David Frum: An Open-Minded Neoconservative?

Chris Roberts

Is there even enough common ground for a debate?

For anyone who has followed him over the years, David Frum has been an embodiment of everything awful the “establishment right” had to offer. A strong proponent of the Iraq War and a ferocious critic of its opponents on the Right, Mr. Frum was very cozy with the George W. Bush administration, writing speeches for the president and later a book defending and glorifying Mr. Bush’s foreign policy. Mr. Frum then went to work for the neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, until they fired him because of his defense of Obamacare.

Mr. Frum also had his own website for a time, FrumForum.com, which specialized in attacking anyone to the right of him for being too “extreme.” The now defunct website boasted about its endorsements from leftists Joan Walsh of Salon and Stephen Colbert, and it sold coffee mugs that read, “Drink Coffee Not Kool-Aid — FrumForum.com.” He stopped writing for his website in 2012, and began writing regularly for liberal publications such as The Daily Beast and The Atlantic. For about a decade, Mr. Frum seemed to be nothing more than a warmongering neoconservative who wanted to impress the Left by attacking the Right......To Read More.....

My Take - The author asks a question I've asked many time regard so-called conservative writers:  “How can you understand so many details, but refuse to see the bigger picture?”  I've yet to get an intelligent answer.  A couple of years back I asked a Republican member of Congress - who. based on his background and history I would have expected to be very conservative - how he could support wind energy and abortion?  His answer was unsatisfactory.  And as one friend pointed out - he lives in a very liberal district. 

To find out why people do what they do is to find out how they're being rewarded, and it's not always about money.  Being prestigious, being accepted, being popular, being in the loop, being powerful, or association with the powerful or prominent, or just being on the news like John McCain can be the reward they seek.  I'm glad I don't care about those things.  I don't care about money, position, popularity or power.  I just care about the truth.  And "the truth isn't unkind.  It's just the truth!"