to win republican.

[TopQuark]

"harsher tongue for the right than they do the left. Horowitz is one,"

Have you read any of his books?

[Breto]

yup and I have have suported him with donations of money a few times. Didnt say I dont like him.

[9YearLurker]

Isn’t it amazing how many supposedly conservative pundits seem to think their should be some sort of life tenure for any and all pundits that have managed at some point to climb aboard the pundit gravy train? They sound like Leftists bemoaning some sort of loss of freedom of speech because someone else wants to stop paying them for it.