PrintNovember 20, 2009
What's the right term for David Frum?
There may be a term from the 1960s to describe pundit David Frum that has nothing to do with rebuilding a traditional centrist Republican majority, as the Canadian-born pundit purports would happen, should the party only follow his august advice. Nor is that term "perennial loser," as the centrist Republican Party was in Congress for 60 of the 64 years going back from 1995 to the Great Depression.
Canadian journalist Judi McLeod suggests the right term with the title to her piece David Frum: Looking for sex in all the wrong places. The term I am thinking of is a good old fashioned male chauvinist pig.
This is what Frum had to say during his new gig at CNN about Sarah Palin kicking off her book tour in the rust-belt city of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
"This is a woman who has got into a position of leadership by sending very powerful sexual signals," Frum told reporter Judy Woodruff. "And we see that in the way that men like her much more than women do."
Frum obviously moves in far different circles than I do, because I have met a great many women in the past year at tea party events who see Sarah Palin as their heroine and role model.
Nor is this the first time that Frum has obsessed that strong, attractive woman earned her clout via an illegitimate use of feminine wiles. McLeod mentions that Frum's reputation as a conservative is based on his brief period as a speechwriter for George W. Bush. I read Frum's book about working in the White House, The Right Man. According to Frum, Karen Hughes' role as a senior advisor to President Bush had everything to do with her sex and her status as a fellow Texan, and nothing at all to do with her political savvy or communication skills and particularly not her intellect, all of which Frum found seriously deficient.
Frum struck me as an exceedingly petty man in that book, the self-described smartest kid in class who boasts frequently to outsiders of his minor achievements while never understanding why so few of the people who matter ever follow his advice on the subjects that really matter. He certainly came across as being pea green with envy over Karen Hughes' clout. It is also likely that David Frum didn't attract 1,500 people for signings over the entire tour of any of his several books, let alone 1,500 at a single stop on a chilly November weekday in a small city well off the beaten path, as Sarah Palin did in Grand Rapids. And while Frum strikes me as also being envious of the success of a great many men, I doubt that he would use similarly demeaning terms to explain their success.
When I read Frum's attacks, first on Hughes and now on Palin, it reminded me of some of the boys I knew back in college. When the Dean's List came out the first semester after the college admitted its first class of female students, women were significantly over-represented. Those who spent their time out of the classroom at keggers or smoking dope knew that our success was because the professors couldn't take their eyes off our breasts or legs. It certainly wasn't because we all were smart to begin with, had strong values and, most of all, took our responsibilities very seriously.
Welcome to the CNN fraternity, David. I am sure you will fit right in.
