David Frum

Sneering MSNBCers: Tea Party Wants to Go Back to '1860' and Hates Those Who 'Don't Look Like Them'
By Jackie Seal | June 17, 2014 | 11:19 AM EDT

In a desperate effort to tout the collapse of the Republican Party, guest host of The Last Word, Ari Melber was joined by Howard Dean and David Frum on Monday evening to discuss the lack of serious ideas coming from the right. According to the MSNBC liberals, the fearful Tea Party wants to go back to a pre-Civil War America.

The guests swapped theories on the relationship between the GOP and the Tea Party. Howard Dean used the textbook MSNBC talking point that the Tea Party is just frustrated that the people leading the country “don’t look like them anymore.”

David Frum: GOP Needs a Tony Blair-Like Figure Who’ll Reform Party ‘By Standing Up to Its Most Extreme Elements’
By Tom Johnson | June 13, 2014 | 7:57 AM EDT

In a brief Thursday post on the Atlantic’s website, "reform conservative" pundit David Frum cited Eric Cantor’s primary loss to Dave Brat as further evidence that “Republican leaders” need to emerge to confront the “the destructive leadership of fanatics (and the cynics who make their living by duping fanatics)."

He cited Tony Blair as a model, someone " who revived his party by standing up to its most extreme elements," and asserted that if such leaders fail to appear, the GOP “might just as well already rename our dysfunctional party the Committee to Elect Hillary Clinton.” Frum’s entire post (emphasis added):

Surprise – NY Times Picks David Frum to Hail NY Times Reporter’s Book, Slash Radical Right
By Tim Graham | October 21, 2013 | 2:06 PM EDT

"The Bush administration opened with a second Pearl Harbor, ended with a second Great Crash and contained a second Vietnam in the middle." That sounds like a liberal. Guess what? It is. David Frum was selected by the New York Times to review a new book on Bush by New York Times reporter Peter Baker. This arrangement is so cozy that Frum admits that Baker interviewed him for this masterpiece.

While this was supposedly about the last decade, Frum was even allowed the requisite rhetorical machete-swinging against today’s avatars of a “radical brand of conservatism” that can’t win elections and couldn’t govern if it did:

WashPost Columnist and Former Editor David Ignatius Wants to Hunt the Tea Party 'RINO Hunters'
By Tim Graham | October 20, 2013 | 9:39 AM EDT

Several Washington Post journalist/operatives are also teaching in the Karen Tumulty School of Unselfishly Un-electing The Tea Party. In Sunday’s paper, columnist David Ignatius (formerly a Post foreign editor and assistant managing editor for business news) penned a piece titled “Disarming the RINO Hunters.”

“Many Republicans have been muttering over the past few weeks of political craziness that the tea party’s hold on the GOP must be broken to protect their party’s health — not to mention the country’s,” Ignatius huffed. “So I’ve been asking people what a movement to break the extremists’ power would actually look like.” Guess who he asked for expertise?

Bad Math: CNN's David Frum Encourages Republicans to Mimic Losing British Conservatives
By Scott Whitlock | October 3, 2013 | 9:44 AM EDT

 

According to CNN contributor David Frum on Tuesday, the best way for Republicans to win is to mimic the actions of the British Conservative Party. Frum's Daily Beast article is bizarrely titled, "Where the Right Is Winning." Except, the right isn't winning in the United Kingdom. As the Wall Street Journal reported on September 30, "The Conservative Party has lagged behind the center-left Labour Party in opinion polls by as much as 10 percentage points or more over recent months."

The sub-headline for Frum's article announced, "In the U.K., the ideologically rigid left can’t keep up with David Cameron’s ruling Conservatives." Also wrong. A YouGov poll from September 27 found that Labour had jumped 13 points, from 29 percent to 42 percent, since 2010. At the same time the Conservatives are hemorrhaging voters, the right-wing United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) has seen its numbers rocket up, from three percent to 13 percent.

Daily Beast Promotes Faux Conservative Frum's Desire for Fresh 'Talk About Gun Control'
By Ken Shepherd | September 16, 2013 | 6:26 PM EDT

Faux conservative David Frum proved his usefulness to the liberal media yet again this afternoon with his calls for more gun control in the wake of the deadly Washington Navy Yard shooting this morning.

The former George W. Bush speechwriter -- he coined the "axis of evil" -- couldn't wait to post his item headlined "Let's Not Wait to Talk About Gun Control." It was published to the Daily Beast's site at 3:10 p.m. Eastern and is item #2 in the lightbox as of time of this blog's publication (see screen capture below).

Columnist David Frum Leaves Daily Beast With Typical ‘Move Leftward’ Advice for GOP
By Randy Hall | June 7, 2013 | 10:57 AM EDT

It's always heartwarming to see non-conservatives who are so concerned about the current state of the Republican Party that they generously provide advice on how the GOP can be more popular and win more elections. Unfortunately, if those recommendations were actually followed, conservatives would have no political party to call home, and all elected officials would be “progressives.”

One such provider of unsolicited advice is David Frum, a contributing editor at such liberal outlets as The Daily Beast who announced his departure from that outlet with more predictable urgings for the GOP to move leftward on such issues as Obamacare and the environment.

Moderate Mitt Loses, Media Blame Conservatives
By Christian Robey | November 14, 2012 | 10:30 AM EST

Over the past week, the media have been obsessively attributing the GOP’s election loss to the party’s embrace of conservatism. It began with a predictable assault on the standard bearer of conservative thought over the airwaves, Rush Limbaugh. On election night, NBC’s Brian Williams opined that Rush was a liability for the GOP. And it didn’t stop with Williams.

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe David Frum seconded that sentiment by claiming that Republicans were “fleeced, exploited and lied to” by the “conservative entertainment complex,” another obvious dig at Limbaugh and talk radio. Scarborough agreed, proclaiming that the GOP needs to stop listening to the “most extreme people” in the Party. Rounding out the week on Sunday, the all-liberal panel on NBC’s Meet The Press, piled on the anti-Limbaugh message: the loss was due to Limbaugh and the “loons and wackos” of the conservative base.

Frum: Republicans 'Fleeced, Exploited And Lied To' By 'Conservative Entertainment Complex'
By Mark Finkelstein | November 9, 2012 | 10:18 AM EST

David Frum blames the media for Mitt Romney's loss. Not the liberal media, of course--we are talking David Frum, after all. No, Frum blames the conservative media, or as he calls it, "the conservative entertainment complex."

Frum touted his upside-down take on the media during a Morning Joe appearance today while promoting his instant e-book, "Why Romney Lost." Joe Scarborough liked the line so much he asked Frum to repeat it. Frum refused to name names, saying he does so in his book, but do we doubt whom he was targeting? View the video after the jump.

Brooke Baldwin Dismisses Effectiveness of Media Bias Accusations
By Matt Hadro | October 1, 2012 | 4:39 PM EDT

Ignoring other conservative condemnations of liberal media bias, CNN's Brooke Baldwin pulled tape of former President George H. W. Bush all the way from 1992 ranting about the press – and then snidely pointed out how it "did not help" him.

"[C]omplaining about the media did not help Bush One. He lost his bid for re-election," noted Baldwin on Monday afternoon's Newsroom, who compared Paul Ryan's claim of media bias on Sunday to Bush's 1992 rant. So Ryan hitting out at the media won't help Team Romney?

WashPost Joins Time, CNN In Suspending Fareed Zakaria's Column After Plagiarism Scandal
By Tim Graham | August 14, 2012 | 10:22 PM EDT

The Washington Post really knows how to bury the lede. In a Tuesday story on how suspended CNN-Time journalist Fareed Zakaria is now under fire for stealing quotes without attribution in his book The Post-American World, media reporter Paul Farhi waited until the 13th and final paragraph to acknowledge that that the Post has joined CNN and Time in punishing Zakaria for his plagiarism.

“Zakaria also writes a separate column for The Washington Post. The newspaper said on Monday that his column will not appear this month,” he concluded. Zakaria lamented: "People are piling on with every grudge or vendetta" now that NewsBusters exposed him.

 

CNN's Foreman: Obama Not 'Champion of Transparency' He Promised He'd Be
By Randy Hall | July 12, 2012 | 11:56 AM EDT

During Tuesday night's edition of CNN's Outfront, substitute host Tom Foreman departed from the network's usual liberal spin to accuse President Obama of failing to keep his promise of presiding over the most transparent presidential administration ever.

After running a clip of the president stating that “We have put in place the toughest ethics laws and toughest transparency rules of any administration in history.” Foreman asked if Obama's claims “add up” regarding the “transparency tornado.”