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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

David Frum...

...thinks that Barack Obama's qualifications for the presidency are better than Sarah Palin's. He attacks Palin's qualifications, while defending Obama's:

"Can we [sic] conservatives please stop kidding ourselves about Barack Obama's 'qualifications'? Yes, if I had been a Democratic donor back in 2006, I'd sure worry about whether Barack Obama had what it took to be president. That was before he took on the toughest political operation in America, before he beat Bill and Hillary Clinton, before he won 18 million primary votes.

"Obama's nomination was not handed to him. He fought hard for it and won against the odds. 'Qualifications' predict achievement. Once you have achieved, it doesn't matter what your qualifications are."

From which I can only conclude that, in David Frum's opinion, surviving a few months of relentless butt-kissing by the MSM counts as an appropriate preparation for the presidency.

Well. Maybe he's got a point.

Comments (22)

Steve, Obama has paid homage to AIPAC, said all the right things about interventionism, and hired the left-over imperialists from the Clinton stable. Frum is pleased, and like a lot of neo-cons will be pulling for Obama and happily embarking on a new Cold War with Russia and an attack on Iran under Democratic auspices.

The pro-life issue for many neo-cons was always one to be exploited, not embraced. Get ready to be thrown overboard.

Sarah Palin is both an economic conservative as well as a social conservative. What she is most certainly not is a neo-conservative. She does not believe that our treasury should be pissed away into the sands of Mesopotamia for the next 100 years. So, of course, the egregious Frum is not going to like Sarah Palin.

Winning the nomination does not mean you are ready to be president. I could cite many examples. But I mention just one: Jimmy Carter.

Wow! How quickly the knives come out for Frum, who has never said he supports Obama, has never said he thinks Obama will be tough enough on our enemies (including Russia and Iran), etc., etc. He remains a committed supporter of McCain and like McCain thinks the surge and our recent success is very important to our future security and well-being, not to mention the security and well-being of the Iraqis.

Any evidence, Kevin, that Frum is not a committed pro-lifer? Any evidence, "kurt9", that Ms. Palin doesn't support McCain's position on Iraq (which contrary to Democratic talking-points, suggests we should stay on in Iraq as long as necessary to maintain their overall security and the future well-being of their political process)?

Steve's original post was clever and made an excellent counter-argument to Frum's contention about Obama's experience. But the comments have nothing to do with Steve's post.

"Any evidence, Kevin, that Frum is not a committed pro-lifer?"

Sure Jeff, his own words will suffice, I hope;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Frum#Political_views
http://www.nationalreview.com/ponnuru/ponnuru200311071105.asp

Jeff,

On the David Frum front, I'm afraid we have his own words:

"... I am not pro-life and do not think it would be wise to try to ban abortion in all circumstances ..."

From the same piece: "... I think abortion ought to be legal in the first trimester and generally illegal thereafter ..."

This is from "Frum's Diary" Nov 07, 2003 -- admittedly almost 5 years old, but from other comments I gather that he has not wavered on this. He does support a ban on partial birth abortions, but apparently his rationale for this is that (he hopes) it will make the conservatives shut up and go away.

Here is the piece that started all the ruckus back then.

Jeff Singer - I have a lot of respect for David Frum, who's obviously a very smart guy, and who's on the side of the angels, more often than not.

At the same time, I think he *totally* missed the boat on this one - and, given his history of sticking the knife in the paleo-con backside, I can hardly blame paleo-cons who want to stick it right back to him.

Frum is a prophet for a very dangerous cult that is anything but angelic in either its motives or methods;

"An American-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein--and a replacement of the radical Baathist dictatorship with a new government more closely aligned with the United States--would put America more wholly in charge of the region than any power since the Ottomans, or maybe the Romans."
David Frum

Does anyone think, she could right this minute tell you the difference between a Shia and a Sunni? McCain's choice is a slap in the face.

Jeff,

On the David Frum front, I'm afraid we have his own words:

"... I am not pro-life and do not think it would be wise to try to ban abortion in all circumstances ..."

From the same piece: "... I think abortion ought to be legal in the first trimester and generally illegal thereafter ..."

This is from "Frum's Diary" Nov 07, 2003 -- admittedly almost 5 years old, but from other comments I gather that he has not wavered on this. He does support a ban on partial birth abortions, but apparently his rationale for this is that (he hopes) it will make the conservatives shut up and go away.

Here is the piece that started all the ruckus back then.

Russ,

Betcha she could. What's more, I bet Obama couldn't -- if you turned off his teleprompter.

Tim, maybe she could, but it didn't sound like she knew much about Iraq when asked. Obama, for what its worth, has quite a grasp on the ME and has had several experts in the field comment on it. She wants am exit strategy which is hopeful but not if its McCain's lame, "when the job is done."

David Frum was the American Spectator's lead writer in taking out PJBuchanan during the 1992 primaries.

Although I will say this: the Spectator was not alone. Based on the cash flow picture, it is interesting that all the PJB-bashing entities were funded (to one extent or the other) by the Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee.

Kevin,

I was genuinely surprised by article you linked to...as Ramesh notes at the end of the piece:

"Frum says that he is not a pro-lifer, and he is right. But for practical purposes it makes less difference than one might suppose. He wants to get rid of Roe, to ban partial-birth abortion, and to ban human cloning. Pro-lifers would be ecstatic if we could achieve those three things within the next ten years. Frum is therefore an ally of pro-lifers and an opponent of the abortion lobby. That is so even if he sometimes writes things about pro-lifers' ultimate goals that annoy and vex us."

So you can see why I may have been confused, especially since I don't follow abortion politics very closely.

Steve,

I suppose you are right about the paleos...they will never forgive him for his infamous "Unpatriotic Conservatives" article, which I still maintain was a fair characterization of the folks he quoted. But it is just funny that in a blog post focused on explaining why Frum was wrong about Obama's "experience" in the primaries, Kevin and "kurt9" decided to pile on about everything they don't like about the guy.

Anyway, keep up the good work...and it is about time for another one of your YouTube creations!

Jeff,
Is that you're funny way of conceding you didn't know what you were talking about?

Frum laments: "The Republican Party has become increasingly identified with conservative Christianity." But wants to reassure everyone; "...it is important that Americans understand that the end of Roe v. Wade does not mean a national abortion ban. Ending Roe means that individual states recover the power to make their own decisions on abortion. We as Republicans need to make it very clear: If California and New York vote to retain abortion rights after Roe, national Republicans won't interfere." Sweet.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/04/why-the-gop-l-1.html

He frets that an abortion ban "will tear the country apart", but should have had the same qualms about the war that literally did so. One that he zealously, deceptively and maliciouly promoted.

Kevin,

The war did not "literally" tear the country apart. I suppose you could argue that figuratively the war divided Americans, although it seems like the divisions over Iraq are not as deep and visceral as Vietnam (probably because there is no longer any draft).

And since I do know a thing or two about Iraq, this time I KNOW you have no evidence to back your assertion that Frum "deceptively and maliciously" promoted the war. Frum, like me, thought the war was the right thing to do for America's security. You can certainly disagree, but why always attack our motivations for sincerely believing in the war?

Jeff - agreed on all counts.

Kevin - I am, in many respects, deeply sympathetic to the cause of the "Paleo-cons."

But yous guys shrill & incessant denunciations of "neo-cons" just wear me out.

They just wear me out.

And it doesn't help that you don't seem to understand the proper usage of the word "literally."

Steve, I'm not sure where I belong in your taxonomy, but maybe paleo-cons will appreciate your sympathy. I reject it.

If you have a defense of Frum's rhetoric and actions prior to the Iraqi War, or a reason why pro-lifers should trust him, please offer them. As for your English lesson on literally "tearing up a nation", how would describe what was done in Iraq? Try to avoid gross euphemisms like "liberated". They just wear me out.

Jeff,
"You can certainly disagree, but why always attack our motivations for sincerely believing in the war?"

Did I attack your motivations? Ever?

I did provide quotes from Frum during the ramp up to the war. I provided you with his thoughts on pro-life causes and you've read his personal attacks on those who rightly warned against the invasion. Do you really believe all those on his enemies list were unpatriotic, or in some cases anti-semetic? Please, Jeff, snap out of it and be wary of a man who wields such a poisoned pen.

Perpetual war for perpetual peace is the egregious Frum's cause in life. Remember that he read all of the paleo-conservatives who did not support the invasion of Iraq out of the conservative movement in 2002.

It was Palin's questioning the wisdom of investing our treasury in the sands of Mesopotamia for the next 100 years that earned her the disapproval of the egregious Frum, not her stance on abortion or other social conservative issues.

relentless butt-kissing by the MSM

I don't know. Didn't it relent, for example, just a bit, for those couple of weeks when all we seemed to see on the news was that tape of Obama's former pastor? Or is that supposed to be part of the "relentless butt-kissing"?

I'm not sure everyone uses "qualifications" in the same way. Many seem to use it more broadly than I'm inclined to. For me, the big difference, at this point, isn't really a matter of "qualifications" -- though that *may* be b/c I'm inclined to use that word fairly narrowly. Obama has given what many people think are some excellent speeches. And now Palin has, too (though it's largely a different group of people -- though with some overlap -- that think her speech was excellent). And no doubt many of Obama's supporters have shallow grounds for their support of him, having been moved almost exclusively by his speeches. For my money, the speech he gave at the Dem Convention when he was still just a state senator is still his best. But I certainly didn't conclude that he'd be a good President based on that speech. Most I think someone could have sensibly said at that point was "Maybe he'd be good -- We'll have to see." Nor would I have drawn that conclusion by adding the other good speeches he's made since. That doesn't go very far, I think, if you're being sensible. But now, we have a lot more. I wouldn't call them "qualifications." But we (or at least I, and anybody who's wanted to find out) now know his positions on a very wide selection of national issues, and we've seen him defend his positions on those issues -- without the use of teleprompters -- in debate after debate -- so many, in fact, that it got to be too much, and in some unscripted, challenging interviews (most recently, by Bill O'Reilly, not the sharpest critic one can imagine, but that interview was somewhat challenging, and worth watching imho). Now, the debates & interviews weren't all all that great in terms of format and the quality (& degree of challenge) of the questions asked. But put them all together, and people have some idea of how the man thinks, and at least know what his positions are and how he's inclined to defend them. It's largely b/c of that, & certainly not just because of his scripted speeches, that I feel a bit better about drawing a still somewhat tentative positive judgment about Obama. (I'd feel a whole lot better still if I had been given the chance to play the part that Rick Warren played, and got to press Obama on various points that bother me -- or if he had some policy positions I like better than some of his actual positions.) I don't *think* most of the people so hot for Palin all of the sudden have anything like that. They *seem* to all be like the shallow Obama supporters I spoke of above, who have little more than scripted speeches to go by. (If Palin had some challenging debates or interviews when running for governor or something, and if she's somewhere addressed in some detail the wide range of national issues Obama has taken careful positions on, my apologies to any of her supporters who've dug that all out and are basing their support of her on that. You're not among the shallow I'm talking about.)

That's just as of now. I presume -- and hope! -- that will all change some time between now and the election. I'm not faulting Palin at this point for not having done that. But I am wondering about those so enthusiastic about her (going way beyond "Hey, *maybe* she'd be good") already at this point.

"Remember that he read all of the paleo-conservatives who did not support the invasion of Iraq out of the conservative movement in 2002."

Yes, those who were correct on Iraq and the whole American Empire project were to be cast-off as traitors, bigots or both, while a purified GOP would be the vehicle for his special blend of militarism, social liberalism and oligarchism.

Yet, after all his efforts, ungrateful soulmates leave. Imagine his sorrow now;

And until and unless there is an honored place made in the Republican party for people who think like Arlen Specter, we will remain a minority party.
David Frum http://newmajority.com/ShowScroll.aspx?ID=13e86822-61d6-459a-9aab-4fc32fc9acef

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