Mugger: Frum Looks Out for Number One

Like most accomplished journalists, David Frum has no shortage of ego. I admire his elegant writing: his essays in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, National Post and Weekly Standard, for example, are insightful views of modern conservatism. Unfortunately, Frum’s slight book (The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush, Random House) recounting his 13 months as a speechwriter for President Bush isn’t nearly as valuable as his journalism. Mostly, The Right Man falls flat because of the author’s hubris. He offers little that isn’t already known about Bush’s presidency, concentrating instead on his own experience at the White House. /> Frum began his stint in the administration on Jan. 30, 2001, and resigned (or was fired) a little more than a year later, after a Beltway controversy ensued, involving his wife bragging that her husband was responsible for the phrase "axis of evil" in last year’s State of the Union address. Frum claims he was planning to leave anyway, insisting that "a war presidency had decreasing need for the services of an economic speechwriter." That alone appears disingenuous, since he clearly contributed to Bush’s speeches about foreign policy.

(So much so that The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg, who’s still stuck in the "Bush stole the election" time warp, elevates, for his own purposes, Frum’s status in the administration. In the Jan. 13 issue, Hertzberg wrote: "A not completely crazy case can be made that the most influential thinker in the foreign-policy apparatus of the Administration of George W. Bush during its first two years was not one of the familiar members of gold-shielded Praetorian Guard–not Dick Cheney or Colin Powell, not Condi or Rummy [lay off the Maureen Dowd columns, Rick], not Tenet or Wolfowitz but–rather, a forty-two-year-old Canadian named David Frum.")

Frum, who during the 2000 campaign reluctantly supported his future boss, came to his job doubting Bush’s "command of words," if not exactly his intelligence. However, when offered a post at the White House by Michael Gerson, the most gifted presidential speechwriter in at least a generation, ambition trumped his doubts about the new chief executive. He writes: "Bush’s adventure might succeed. I hoped so. But succeed or fail, it would be worth witnessing. My faith in Bush was not deep. But my curiosity was."

In other words, it’s all about me.

One gathers that Frum wanted to write the first "insider" account of the Bush White House, before the inevitable stream of similar books appeared by other officials who’d left the administration. This gambit seems to have paid off for the journalist: In the past two weeks Frum has been on almost as many talk shows as Sen. John Edwards has, and The Right Man has been reviewed, to mixed opinions, by most mainstream publications. Sales of the book have been brisk but slipping, and he’s set up a website (davidfrum.com) to inform fans about his promotional appearances.

But the main problem, at least for readers, in prematurely evaluating this presidency is that Bush has just completed two years in office. Frum writes about the tax cut passed in 2001: "The tax plan was the greatest domestic achievement of Bush’s presidency. It would also be the last." Maybe that’s so, looking through Frum’s myopic prism, but such a definitive statement is silly. After the author completed his book, Bush won an historic midterm election, proposed a bold tax cut, shocked Beltway pundits by renominating Charles Pickering, filed a brief with the Supreme Court against affirmative action, spoke out for tort reform and outlined plans for modernizing Medicare.

Frum came to admire Bush after the Sept. 11 massacres in New York and Washington, and is generous in his praise for the president’s foreign-policy vision, siding with Donald Rumsfeld over Colin Powell in how aggressive the United States should be in the multifaceted war on terrorism. Still, the conclusion of The Right Man is a left-handed compliment. Frum says: "There is nothing divine about American political process. Yet leadership remains the greatest mystery in politics. George W. Bush was hardly the obvious man for the job. But by a very strange fate, he turned out to be, of all unlikely things, the right man."

Well, that’s a ringing endorsement worthy of John McCain.

At least half the book contains Frum’s dissatisfaction with his job. A native of Canada, he was put off when Bush didn’t mention that ally in his historic Sept. 20 congressional speech. And he complains that being a speechwriter "is a lot like being a fireman, without the heroics."

After James Jeffords defected from the Republican Party in the spring of 2001, giving Democrats control of the Senate, Frum was unhappy because of the administration’s problems in achieving its goals. "All the old doubts about Bush were bubbling up again," he writes. "Was he up to the job? Did he have any principles at all? Was he too soft, naive, too inexperienced? I began avoiding parties where I expected the questions to be posed too persistently by my conservative friends..."

What a bummer for Frum’s social life.

The author’s inescapable solipsism, common among the Beltway establishment, is evident even in describing the carnage of Sept. 11. Frum says: "The death toll in Virginia was of course less enormous than that in New York, but because the structure of the Pentagon stood intact, the visible devastation had been in some ways even more gruesome than at ground zero." True, I’m a New Yorker who witnessed the World Trade Center’s collapse live, along with the mayhem that ensued for months afterward, but most Americans would find those words extremely tasteless.

And when the short-term speechwriter left the White House, he asked the press office to issue a statement that, contrary to an article by syndicated columnist Robert Novak, he had not been fired. "This makes me look kind of bad, you know," he told the official. "You," the press officer shot back. "It makes the president look bad–petty and vindictive." Frum responded: "Oh, yes, well. I hadn’t thought of that."

The Right Man does have its moments, such as when Frum completely destroys the argument of liberals that Bush was owned by Enron. He explains that the bankrupt company contributed–for Bush’s two gubernatorial races, the presidential run, the Florida recount battle and an inaugural party–approximately $1 million. He writes: "Considering that Bush raised $190 million for his presidential run alone, it’s fair to say that Enron’s financial contribution to Bush’s political career amounted to little more than a rounding error."

Perhaps the single most valuable nugget in the book is Frum’s ridicule of Paul Krugman, the increasingly belligerent New York Times op-ed columnist. He recalls this gem from a Jan. 29, 2002, Krugman column: "I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not September 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society."

That’s the kind of observation that has earned Frum acclaim in his journalistic career. I believe The Right Man leaves the prolific writer somewhat diminished in stature, but as an intelligent, middle-aged man, he has time to rectify the feebleness of this vanity-infused book.

More Dollars Than Votes

The announcement a few weeks ago that the Republicans will hold their 2004 presidential convention in Manhattan not surprisingly cheered local politicians and business leaders in the city. The free-spending convergence of delegates promises a short-term boost to a flagging economy; too bad the massive gathering isn’t on tap for this summer.

But the notion that George W. Bush will increase his chances of winning New York’s electoral votes in the election is silly. Unless the president is landslide-bound, like Ronald Reagan in ’84, the state can be relied upon to land in the Democratic column, even if the nominee is a stiff like John Kerry. Joe Conason, in contrast to other pundits, was correct in his Jan. 13 New York Observer column when he wrote: "[L]et’s hope that Mr. Bush won’t be too disappointed when he loses New York again anyway."

But aside from the obvious symbolic value of choosing New York, the Republican National Committee didn’t really have a choice, considering the two other contenders, Tampa and New Orleans, had zero upside for the party. The Florida city would’ve put too much attention on Gov. Jeb Bush and the speculation that he’ll run for president in 2008. As for Louisiana, the timing isn’t right for a coronation in the Deep South, given the mainstream media’s conviction that all Republicans are racists.

On Jan. 7, the New York Times concluded a cheerleading editorial with this stupid paragraph: "The Democrats, in choosing Boston, ignored the history of their party’s winning streak with presidential candidates selected in New York. The Republicans obviously hope that if they can make it here, they’ll make it everywhere." At least the edit’s headline wasn’t "It’s Sinatra’s World, We Just Live in It."

The Post’s John Podhoretz, on the same day, made an excellent point in speculating that one benefit of the convention is that Gov. Pataki will be under pressure to get off his butt and start making progress on rebuilding downtown. He writes: "Bush will not want to appear in New York with Ground Zero still a gaping hole and ludicrous arguments still going on about whether or not there should be an office building here that looks like a tic-tac-toe board. We should all thank God for this pressure, because so far there’s been no indication of the governor’s seriousness of purpose on this matter."

Podhoretz ends on a ludicrous note–fantasizing that Rudy Giuliani might replace Dick Cheney as Bush’s runningmate at the convention, as if the GOP base would countenance such a switch–but he’s right on target about the shameful dithering on the reconstruction of the financial district.

See No Evil

The New York Times, which has ceded its "paper of record" title to the Washington Post, is in a state of denial. Flummoxed by November’s midterm elections, flabbergasted by President Bush’s activist agenda and experiencing internal strife in its own newsroom, the daily is quickly drifting to the moribund politics of the Village Voice. Now that Frank Rich has been dispatched to the arts pages, one can reasonably expect the Voice’s paranoid James Ridgeway to fill the former’s biweekly op-ed slot.

A Times editorial on Jan. 20 demonstrated just how out-of-touch Howell Raines and Gail Collins have become in the last year. The offensive edit, headlined "A Stirring in the Nation," begins: "A largely missing ingredient in the nascent debate about invading Iraq showed up on the streets of major cities over the weekend as crowds of peaceable protesters marched in a demand to be heard. They represented what appears to be a large segment of the American public that remains unconvinced that the Iraqi threat warrants the use of military force at this juncture."

That the demonstrations were organized by ANSWER, an adjunct of the Stalinist Workers World Party, is not mentioned in the editorial. And while it’s probably true the majority of protesters were, as the Times describes, "young college students to grayheads [isn’t that ageism?] with vivid protest memories of the 60’s," an allegedly objective newspaper would’ve also noted the not-insignificant anti-American sentiment at the rallies.

Andrew Sullivan’s eponymous website shows some pictures from San Francisco. He writes: "Routine posters equating Bush and Cheney with Hitler. KKK-style slogans: ‘I want YOU to die for Israel. Israel Sings Onward Christian Soldiers.’ My favorite: ‘The Difference Between Bush and Saddam is that Saddam was Elected.’"

And Salon, in its report on the San Francisco activities, reported the following on Monday: "Considerable creative energy went into some attacks on the president. One large [sign] read ‘Stop the Fourth Reich–Visualize Nuremberg/Iraq.’ On the other side were rows of doctored photos of all the top-ranking Bush administration officials wearing Nazi uniforms and officers’ caps, each with an identifying caption. Bush was identified as ‘The Angry Puppet’ and ‘Mind-controlled Slave/Pro-life Executioner.’ Cheney: ‘The Fuhrer, Already in His Bunker.’ Powell: ‘House Negro–Fakes Left, Move Right.’ Rice: ‘Will Kill Africans for Oil.’"

It might not make "All the News That’s Fit to Print" that the Times is at least vaguely anti-Semitic, but is Raines throwing his weight behind Americans who believe Bush is the reincarnation of Hitler?

Tierney’s Small Victory

It’s rare when a New York Times news article deviates from executive editor Howell Raines’ vociferously anti-Bush agenda, but reporter John Tierney managed just that on Jan. 19 in a piece about the president’s tax-cut proposal. Don’t be surprised if Tierney leaves the Times within the six months, weary of his stay in Raines’ penalty box.

Tierney writes: "The aisles were packed at Politics and Prose, a bookstore in one of America’s more affluent neighborhoods, when a billionaire’s father arrived to promote his book calling for higher taxes on the rich. The customers there to buy copies of ‘Wealth and Our Commonwealth’ loudly applauded William H. Gates as he denounced greedy plutocrats and declared the estate tax to be ‘the finest tax conceived by man.’

"A quick survey of these book buyers from the Chevy Chase and Forest Hills sections of Washington found precisely zero percent in favor of the White House’s proposed tax cuts... The closest encouraging word for the Bush plan came a few doors up Connecticut Avenue at Besta Pizza, a tiny carryout shop owned by an Egyptian immigrant, Tarek Zahow, who commutes to his 70-hour-a-week job from a much less upscale neighborhood 15 miles out of town.

"‘Of course I’m for tax cuts,’ Mr. Zahow said. He said he supported the White House’s proposal, even though he realized the affluent would receive most of the money, and favored eliminating the estate tax even if it applied only to millionaires.

"‘I’m nowhere near a million in assets, but I might be someday,’ he said."

I wonder if Zahow will be seated next to Laura Bush at next week’s State of the Union address.

Send comments to [MUG1988@aol.com](mailto:MUG1988@aol.com)