Steve Sailer: iSteve: In praise of David Frum

December 18, 2009

In praise of David Frum

I have a few nice things to say about pundit David Frum in my new VDARE.com column.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

79 comments:

RWF said...: "Frum deserves praise for ranking with Mickey Kaus as one of the very few prominent Jewish pundits who, through study of the facts and sheer reasoning power, has publicly come to the conclusion that America needs less immigration."

Isn't the fanatical support for mass immigration really only widespread among American Jews, rather than Canadians like Frum?; 12/18/09, 2:55 AM
Anonymous said...: The Republican Party needs to pound on issues where the overwhelming majority of Americans agree, at least superficially, with their positions:

1) Tough on crime (more prisons, the death penalty)

2) Fiscal responsibility (but not lowering taxes, as that message is worn out)

3) Building a border fence

4) Strong defense

5) Cutting foreign aid

6) Energy independence; 12/18/09, 5:31 AM
Mercer said...: "recruiting accountants as candidates."

I don't think that I and most of my fellow accountants would make good candidates. People go into accounting because they are more comfortable dealing with numbers then appealing to peoples' emotions. We lack charisma and are not good at promising things that can't be delivered.

I think the GOP's problem is the message not it's messengers. When congressmen think trade deals with poor countries like Columbia will create many US jobs or that a cut in the capital gains tax was the answer last year after capital asset values had plummeted you have a movement that refuses deal with economic realty but would rather repeat platitudes.

I am amazed that no GOP politician even mentions reducing legal immigration as a means to reduce unemployment. I don't know if they are stupid or they don't want to offend the Club for Growth types.

As for Frum I think he is interesting to read because is not afraid to challenge right wing dogma. It is interesting that he never considers changing neocon foreign policy or think it might be hurting the GOP.

At least there is one person left on CNN who can talk sense about immigration.; 12/18/09, 6:22 AM
rob said...: I have a few nice things to say about pundit David Frum...

Is it April Fools' Day already?; 12/18/09, 6:51 AM
robert61 said...: Maybe Frumpy can think clearly about immigration because he's an immigrant himself.

He is a smart guy with some interesting ideas, but the endless transformative progressivism is wearing. Frum is way more optimistic about wholesale social change than I am, with his stances on healthcare, war-making and gay marriage being cases in point. I couldn't get through his lovefest with Joe Klein on Bloggingheads last week; both are fairly reasonable for their respective persuasions, but I would be more interested in hearing either of them talk to somebody with a little paleo/libertarian icewater in his veins.; 12/18/09, 7:17 AM
Anonymous said...: Frum's a smart guy, but his essential problem is his primary political loyalty is to a foreign power. Unlike most neocons, he has figured out that multiculturalism iis more likely to undermine than to bolster the political base for a neocon foreign policy.; 12/18/09, 7:20 AM
Anonymous said...: Why disguise racism in attempted cleverness?; 12/18/09, 7:56 AM
Anonymous said...: Steve, with this essay you have redefined faint praise.; 12/18/09, 8:25 AM
Dutch Boy said...: Oh, brother! Frum the Bum has been wrong for so long that he has not a shred of credibility left. Who knows which way Mr. Weathervane will point next year?; 12/18/09, 8:29 AM
Anonymous said...: If the purpose of this column was to remind me how much I hate Frum...job well done!; 12/18/09, 8:29 AM
albertosaurus said...: If that's your idea of "saying nice things", I can only pray you never choose to compliment me.; 12/18/09, 8:34 AM
Udolpho.com said...: Great piece!; 12/18/09, 8:41 AM
Commodore said...: Orthagonal to the main thrust of your article, perhaps, but aren't good governance and office holding opposed?

"If you can discover a better way of life than office-holding for your future rulers, a well-governed city becomes a possibility. For only in such a state will those rule who are truly rich, not in gold, but in the wealth that makes happiness — a good and wise life. "
-Plato

Robbed of the philospher-king pining, it would make sense that the best GOP governors, then, wouldn't be all that concerned with reelection.; 12/18/09, 8:52 AM
Mr. Anon said...: Why waste the pixels, Steve? Frum isn't worth it. He'd never lift a finger to say anything good about you.

Rebuilding real conservatism means ejecting all of these worse-than-useless neocon popinjays. Frum and all the others - the mincing girly-men at NRO, and the empty-headed bloviators at FOX News, need to be recognized for what they are: liberals who have no loyalty to the traditional character of this nation, or shills for wealthy interests who also have no loyalty to this nation. To Hell with all of them.; 12/18/09, 9:27 AM
Anonymous said...: Frum's bravest stance is for immigration restriction.

Jesus Christ [no pun intended], I realized a few days ago that Steve was a one-trick pony when he embraced the intentionally manufactured fraud of AGW in the hopes that it [together with David Gelbaum's looming bankruptcy] might be wielded to influence the Sierra Club to oppose amnesty.

But praising David Frum might be the straw that breaks this paleo's back.; 12/18/09, 9:29 AM
Laban said...: Totally off topic, but you might be interested in this basketball story from the UK. It's more your territory than mine.; 12/18/09, 9:33 AM
Anonymous said...: I hope this robust language is still legal in America but Frum is exhibiting what I refer to as "gun point conservatism", meaning that you have to back him into a corner and METAPHORICALLY point a gun at his head before he will concede a fundamentally conservative point i.e. current immigration policy and enforcement is suboptimal. Not good enough by a longshot, neither is pointing to a handful of columns and approved editorials over the course of a decade which are, sorta, critical of immigration. You're far too nice Steve but I guess that's a big reason why we love you.; 12/18/09, 9:35 AM
Anonymous said...: OT, but this article is fascinating: A Jew in Prison:
A Reflection on Anti-Semitism on the Yard; 12/18/09, 9:41 AM
Dial A Cliche said...: Thank you for this column, Steve. It's important because Jews do tend to have ridiculously emotional pro open borders attitudes based on a reverence for "Ellis Island Schmalz." I live in NJ, I'm highly educated blah blah blah, so some of my best friends are Jews... When it comes to immigration their minds just shut down. However, the debate must not be shut down. This is an incredibly serious public policy issue.; 12/18/09, 10:22 AM
kurt9 said...: The egregious Frum?; 12/18/09, 10:58 AM
Kijkfass McGee said...: Awfully generous of you. Frum seems mostly a self-obsessed buffoon with half-baked ideas. As his synagogue speech indicates, he vacillates between love of liberal democracy's good treatment of Jews and a desire to conserve those liberal democracies without actually being conservative. A tricky position no doubt, but one that is perhaps central to the whole conundrum of the so-called neocons. Where you, Sailer, go awfully remiss is to imagine that irrelevant hacks like Frum have any real influence or power over something as serious and hard-nosed as American foreign policy. As if the Iraq war had anything to do with the neocon menagerie rather than the cynical calculation of the military! Puh-lease. This is not to apologize for Frum's narcissism, but to add a bit of consistency and perspective to an assessment of a man like him.; 12/18/09, 11:19 AM
Anonymous said...: The religion of secular Jews, and I know a lot of them, seems to be ancestor worship rather than liberalism.

One thing that strikes me as telling is that there's a lot of pro-Japanese sentiment in the ranks of secular Jews. I've heard various pretexts for this but at the bottom it comes down to a shared outlook on the world.; 12/18/09, 11:46 AM
bjdouble said...: I've always wondered how you can be a conservative when you abandon your home country and then take up with another. Isn't patriotism part of conservatism? That goes for Andrew Sullivan, Tony Blankley, Frum, Mark Steyn (not clear whether Steyn is an American citizen), etc. When Frum was writing those war speeches, he was a Canadian citizen . . . his mother is the Diane Sawyer/Judy Woodruff of Canadian public TV.; 12/18/09, 11:49 AM
Anonymous said...: praising David Frum might be the straw that breaks this paleo's back.

There's nothing wrong with praising people when they agree with you. If the scales have dropped from Frum's eyes on immigration, that's a good thing.; 12/18/09, 11:49 AM
gcochran said...: "the intentionally manufactured fraud of AGW"

Nonsense.; 12/18/09, 11:58 AM
James Kabala said...: One thing worth noting is that Frum as social liberal is a fairly new phenomenon. How We Got Here (a better book than McCarthy allows) contains some pretty strong condemnations of sexual promiscuity and single motherhood, and Frum not too long ago was an outspoken opponent of gay marriage.; 12/18/09, 12:00 PM
James Kabala said...: See, for example, this antediluivan debate:

http://www.slate.com/id/3642/entry/23841/; 12/18/09, 12:01 PM
James Kabala said...: Back in 1997 Frum almost rose to the level of eloquence in opposition to gay marriage:

"Advocates of gay marriage talk as if they were proposing to integrate a country club. The truth is, they are proposing to bulldoze the club and build a subdivision in its place. They aren't talking about extending the much maligned Leave It to Beaver marriage to gays. They are talking about completing the replacement of the Leave It to Beaver marriage with a new form of legal union that shares nothing with the marriages of 35 years ago [now 47 -time flies!] but the name. This new union, available equally to gays and straights, is focused on the happiness of adults, not the needs of children."; 12/18/09, 12:05 PM
James Kabala said...: "I hope this robust language is still legal in America but Frum is exhibiting what I refer to as "gun point conservatism", meaning that you have to back him into a corner and METAPHORICALLY point a gun at his head before he will concede a fundamentally conservative point i.e. current immigration policy and enforcement is suboptimal."

Again, I'm no Frum defender, at least of the post-2000 Frum who did so much damage to our foreign policy, but How We Got Here had lengthy and detailed condemnations of the 1965 Act and Ted Kennedy's role in passing it.; 12/18/09, 12:19 PM
Middletown Girl said...: How would one characterize Mark Levin, Michael Savage, and Michael Medved? On foreign policy they are typically neocon, but they are opposed to open borders.; 12/18/09, 12:30 PM
airtommy said...: Giuliani is a creepy glory hog

Instant classic!; 12/18/09, 12:42 PM
Anonymous said...: Nonsense.

You think the fraud was unintentional - that their nihilism merely led them into it blindly - that they had no conscious awareness of what it was they were doing?

I hate to break it to you, but the East Anglia emails set that apologia out to pasture once and for all.

Pasture? Hell, they sent that apologia straight to the glue factory, dude.; 12/18/09, 12:43 PM
Anonymous said...: "Isn't the fanatical support for mass immigration really only widespread among American Jews, rather than Canadians like Frum?"

Jews in every country are at the forefront of advocating policies that are bad for the white people who live in those countries. It's just as much true in the UK, France, Canada, Russia, South Africa and any country with a significant Jewish population as it is in America.; 12/18/09, 1:27 PM
David Davenport said...: As if the Iraq war had anything to do with the neocon menagerie rather than the cynical calculation of the military!

Please give some evidence that "the military" somehow manipulated the USA's civilian leaders into deciding to invade Iraq.; 12/18/09, 1:29 PM
Whiskey said...: Yes America needs a lot LESS immigration, legal and illegal.

But Frum is dead wrong on writing that anti-populism, anti-White Middle Class, pro-elite policies will do anything but create "strange new Respect" from the cocktail literati and glitterati. Its a dead end like McCain-ism.

You're dead, completely wrong Steve, on the need for a vigorous National Defense. First, Reagan besides cutting taxes and regulation, spent enormous sums on ships and planes and missiles, which unlike construction requires a lot more White middle class men to create (and Blue collar White guys too) creating in 1984 4.5 million new jobs or 370,000 a month, the highest growth rate ever and saving his presidency/re-election.

We face real enemies -- Pakistan has 100+ nukes and is falling apart, into the hands of Jihadis. Iran is racing towards both ICBMs and nukes. We need cheap oil, desperately.

Thirty plus years of non-reactions or very minimal reactions (impotent missile strikes, the fiasco of Desert One in Iran, Carter-Reagan-Bush impotence to Iranian hostage taking, Clintonian retreat in Somalia and Iraq) have created massive incentives for Jihadis in fractured, fragile states to attack.

My challenge to you, Frum, and the rest is given the constraints of Libs ("America is the root of all evil, no military action") what are you prepared to do to prevent Jihadis nuking US cities and are you PREPARED to accept in part moral responsibility for simply pretending the problem away like Neville Chamberlain?
-------------------
The way to power for Republicans is a White Identity politics demanding low taxes, low regulations, no AGW idiocy, abolish Affirmative Action, end illegal immigration, create the one program that benefits (through employment) the White Middle Class, Defense, and a policy designed to intimidate would be jihadis by making repeated examples (fear) but offering a way out (zap their jihadis) while keeping oil cheap.

This means American Exceptionalism -- America as a great power that is loved by its people, not a "liberal conception of being just like Switzerland" as Obama called it, can and will intervene to protect its national interests, economically, politically, and/or militarily, but will leave non-enemies alone.

[The biggest argument is the economy -- Republicans can and should point out that government spending goes to Blacks/Hispanics government employment, then White women, and a smattering of connected White guys. While low taxes, low regs, low immigration, and defense spending = economic growth as in WWII and Reagan]; 12/18/09, 2:14 PM
TH said...: "FrumForum" sounds like a name you'd give to an Orthodox Jewish website: frum; 12/18/09, 2:27 PM
texas first! said...: Jesus Christ [no pun intended], I realized a few days ago that Steve was a one-trick pony when he embraced the intentionally manufactured fraud of AGW in the hopes that it [together with David Gelbaum's looming bankruptcy] might be wielded to influence the Sierra Club to oppose amnesty.

Sailer is a California-firster (i.e., Red State millionaires should fund Mike Judge movies, Toby Gerhart is better than Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow, etc), as he should be. Unfortunately, like Isreal-firsters, he wants to drag the rest of white America into his fight.

Steve, join us in Red State America. We would welcome you on our side. Don't get sucked into Mr Frum's Cult.; 12/18/09, 2:56 PM
Svigor said...: That is an interesting article. Maybe I should start reading the SPLC site!

Eating with another race, however, is a different story. It is an inviolate rule that different races may not break bread together under any circumstances. Violating this rule leads to harsh consequences. If you eat at the same table as another race, you'll get beaten down. If you eat from the same tray as another race, you'll be put in the hospital. And if you eat from the same food item as another race, that is, after another race has already taken a bite of it, you can get killed. This is one area where even the heads don't have any play.

Maybe they got this from trad Judaism, which had similar rules (and I'm sure there are plenty of Haredim still following it today).; 12/18/09, 3:33 PM
Anonymous said...: There's nothing wrong with praising people when they agree with you.

Yeah, but this is David Frum we're talking about.

D-A-V-I-D.

F-R-U-M.

My opinion of Frum is very much in line with Alighieri.; 12/18/09, 4:04 PM
Forrest said...: gcochran:

"the intentionally manufactured fraud of AGW"

Nonsense.

What do you mean "nonsense"? Could you explain?; 12/18/09, 4:15 PM
Anonymous said...: I've always wondered how you can be a conservative when you abandon your home country and then take up with another. Isn't patriotism part of conservatism? That goes for Andrew Sullivan, Tony Blankley, Frum, Mark Steyn (not clear whether Steyn is an American citizen), etc. When Frum was writing those war speeches, he was a Canadian citizen . . . his mother is the Diane Sawyer/Judy Woodruff of Canadian public TV.

Doesn't this go for Peter Brimelow as well? Oh right, he's a white nationalist. I forgot.; 12/18/09, 4:18 PM
Leipzig said...: [The biggest argument is the economy -- Republicans can and should point out that government spending goes to Blacks/Hispanics government employment, then White women, and a smattering of connected White guys. While low taxes, low regs, low immigration, and defense spending = economic growth as in WWII and Reagan]

Don't forget the, um, middlemen at the top of it all and at all the key nodes of the network....; 12/18/09, 4:22 PM
MQ said...: Great article, Steve.

OT, but this article is fascinating: A Jew in Prison:
A Reflection on Anti-Semitism on the Yard

you will find some of the very same skinhead/Nazi attitudes toward Jews that the author describes in the comments section of this blog at times.; 12/18/09, 4:52 PM
Anonymous said...: How would one characterize Mark Levin, Michael Savage, and Michael Medved? On foreign policy they are typically neocon, but they are opposed to open borders.

I don't know about the other two, but Medved was shilling for shamnesty last time in disgusting fashion.

I'm sure that Levin is sound though. That man's a paleo at heart.; 12/18/09, 5:14 PM
Anonymous said...: you will find some of the very same skinhead/Nazi attitudes toward Jews that the author describes in the comments section of this blog at times.

True, once in a while, but you fnd all sorts of comments in the comment section here including some rah-rah Jewish ones.; 12/18/09, 5:17 PM
Anonymous said...: Nonsense.

"What do you mean "nonsense"? Could you explain?"

Me too, post Climategate, AGW cheerleaders are going to have work pretty hard to convince me that AGW isnt a hoax now. Im not aware of even one plausible step they have taken in that direction. Other than to demand beleif in their religion.; 12/18/09, 5:22 PM
Steve Sailer said...: I was trying to restrict the competition to pundits with highly respectable Mainstream Media outlets.

- Levin is good on immigration. I should have included him with Frum and Kaus, assuming he's in the MSM, which I'm not sure of.

- I like Medved, but I don't think he has been good on immigration, but maybe he's changing.

- I'm not very familiar with Savage.; 12/18/09, 5:28 PM
Anonymous said...: Its nice that Frum isn't totally crazy on immigration and even better that Steve praised him BUT...

Frum is completely worthless. Tomorrow, if he considers it beneficial to him, he will change 180 degrees and support illegal immigration. His position on immigration has been in constant flux over the last 20 years. He's never been a reliable ally. Usually he only supports immigration restriction when he knows there's no hope of it passing.

One reason conservatives always lose is they can't believe someone would PRETEND to support us while really subverting us. But that's reality.

As for Jews not "Thinking straight" or being "emotional" about immigration. Well, that,s quite a diplomatic way of putting it.; 12/18/09, 5:30 PM
ricpic said...: Frum is an I'm embarrassed to be a conservative conservative.; 12/18/09, 5:31 PM
Glossy said...: "And then there was his Invade the World book co-written with Richard Perle, An End to Evil."

Wouldn't that title be more appropriate for these authors' hypothetical suicide note than for a book of their policy prescriptions?; 12/18/09, 5:45 PM
Thomas said...: Frum has earned a stake through the heart many times over as any sort of "conservative". Let's hope he's gotten it.

We should well know by now what happens whenever the neocons and their ideas are allowed anywhere near the center of the conservative movement. Neoconservatism and conservatism wed, and their name is neoconservatism. All of a sudden, foreign wars and amnesty are front and center, and anyone who dissents is "unpatriotic". These people need to be kept very, very far away from deciding policy of any type ever again.; 12/18/09, 6:01 PM
Anonymous said...: 1) Tough on crime (more prisons, the death penalty)

For the record I'm against the death penalty and brutality in general (call me a pinko commie if you please). In any case "tough on crime" policies these days generally just mean longer prison sentences. This, in itself, may actually foster the criminal culture with more and more criminals hanging out in the clinker. We need punishments and cultural conditions that seriously stigmatize crime and criminality.I don't see much in the way of movement by "tough on crime" republicans to effect this outcome. There's an Arizona Sherriff with roughly the right ideas, though. (I can't remember his name).; 12/18/09, 6:09 PM
Anonymous said...: Tomorrow, if he considers it beneficial to him, he will change 180 degrees and support illegal immigration.

Exactly.; 12/18/09, 6:34 PM
Anonymous said...: One more thing about the Jews. Stop blaming them for Americans problems. Yes, they're wrong on immigration and a lot of issue but they are only 3 percent of the population.

Your typical Goy wants to play sports, eat, make money, and *maybe* go to Church every Sunday. Reading and thinking about politics makes his head hurt. Plus he doesn't want to make a fuss or rock the boat.

So the Goy's are happy to let someone else rule - which is why we are where we are.; 12/18/09, 7:31 PM
Gilbert Ratchet said...: His essential problem is [that] his primary political loyalty is to a foreign power.

Would that be Israel.... or CANADA!?!?; 12/18/09, 7:34 PM
Glaivester said...: There's an Arizona Sherriff with roughly the right ideas, though. (I can't remember his name).

You are thinking of Joe Arpaio.; 12/18/09, 7:47 PM
Anonymous said...: Pinko commie.; 12/18/09, 7:59 PM
Harmonious Jim said...: Shorter Frum: lets be more reasonable on domestic policy but keep the wingnut foreign policy. Are there any prominent pundits who deserve high marks on both?; 12/18/09, 9:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Steve,

Savage is just as much for immigration control as you or the vdare crowd.

His mantra on his radio show is 'borders, language and culture.'

Surprisingly he advocates cutting off all foreign aid, even to Israel, and is in favor of getting out of the endless wars of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I don't think I've ever seen a Jew with his political beliefs.; 12/18/09, 9:54 PM
Richard Hoste said...: You're dead, completely wrong Steve, on the need for a vigorous National Defense. First, Reagan besides cutting taxes and regulation, spent enormous sums on ships and planes and missiles, which unlike construction requires a lot more White middle class men to create (and Blue collar White guys too) creating in 1984 4.5 million new jobs or 370,000 a month, the highest growth rate ever and saving his presidency/re-election.

Wow, Testy, you're a Kensyian now? Government has to spend and the economy will improve?; 12/18/09, 10:57 PM
Mr. Anon said...: "Anonymous said...

Savage is just as much for immigration control as you or the vdare crowd.

His mantra on his radio show is 'borders, language and culture.'

Surprisingly he advocates cutting off all foreign aid, even to Israel, and is in favor of getting out of the endless wars of Iraq and Afghanistan."

I like Savage. Given what he says and believes, and that he lives in the San Francisco bay area, he's got a lot of moxy too. He sometimes comes across as unstable though - he needs to calm down. But I'm never had many complaints about what he has espoused.; 12/19/09, 12:07 AM
CJ said...: ...his mother is the Diane Sawyer/Judy Woodruff of Canadian public TV.

Actually Barbara Frum has been dead for 17 years. She certainly was a long-time CBC radio and television news personality, but she was actually quite professional. Her own political views, insofar as she ever showed them, appeared to me to be center-right. She was definitely no Judy Woodruff.

While I'm at it, there has really been a lot of misinformation about Canada appearing in the comments lately. The howler yesterday about Quebec nationalists and native Indians being allies was particularly ridiculous, but right now I just don't have time to refute any of it.; 12/19/09, 12:18 AM
green mamba said...: Since some have referred to Michael Savage, my take is that he's an egomaniacal cult leader type. You can hear it in the way he constantly bullies and cajoles his listening audience: (after making some perfectly simple point) "Do you understand me? No, you don't understand me! I'll keep saying it until you do!" He's essentially a charismatic Jewish man doing "shtick" which is more important than his supposed convictions.

That said, I miss his rather entertaining show these days. I can't find it in L.A. anymore. Have the libs in la-la land had him informally banned?; 12/19/09, 1:11 AM
Aaron said...: Well, it's a start, I guess. As I said in a comment to the Frum article that Sailer lined to, conservatism needs both David Frum and Steve Sailer.

It's good that Sailer recognizes that both he and Frum are contributing serious ideas to the Sailer-Frum strategy for the GOP. And it is a joint strategy: Frum and Sailer have both argued that the Republicans need to increase support among white voters, and that the Rove strategy of outreach to Hispanics and other minorities is hopeless.

What both Frum and Sailer need to address is the net effect of their respective plans to attract more white voters in certain categories: that is, take into account both the new voters won and the old voters lost. Frum will alienate hard-core social conservatives, while Sailer will alienate large numbers of suburbanites who lean Republican but who perhaps voted for Obama in 2008 and who would never vote for a "racist" party. Both Frum and Sailer seem to assume that they can attract more white voters without driving away significant numbers of existing white Republican voters at the same time. That's unrealistic.; 12/19/09, 6:40 AM
Anonymous said...: "Her own political views, insofar as she ever showed them, appeared to me to be center-right."

LOL. A center-right CBC employee, and a Jewish feminist one at that, that's a good one.

There's an interview of Harold Ballard by Frum up on the CBC website, you should watch it. It starts off with the radical feminist Frum baiting Ballard with "Wow. You won a game.", and goes downhill from there, with Ballard telling her that women belong on their backs. Your typical mouthy anti male feminist.

Center-right Jewish feminist CBC employee. LOLOLOLOLOLOL, thanks for the morning chuckle.; 12/19/09, 7:33 AM
Anonymous said...: He's essentially a charismatic Jewish man doing "shtick" which is more important than his supposed convictions.

Yeah, I've long felt that Weiner was a con man.

That said, I miss his rather entertaining show these days.

But it sure is a great con on the days that he brings his A-Game.

Weiner reminds me a lot of Alan Keyes - when he's good, he's very, very good - but there's always the nagging suspicion that you're being conned.; 12/19/09, 9:07 AM
Middletown Girl said...: "Since some have referred to Michael Savage, my take is that he's an egomaniacal cult leader type. You can hear it in the way he constantly bullies and cajoles his listening audience."

It's showbiz. You're nothing on conservative talk radio unless you're fuming mad or pretend to be.; 12/19/09, 10:26 AM
Middletown Girl said...: "The Republican Party needs to pound on issues where the overwhelming majority of Americans agree, at least superficially, with their positions:

1) Tough on crime (more prisons, the death penalty)

2) Fiscal responsibility (but not lowering taxes, as that message is worn out)

3) Building a border fence

4) Strong defense

5) Cutting foreign aid

6) Energy independence"

------------

Frum is right on one thing: more technocratic competence on the right. The problem with GOP and conservatives is many of them are not only anti-big-government, they are knee-jerked anti-government. Since they generally do NOT look to careers in government, guess who runs the show? Even when conservative politicians are in power, the branches and bureaucracies of government are manned by liberals who can slow things down or sabotage conservative plans from within.

Perhaps this is inevitable given that big cities are run by liberals. It is in big cities where politicians and bureaucrats get the most training in running a government and then eventually heading for Washington. Obama is from Chicago, Palin is from Wasilla. Which kind of place produces more technocrats, politicians, and lobbyists?

Conservatives have not only given up on government but on big cities. Small towns may be quiet and nice but are not good training grounds for those who want to run government.

We can be FOR border security, toughness on crime, fiscal responsibility, etc, etc, but they are meaningless unless we have solid talented committed technocrats ready and willing to execute those policies. We also need lots of lawyers to counter legal obstruction from the left.

And, what the hell is wrong with government? What are we? Stinking anarchists? Government is a sign of civilization! Lots of African countries have almost no government, and it's hell over there.

Of course, conservatives lack interest in academia, libraries, culture, and arts too. This leads to cultural and intellectual inferiority complex, especially when they take residence in big cities. Liberals have theatre, music, movies--art and popular--, bookstores, libraries, universities, NPR, PBS, and art galleries. Conservatives have... talk radio and mall churches. So, educated conservatives like David Brooks, Frum, Kathleen Parker, and Chris Buckley gravitate to the left on many issues.

This isn't to say that rightwing ideas--except for literal reading of the Bible--are less intellectually worthy than leftwing ideas. Problem is rightwing ideas are not properly intellectualized but only emotionalized. At cocktail parties, one cannot win respect by screaming like Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage.
Of course, there is the courageous alternative right, but its ideas are, as yet, too controversial to win over the mainstream crowd.; 12/19/09, 10:41 AM
Middletown Girl said...: "His essential problem is [that] his primary political loyalty is to a foreign power."

"Would that be Israel.... or CANADA!?!?"

--------------

With a lot of libs and some neocons, it seems to be Globostan.; 12/19/09, 10:43 AM
Middletown Girl said...: "I've always wondered how you can be a conservative when you abandon your home country and then take up with another."

That goes for ALL Americans or at least their ancestors.; 12/19/09, 10:45 AM
Pat Shuff said...: Anon said--

That said, I miss his rather entertaining show these days. I can't find it in L.A. anymore. Have the libs in la-la land had him informally banned?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I couldn't take more than a few minutes of Savage-style over-the-top bombast while spending adult working years on the road. He was jerked from the airwaves in the Eugene-Springfield OR radio market.
A faction loudly protested he be taken off the lineup of righty talk
shows on the local radio station which refused. The pressure eventually found its way into the University, home of the wildly popular Oregon Ducks college football team which goes to the Rose Bowl this year. The radio station broadcast their games, a big revenue raiser. The college told the radio station either Savage goes or your Ducks broadcast rights. Savage went.
Twiddling the radio knobs a few years hence I heard Savage again, having been picked up by another local station in the area.

I'll grant Savage being well and broadly read in political philosophy which is kind of scary, considering the stance he postures.
From memory he readily references from Greek government to founding fathers with ease having read them. Having read them with understanding is for another to decide, I've never meaningfully visited the source materials.; 12/19/09, 10:51 AM
Mark said...: How would one characterize Mark Levin, Michael Savage, and Michael Medved?

Medved is a big time fraud on illegal immigration. His savage denunciations of Tom Tancredo for demanding the American government enforce its laws leave no doubt Medved has nothing but contempt for middle class americans.

Savage is also a monumental fraud on illegal immigration. He praises illegal immigrants one day and denounces illegal immigration on the subsequent show.; 12/19/09, 11:25 AM
Middletown Girl said...: "Since some have referred to Michael Savage, my take is that he's an egomaniacal cult leader type."

Savage is semi-crazy(or acts it), but he is refreshing in attacking the GOP as well as the Democrats. When McCain chose Palin, he saw a trainwreck and said so.

And I love the way he trashes other talkshow hosts who are little more than shills for the wantonly corrupt GOP.; 12/19/09, 3:29 PM
green mamba said...: "He was jerked from the airwaves in the Eugene-Springfield OR radio market. A faction loudly protested he be taken off the lineup of righty talk shows on the local radio station..."

I suspect the local station in L.A. has been subjected to similar pressure and that's why he's no longer on the air here.

I believe he's also in legal hot water in England due to hate speech laws. Crazy con man or not, the guy's got guts.; 12/19/09, 5:19 PM
Le Mur said...: What do you mean "nonsense"? Could you explain?

1 - It started out as an honest mistake.
2 - They got subconscious positive feedback for the incorrect but apparently important results (like the psych class that "trains" the prof to stand on one side of the room by how they react to his teaching).
3 - Now they've nailed their pants to the mast and can't climb down, so they tell lies.; 12/20/09, 8:44 AM
Mr. Anon said...: Does Larry Elder still broadcast in L.A? I always thought he should have run for congress. He's a libertarian, which is not my cup of tea, but as a congressman I wouldn't mind, and he might have been able to do some good.; 12/20/09, 11:05 PM
Anonymous said...: MT said

> conservatives lack interest in academia, libraries, culture, and arts too. This leads to cultural and intellectual inferiority complex, especially when they take residence in big cities. Liberals have theatre, music, movies--art and popular--, bookstores, libraries, universities, NPR, PBS, and art galleries. Conservatives have... talk radio and mall churches. <

Sad but true. However, you left out one thing: well-appointed mega-churches in which the conservatives put on plays about all-loving all-welcoming Jayzeus. There is a lot of ruin in a nation.; 12/21/09, 8:03 AM
Anonymous said...: "1 - It started out as an honest mistake.
2 - They got subconscious positive feedback for the incorrect but apparently important results (like the psych class that "trains" the prof to stand on one side of the room by how they react to his teaching).
3 - Now they've nailed their pants to the mast and can't climb down, so they tell lies."

Maybe you should let Gregory Cochrane answer for himself.; 12/21/09, 12:45 PM
Mark said...: Larry Elder is no longer on the air in Los Angeles. Apparently there a few takers for a black neocon in Los Angeles.; 12/22/09, 12:24 PM

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In praise of David Frum

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