You know, when your party--a party that, I might add, put into office the Worst President in American History With Whom You'd Like to Have a Non-Alcoholic Beer; led the lie-ridden battle cry to invade a sovereign nation; drained the Treasury and drove us into the current record-breaking, staggering debt; assaulted the Constitution at every turn...oh, you know the drill--anyway, when your party, which has veered so far from the core values of true, capital-C Conservatism with its borrow-spend-deregulate-obliterate mentality, is finally exposed for the crony-and-lobbyist-filled sham it actually is, and your top two office-seekers are exposed for the race-baiting, lying charlatans they are, you really have no right (so to speak) to attack the Left.
No right whatsoever, David Frum.
And try as you may to work that old equivalency meme--"Wah wah wah...why can't we elevate the discourse...wah wah wah...the Left's sarcastic, unserious commentary based on fact is just as bad as our V.P.-nominee calling the Democratic Presidential nominee a terrorist and whipping up a crowd of violent thugs to the point where they yell out assassination threats while she stands there and does nothing"--I'm afraid you are not going to get that rubbish to fly, sir.
And throwing it at our brilliant, talented, ten-times-more-intelligent-than-you Rachel Maddow is not going to win friends or influence anyone, either.
Watch the video of last night's show and see this disgraceful human being for yourself. Mad props to the über-professional Rachel for keeping her cool and responding appropriately (to put it mildly).
UPDATE: Mr. Frum blames his interview crankiness on jet-lag and then takes a sarcastic (!) swipe at liberals who e-mailed him because they correctly refer to Rachel as Dr.--not Ms.--Maddow.
What Mr. Frum is worried about is the total intellectual bankruptcy of his party and the fact that it's become so easy to legitimately attack his party. Forget that they are killing satire with a glut of material...
Racists, paranoids, bigots, economic royalists are all the Right has left...The adults are about to take over, and Frum is having to 'put lipstick on a pig' of a political campaign.
Posted by: MR Bill | October 14, 2008 at 07:09 AM
Oh my God -- the balls of Mr. "Axis of Evil" crying out for a more civilized and "serious" discourse.
I knew I should have hit him when he sideswiped my car a few weeks ago. Why, oh why, did I have to be so civilized?
Rachel ate his lunch though. I love her.
Posted by: Sir Charles | October 14, 2008 at 07:54 AM
What a sad, pathetic, little man. The sneering, supercilious, condescending faux-concern is really too much to take. This is precisely the kind of person who inspires even those of us who've never thrown a punch in our lives to wish we could begin with him. He's a little snot. I don't know how else to put it.
And to claim that satire, that humor, isn't "grown-up"?? WTF?? I guess Jonathan Swift was immature, right, Frum? Ambrose Bierce was an intellectual toddler? Molière a lightweight?
I'll tell you what's lightweight -- trying to equate rabid racism with satirical wit, incitement with explication.
Frum is a punk.
Posted by: Lisa Simeone | October 14, 2008 at 08:05 AM
From The American Conservative, no less, I bring you this:
Now let’s get one thing straight. Unlike Pat and Scott, and despite the advice given to me by an NR higher-up, I will not take the high road. If this bum Frum thinks he’s the only one who cannot see a belt without hitting below it, he’s got another thing coming. From what I’ve heard, Frum is a climber who fouls everyone and everything that takes him in, with the White House being just one example. This buffoon was fired by the Bushies, then went around threatening to sue if someone hinted that he didn’t quit on his own. (You were fired Frum, and I welcome your lawsuit.) He is a cheap Canadian careerist who jumped on the neocon bandwagon and is now using anti-Semitism as a stick to beat us with. Mind you, to be called “unpatriotic” and an “anti-Semite” by this shameless publicity hound has to be a compliment.
I only met Frum once, at a Conrad Black party, where he came up Uriah-Heep-like, actually looking more like the oily Peter Lorre in “The Maltese Falcon.” I know his kind. He will use anyone—including his wife, which he did in spreading the claim that he invented the phrase “axis of evil”—in order to advance his career. Like his icon Sammy Glick, Frum tries to make it by stepping on bodies, but he will end up like Glick, a marginal fellow who tells tall tales about himself. He reminds me of another David—Brock—both of them being ugly pipsqueaks who specialize in telling without having kissed.
Taki Theodoracopulos
April 21, 2003
Posted by: Lisa Simeone | October 14, 2008 at 08:15 AM
You know, Maddow wasn't fair to Palin on the "get the memo" thing. Palin has so many newspapers to read, it's hard to get to campaign memos.
As for Frum, his bleating is coming across more and more as just that: pathetic bleating. Even Americans that don't really like Democrats are getting turned off by the rank hypocrisy of the GOP. Amazing what happens when the press actually reports what's happening and what people really say instead of the narrative they're fed by the Republican party.
Obama's approval rating is higher than his support in the latest polls, while McCain's is the opposite. This suggests to me that even hardcore supporters of the GOP brand, people who can't bring themselves to vote for a Democrat, are disgusted with McCain - and most likely not only him, but the Republican party as a whole.
It's amazing to consider that their identity politics has failed so entirely that people who don't plan on voting for Obama actually like him. That's incredible to me, and hopefully will mean that they'll just stay home November 4th.
Posted by: Stephen | October 14, 2008 at 09:29 AM
He is a cheap Canadian careerist who jumped on the neocon bandwagon and is now using anti-Semitism as a stick to beat us with. Mind you, to be called “unpatriotic” and an “anti-Semite” by this shameless publicity hound has to be a compliment.
Lisa, that is awesome. And from the AC, too--wow.
I'd say the wheels are coming off more than just the McCain campaign. It's raining wheels, hallelujah!
Posted by: litbrit | October 14, 2008 at 11:21 AM
Well, this was back in 2003, yet we still have the specter of Frum haunting the airwaves.
Posted by: Lisa Simeone | October 14, 2008 at 12:15 PM
Oh, dear, you mean because she has a Ph.D.? Does she also have an M.D.? Sorry, but I'm not with the crew on this one. I think calling Ph.D.s "Dr" is incredibly pretentious. Unless you're a physician, I ain't calling you "Dr."
Posted by: Lisa Simeone | October 14, 2008 at 12:22 PM
I think Ph.Ds have a better claim on the title than physicians. Doctor is an academic title, anyway, and an MD is just a really hard vocational degree - like a JD and my own practically worthless M.Div.
Posted by: Stephen | October 14, 2008 at 03:33 PM
When I was in college, I called my Ph.D professors "Dr. So-and-So". Friends today who have that title on paper are usually introduced using, or not using, whichever name and title combination they prefer (most Americans like to go by first names). But I always use Dr. in written correspondence to people who do, in fact, have doctorates.
What I find really, really pretentious is when people like that Miller daughter (she's famous socialite and one of the few people left who can afford haute couture, so Vogue loves her) who married an ex-prince of Greece (Greece no longer recognizes royal titles) as "Princess Marie Chantal of Greece". I mean, really. If you're an American businessman's daughter who was born in Hong Kong and you happen to marry someone whose family was ousted (if memory serves) from the country when it became a democracy, how on earth does that make you "of Greece"? It's pretentiousness times ten.
Posted by: litbrit | October 14, 2008 at 04:50 PM
Ah yes. Baby Frum. A Canadian, once, who left many years ago for more reactionary and lucrative pastures in the USA. His mother's memory is honoured by most of my generation, the voice of the CBC's As It Happens.
Her son, on the other hand, was a rethuglican disgrace in training from first he slithered from under a libertarian rock and onto the national scene, sometime in the 1980s.
As the late great Dalton Camp once said, Baby Frum was living proof that there is no shirt too young to be stuffed. Of course that was 20yr ago, before he became a middle-aged pathetic loser, living high on the Wingnut Welfare gravy train.
If only Dalton could see him now.
Posted by: PIGL | October 14, 2008 at 08:21 PM
Her son, on the other hand, was a rethuglican disgrace in training from first he slithered from under a libertarian rock and onto the national scene, sometime in the 1980s.
As someone who turned 20 in 1980, I can only observe that this fits. There were a lot of us who did this in some way, shape, or form (some more ignominious than others). It's typical of youth that they reject what immediately preceded them, isn't it?
Posted by: oddjob | October 15, 2008 at 12:45 AM
When I was in college, I called my Ph.D professors "Dr. So-and-So". Friends today who have that title on paper are usually introduced using, or not using, whichever name and title combination they prefer (most Americans like to go by first names).
Likewise. Sir Charles most likely has claim to the "Doctor" title if his law degree is Juris Doctor.
Indeed, there's a legitimate claim to be made that someone with a PhD in history has a better claim to the title of "Doctor" than a medical doctor does simply because the "MD" degree does not require a thesis, and a PhD in history does.
Posted by: oddjob | October 15, 2008 at 12:52 AM
Other than occasionally offering to play doctor, I can't imagine claiming that title. I actually have a tremendous amount of respect for good medical doctors. Their work just seems several steps above what I do in terms of importance.
Posted by: Sir Charles | October 15, 2008 at 10:39 AM
Back on the topic, upon reflection I would like to note how classy it was of Mr. Frum to handle the interview as he did.
He had bupkis going in. He knew he had bupkis. She knew he had bupkis. The audience knew he had bupkis.
So, what does he do in this environment? He trashes the way the host handles her show.........
Posted by: oddjob | October 15, 2008 at 11:12 AM