Frum scrum
March 26, 2010Jon Brooks Comments OffThree days ago we posted an editorial from David Frum’s web site called “Waterloo,” in which the conservative pundit asserted that Republicans had committed an enormous tactical error in refusing to negotiate with Democrats on the health care bill.
Now Frum has lost his job at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Frum posted the news on his web site yesterday.
AEI Says Goodbye
I have been a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute since 2003. At lunch today, AEI President Arthur Brooks and I came to a termination of that relationship.
Below is the text of my letter of resignation.
Dear Arthur,
This will memorialize our conversation at lunch today. Effective immediately, my position as a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute is terminated. I appreciate the consideration that delays my emptying of my office until after my return from travel next week. Premises will be vacated no later than April 9.
I have had many fruitful years at the American Enterprise Institute, and I do regret this abrupt and unexpected conclusion of our relationship.
Very truly yours,
David Frum
Frum says AEI told him the dismissal had nothing to do with his editorial. From The Plum Line:
“He asked me if I’d like to work for AEI on a non salary basis,” Frum added. “He said it had nothing to do with my work and that after all these are hard times.”
Nevertheless, Bruce Barlett, a former advisor to Ronald Reagan who also fell out of favor with conservatives when he criticized George W. Bush, wrote this on the blog Capital Gains and Games:
<a href="http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1601/groupthink-right-would-make-stalin-proud"David Frum and the Closing of the Conservative Mind
Since, (Frum) is no longer affiliated with AEI, I feel free to say publicly something he told me in private a few months ago. He asked if I had noticed any comments by AEI “scholars” on the subject of health care reform. I said no and he said that was because they had been ordered not to speak to the media because they agreed with too much of what Obama was trying to do.
It saddened me to hear this. I have always hoped that my experience was unique. But now I see that I was just the first to suffer from a closing of the conservative mind. Rigid conformity is being enforced, no dissent is allowed, and the conservative brain will slowly shrivel into dementia if it hasn’t already.
Sadly, there is no place for David and me to go. The donor community is only interested in financing organizations that parrot the party line, such as the one recently established by McCain economic adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin.
I will have more to say on this topic later. But I wanted to say that this is a black day for what passes for a conservative movement, scholarship, and the once-respected AEI.
And a user reply:
Honest to Christ, do you ever think what it’s like for millions of other Americans who over the last 8 years have lost their homes and jobs and retirements and even their sons and daughters as a result of decades of conservative policies and the lockstep GOP backing of the same?
You and guys like Frum helped *push* a walking nightmare on the rest of the country. You and Frum both helped to create this monster. Conservatism and the GOP have adopted that monster and made it their own. Now I see Frum decides he doesn’t like that this creature is not behaving so well — not so much that this is in fact an evil destructive monster, just that it’s not going to help True Conservatism in the long run.
To see the monster Frum helped animate turn on him is only fitting.
And a comment from the Reason blog
I like David Frum but think his grudging embrace of Obamacare and his criticism of Rush Limbaugh are both way off base. I think his views on Obamacare are thought provoking but wrong. I think his criticism of Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts that their views are something other than sincerely held is based in David Frum’s personal animosity toward Mr. Limbaugh. Ultimately, this personal attack on Rush is why AEI did the right thing when it fired David Frum.
And from the blog Atlas Shrugs:
What took so long? Frum is a fraudl… His intellectual dishonesty and flawed thinking hurt the right. He’s been kicked to the curb — long overdue, I say. Apparently he laid the blame of the passage of Demcare at the door of the Republicans. Hardly surprising.
