To: Sun Tzu who wrote (301093 ) 5/31/2016 5:00:39 PM From: Sam Read Replies (2) | Respond to Frum has been moving away from the current iteration of the Republican party for several years now. Slowly. Gradually. But at least sort of steadily. I just read the wiki piece on him, and it lays out some of the ways in which he has become an apostate, so to speak. IMO, this most recent essay marks new ground for him. One of these days, perhaps he will be able to write a book entitled something like "The Education of David Frum." In the meantime, he will be denounced as a RINO by our RW brethren.Political Views Newsweek column, Frum described his political beliefs as follows:I'm a conservative Republican, have been all my adult life. I volunteered for the Reagan campaign in 1980. I've attended every Republican convention since 1988. I was president of the Federalist Society chapter at my law school, worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and wrote speeches for President Bush—not the "Read My Lips" Bush, the "Axis of Evil" Bush. I served on the Giuliani campaign in 2008 and voted for John McCain in November. I supported the Iraq War and (although I feel kind of silly about it in retrospect) the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I could go on, but you get the idea.[35] clarification needed ] as "wild accusations and the paranoid delusions coming from the fever swamps". [38] Bill Moyers Journal , Frum challenged certain Republican political tactics in opposing healthcare and other Democratic initiatives as "outrageous," "dangerous," and ineffective. [39] As Congress prepared to pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March 2010, Frum again criticized the Republican strategy of refusing to negotiate with President Obama and congressional Democrats on health care reform, saying that it had resulted in the Republicans' "most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s". [40] Prior to making this statement, Frum had been associated with the American Enterprise Institute. He resigned from the AEI a few days later. [41] No Labels as a "founding leader." [42] [43] same-sex marriage in New York state, Frum's weekly column for CNN.com was titled "I was wrong about same-sex marriage." In it he described the evolution of his opinion from a "strong opponent" fourteen years prior; while he had feared that its introduction would cause "the American family [to] become radically more unstable," he now feels that "the case against same-sex marriage has been tested against reality. The case has not passed its test." [44] Bachmann and her co-religionists located it 30 years ago: a deeply hostile national government controlled by alien and suspect forces, with Barack Obama as their leader and symbol." And he explains Bachmann's political views, some of which he calls "paranoid": "It emerges from a religious philosophy that rejects the federal government as an alien instrument of destruction, ripping apart a Christian society. Bachmann's religiously grounded rejection of the American state finds a hearing with many more conventional conservatives radicalized by today's hard economic times." [45] Tablet Magazine wrote: "as the Tea Party has come to dominate the GOP, Frum has been transformed in a remarkably short period of time from right-wing royalty to apostate" and quoted him as saying: "There's a style and a sensibility in the Republican Party right now that I find myself removed from, [but] you can do more good for the country by working for a better Republican Party than by leaving it to the extremists. What have they done to deserve that inheritance?" [46] New York magazine in November 2011, Frum described his reaction to fellow Republicans, who had distanced themselves from him, saying, "Some of my Republican friends ask if I've gone crazy. I say: Look in the mirror." He described the development of an "alternative reality" within which the party, conservative think-tanks, and right wing commentators operate from a set of false facts about the economy and nonexistent threats to their traditional base of supporters. He expressed concern over the inability of moderate Republicans to criticize their conservative brethren, contrasting this to the 1960s split between moderate Ripon Republicans and conservative Goldwater Republicans , when moderates such as Michigan governor George Romney were publicly critical of the conservatives. [47] [48] CNN.com , Frum discussed the need for a "Plan B On Guns" that president Barack Obama could use in advancing his agenda on gun control outside of the congress, which was unlikely to procure enough votes for gun control bills needed to pass. He advocated as a specific act outside congressional vote, a surgeon general's report on firearms health effects on individual ownership, stating in his opinion that "such a report would surely reach the conclusion that a gun in the home greatly elevates risks of suicide, lethal accident and fatal domestic violence." Emphasizing again a way to circumvent congressional approval by vote, he called for a hearing in the Senate regarding practices of firearms manufacturers, making the comparison to senatorial hearings done for tobacco companies in the 1990s on their methods of introducing harmful chemicals and addictive substances into their products. The piece was seen by many who commented as a direct contradiction of the beliefs previously held by David Frum as a former conservative Republican. [49] Hollingsworth v. Perry case. [50] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Frum
