Just caught part of a forum between Shrum and Frum (Bob and David) on C-Span, at Georgetown University. Shrum's a genius, but he's not my subject. I study Frum carefully as I prepare my novel inspired by Bruno Malinowski: The Sex Lives of the Neoconservatives. Frum's smart and fabulous looking, a head like a rhino. He said, It's over, the Republicans should give up on McCain now and put money into other races. Then a couple times he said the greatest failure of the last eight years is the growing gap between the rich and poor. When the moderator asked him what he would tell the Republicans to address, it was this.
He said that Reagan was the apogee of conservative thinking, and Bush 2 the decadent period of conservative ideas. They'd run out of gas. Notice that he is calling it all conservative, nothing about neoconservative. And in listing the failures and deadness of Republican ideas in the last eight years, he did not mention Iraq. This from the man who wrote, An End to Evil, with Richard Perle, saying we could pick off whoever we wanted in the Arab world, and said "Victory or holocaust"! and is credited with Bush's line, "The axis of evil." Quick, name those countries!
The two things I took away from my truncated watching of Frum were, It wasn't clear why anyone should be a Republican right now. He didn't tell me what there is to believe in. I didn't see the whole thing; but if you care about economic equality, and I do, then Barack's your man. Let's try some socialism! Then, too, I sense that Frum is running from his war, the Iraq war, just like Feith is. It's still the first paragraph of his own obit. He'll never live it down. He ought to have a homa ceremony and burn the book Perle and he wrote, and do a public shriving. Maybe he should apologize for "axis of evil." As it is he's like Feith denying that he had any ideology at all in his recent book, War and Decision. Out damn spot!
But of course he uses the word conservative, "neoconservative" is just a code word for Jewish Republican. Alan Dershowitz says so in his new book :p!
The Neocons did the same thing in 2000, first backing McCain, then glomming on to Bush when he won and going to work in both media and from within the administration on their agenda. Of course, that was before the word Neocon had entered the mainstream vernacular. Yet from the behavior of Frum, and David Brooks, they seem to believe they can pull the same stunt with an Obama presidency — and they may well be right. Their shrewdness and shamelessness should never be under estimated. But even if they fail, the Neolibs will take up the slack, and advance the same agenda.
Frum and Perle will have the last laugh no matter what their legacy/obit reads. While the Iraq war may be an albatross, their assertion that the U.S. needs to be profiling people like Rachel Corrie who in the Frum/Perle world is a traveler with terrorists, I suspect became policy. In their world, as in the Palin world, people who voice dissent, who stand side by side with Palestinians, or who opposed the Iraqi war are to be monitored/profiled -unAmerican activity, you know. Those who, like Rachel, are dead can be smeared and forgotten- except for the Robert Fisk types of the world (Fisk did an early article on those people that the power elite wants to "Walter Mitty")
Meanwhile,great "real" Americans Frum and Perle are speaking on NPR, C-Span, Rachel Maddow…etc. Their voices continue.
In 2003. when Frum/Perle published and had every ability to assertain the status of the investigation into Rachel's death, (Perle was still on the Defense Policy Board and could surely have picked up the phone and called people at State) they ignored the lack of a credible investigation and went right for the innuendo jugular…tunnels….and suicide bombers.
The Iraq War was already a done deal…Frum/Perle moved on to making their voice heard in a different sphere, directing their thoughts to who should be under surveillance and it surely was not going to be the likes of Feith/Perle/Frum. It was going to be the likes of Rachel Corrie who had the audacity to think she could go to Gaza,report on the horror she saw, organize press conferences and basically act as the absent press. In their world she was a fellow traveler with terrorists. Feith/Perle/Ledeen/Cheney are not known for their love of antiwar protesters, dissenters, or reporters. I doubt they appreciated her feet on the Rafah border trying to figure out what was going on…home demolitions, American equipment/support,rounding up farmers and shooting at their feet, bulldozers and APC's away from the Philadelphia Corridor and inside the Israeli constructed wall biting away at Palestinian homes…and giving press conferences and writing home…unamerican activity.
In the Perle/Frum world these are the kind of people that need to be profiled…those that are looking too deep.
I suspectPerle/Frum are laughing all the way to Homeland Security's wiretapping door -Iraq be damned.
P.S. Of interest….their appears to be no one in the State Department who knows anything about the Philadelphi Route. Ambassador Kurtzer said that Jonathon Schwartz was the expert…Jonathon Schwartz says he doesn't know much about where jurisdiction began/ended under Oslo…The Israel Palestine desk doesn't know…So when the Israeli's killed Rachel and stated that they had jurisdiction over the area outside of the Philadelphia Corridor…State didn't have a clue and never questioned the Israelis as to why they were so far from the Corridor….See one musn't dig too deep!
The problem lies in the awareness that 99% of the USA masses never heard of Rachael Corrie.
Goebbels and Pravada would understand.
Is a genius really a genius if his major ideas were bound to fail from the beginning? Was the idea to have a war with no concern for the outcome? If so, I still fail to see the genius.
anon, While 99% of the masses may not know of her, Frum and Perle did and chose to use her and the ISM as prototypes of who should be profiled. As important is why they utilized a CAMERA type innuendo when they certainly had high level access to get facts. At the time this book was published, State had already determined that there were inconsistencies within the Israeli investigation.
it's perfect example of the problem with the GOP. the republicans at thelocal levels are still regular conservatives, if a little dulited because they've had to carry water for the national party leaders.
but he republicans in washington are not conservative anymore. they buy votes the same way democrats do. some of the votes theybuy are different but many are the same.
gingrich and co turned to prognosticators and geniuses like this guy because they didn't think they could get elected on their merits. thye still don't believe huckabee or someone like that is presentable
Todd has been hammering away at a good point lately. For all their cleverness, even if triangulating Neocons and Neolibs achieve short tern tactical success, what good is it if their overall strategy fails? To me, this is mindful of the increasingly dismal position Israel is in everywhere (including the Levant) except the United States. The Zionists have won the tactical battle of triangulating Americans, in part by answering critics with cries of anti-Semitism and appeasement, but lost the strategic war of elevating Israel in the process. Neolibs may win the tactical battle of gaining the White House by shouting racism at critics, but they will poison the country in the process and sabotage their chances for success in other areas, just as the Bushies did.
I think the answer is, both sides also find fundamental satisfaction in the door prize of being able to enrich themselves and their cronies at the expense of average Americans that has become one of the perks of power. In fact, self-enrichment at public expense may well have been their principal objective all along, with the rest of their professed agenda subordinate to that primary goal. And most in Washington achieve their golden parachutes, and will continue to until the country goes bankrupt. This is the post-Christian, dialectical materialst world we live in.
We need a preemptive war on Iran, or at least a defensive one. By we I mean Israel or the USA as there is no difference as a practical matter. I can't wait as it will be entertaining.
Ed, I'm sure that enriching themselves at the public's expense is a goal for many with power, but the smart ones have to realize that everyone can't wind up like Marc Rich. I could be wrong, but it appears to me that the common criminal is more typical than any sort of genius among our elites. Without knowing specifics, most people know that the system is corrupt.