David Frum
Encyclopedia
David J. Frum (ˈfrʌm; born June 30, 1960) is a Canadian American journalist active in both the United States
and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter
for President George W. Bush
, he is also the author of the first "insider" book about the Bush presidency. His editorial columns have appeared in a variety of Canadian and American magazines and newspapers, including the National Post
and The Week
. He is the founder of FrumForum.com (formerly NewMajority.com), a political group blog
, and serves on the board of directors
of the Republican Jewish Coalition
.
, Ontario
, Canada
, Frum is the son of the late Barbara Frum
, a well-known journalist and broadcaster, and Murray Frum, a dentist, who later became a real estate developer, philanthropist, and art collector. Frum's sister, Linda Frum
, is a member of the Canadian Senate
. Frum is married to writer Danielle Crittenden
, the stepdaughter of former Toronto Sun
editor Peter Worthington
. The couple has three children. He is a distant cousin of economist
Paul Krugman
.
At age 14 Frum was a campaign volunteer
for a New Democratic Party
candidate. During the hour-long bus/subway/bus ride each way to and from the campaign office in western Toronto, he read a paperback edition of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
's Gulag Archipelago his mother had given him. "My campaign colleagues jeered at the book — and by the end of the campaign, any lingering interest I might have had in the political left had vanished like yesterday’s smoke."
He graduated from the University of Toronto Schools
in 1978 where he was the School Captain
. At Yale University
he simultaneously earned Bachelor of Arts
and Master of Arts
degrees in History, graduating in 1982. He was in Directed Studies
, a type of "Great Books
" curriculum. According to The American Conservative
:
Frum earned his Juris Doctor
(J.D.) at Harvard Law School
in 1987. Frum has described one of his study methods:
After graduating from Harvard, Frum returned to Toronto to serve as an associate editor of Saturday Night
. He was an editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal from 1989 until 1992, and then a columnist
for Forbes magazine in 1992-94. During his tenure at the Journal, Frum "accepted the freelance assignment that would make his name: a 1991 cover story for The American Spectator
attacking Pat Buchanan
." From 1994 through 2000 he was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. During the 1990s he attended "three or four" Bilderberg Group
meetings as a guest of Conrad Black
.
Following the election of George W. Bush
in 2000, Frum was appointed to a position within the White House
. Frum would later write that when he was first offered the job by chief Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson
,
Still a Canadian citizen, he was one of the few foreign nationals working within the Bush White House. He had filed for naturalization
and took the oath of citizenship
on September 11, 2007. Frum served as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Speechwriting from January 2001 to February 2002. He is credited with inventing the expression “axis of evil
” Bush introduced in his 2002 State of the Union address, since Frum's wife, Danielle Crittenden
, bragged about it in e-mails that were picked up by the media. Frum shortly afterwards resigned from his position. Both he and the White House denied any connection to the incidence. He later explained, that he used the term “axis of hatred”, referring to terrorist groups and extremist governments, in the first draft of the speech and the phrase was changed to “axis of evil.”
While serving in the Bush White House, Frum was "one of the most vociferous voices . . . calling for war in Iraq," and "wrote in 2003 about the Iraqis 'welcoming their liberators.'"
Frum strongly supported John Roberts, George W. Bush's nominee for Chief Justice of the United States
. However, like many conservatives, he opposed the nomination of Harriet Miers
for the Supreme Court of the United States
, on the grounds that she was insufficiently qualified for the post, as well as insufficiently conservative.
On October 11, 2007, Frum announced on his blog that he was joining Rudolph Giuliani's presidential campaign as a senior foreign policy
adviser.
Frum was a fellow
of the American Enterprise Institute
, a conservative think tank
, from 2003 until March 25, 2010, when his paid position was terminated and he declined to accept the offer of a non-paying position. Media reports noted that the termination came three days after Frum's strongly worded criticism of the Republican strategy on health care reform
, but Frum said that the AEI had not cited his criticism as the reason for his termination. It was also suggested that he was fired for criticizing Fox news, saying "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox.”
, evangelicals, and nearly all Republican politicians." Frank Rich
of the New York Times described it as "the smartest book written from the inside about the American conservative movement," William F. Buckley, Jr.
found it "the most refreshing ideological experience in a generation," and Daniel McCarthy of The American Conservative
called it "a crisply written indictment of everything its author disliked about conservatism in the early ’90s." He is also the author of What's Right (1996) and How We Got Here (2000), a history of the 1970s, which "framed the 1970s in the shadow of World War II
and Vietnam
, suggesting, 'The turmoil of the 1970s should be understood ... as the rebellion of an unmilitary people against institutions and laws formed by a century of war and the preparation for war.'" Michael Barone
of U.S. News & World Report
praised How We Got Here, noting that "more than any other book… it shows how we came to be the way we are." John Podhoretz
described it as "compulsively readable" and a "commanding amalgam of history, sociology and polemic."
In January 2003, he released The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush, the first insider account of the Bush presidency. As the title suggests, Frum also discusses how the events of September 11, 2001 redefined the country and the President. Frum writes, "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."
Frum's book An End to Evil
was co-written with Richard Perle
. It provided a defense of the 2003 invasion of Iraq
, and advocated regime change
in Iran
and Syria
. Furthermore, it called for a tougher policy with North Korea
, as well as advocating a tougher U.S. stance against Saudi Arabia
and other Islamic nations in order to "win the war on terror" (from the book's subtitle).
In 2008, he published Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again, a work which garnered "lavish praise from his friends." Former Congressman David M. McIntosh
called "required reading for all GOP candidates."
Frum writes a weekly column for Canada's National Post newspaper and The Week
news magazine. He was also a commentator for American Public Media
's "Marketplace
" until his final appearance on October 12, 2011. His writings appear frequently in the New York Times, Italy
's Il Foglio
, and the Daily Telegraph.
column, Frum described his political beliefs as follows:
Frum supported John McCain
in the 2008 Presidential election
, writing "I vote for John McCain". In an article for National Review Online he posted days before the 2008 election, he gave ten reasons why he was going to vote for McCain instead of Barack Obama
. Frum had previously been a vocal critic of Republican presidential candidate McCain's choice of Sarah Palin
as his running mate
on the ground that Palin was unqualified to assume the presidency. Speaking of Palin's performance during the campaign, Frum stated, "I think she has pretty thoroughly — and probably irretrievably — proven that she is not up to the job of being president of the United States." Nevertheless he ultimately stated his support for Palin, writing "But on Tuesday, I will trust that she can learn. She has governed a state - and ... it says something important that so many millions of people respond to her as somebody who incarnates their beliefs and values. At a time when the great American middle often seems to be falling further and further behind, there may be a special need for a national leader who represents and symbolizes that middle."
In 2009, Frum denounced the various anti-Obama conspiracy theories as “wild accusations and the paranoid delusions coming from the fever swamps”.
On August 14, 2009 on Bill Moyers Journal, Frum challenged certain Republican political tactics in opposing healthcare and other Democratic initiatives as "outrageous," "dangerous", and ineffective. As Congress prepared to pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
in March 2010, Frum again criticized the Republican strategy of refusing to negotiate with President Obama and congressional Democrats on health care reform, saying that it had resulted in the Republicans' "most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s". Prior to making this statement, Frum had been associated with the American Enterprise Institute. He resigned from the AEI a couple days later.
In 2010, Frum was involved in the formation of the centrist group No Labels
, as a "founding leader."
In June 2011, following the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York
state, Frum's weekly column for CNN.com
was titled "I was wrong about same-sex marriage." In it he described the evolution of his opinion
from a "strong opponent" fourteen years prior; while he had feared that its introduction would cause "the American family [to] become radically more unstable," he now feels that "the case against same-sex marriage has been tested against reality. The case has not passed its test."
In his blog, Frum describes the Tea Party as “a movement of relatively older and relatively affluent Americans whose expectations have been disrupted by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. They are looking for an explanation of the catastrophe – and a villain to blame. They are finding it in the same place that [Michele] Bachmann
and her co-religionists located it 30 years ago: a deeply hostile national government controlled by alien and suspect forces, with Barack Obama as their leader and symbol”. And he explains Bachman's political views, some of which he calls “paranoid”: “It emerges from a religious philosophy that rejects the federal government as an alien instrument of destruction, ripping apart a Christian society. Bachmann’s religiously grounded rejection of the American state finds a hearing with many more conventional conservatives radicalized by today’s hard economic times”.
In a September 2011 article, Tablet Magazine
wrote: “as the Tea Party has come to dominate the GOP, Frum has been transformed in a remarkably short period of time from right-wing royalty to apostate”, and quoted him as saying: “There’s a style and a sensibility in the Republican Party right now that I find myself removed from, [but] you can do more good for the country by working for a better Republican Party than by leaving it to the extremists. What have they done to deserve that inheritance?”
Writing for New York
magazine November 2011, he described his reaction to fellow Republicans, who had distanced themselves from him, saying, "Some of my Republican friends ask if I’ve gone crazy. I say: Look in the mirror." He described the development of an "alternative reality" within which the party, conservative think-tanks, and right wing commentators operate from a set of false facts about the economy and nonexistent threats to their traditional base of supporters. He expressed concern over the inability of moderate Republicans to criticize their conservative brethren, contrasting this to the 1960s split between moderate Ripon Republicans
and conservative Goldwater Republicans
, when moderates such as Michigan governor George Romney
were publicly critical of the conservatives.
. He has also visited Civil War battlefields. Alexander Hamilton
and Abraham Lincoln
are among his favorite historical figures. Marcel Proust
is his favorite novelist.
Videos
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter
Speechwriter
A speechwriter is a person who is hired to prepare and write speeches that will be delivered by another person. Speechwriters are used by many senior-level elected officials and executives in the government and private sectors.-Skills and training:...
for President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, he is also the author of the first "insider" book about the Bush presidency. His editorial columns have appeared in a variety of Canadian and American magazines and newspapers, including the National Post
National Post
The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...
and The Week
The Week
The Week, styled as THE WEEK, is a weekly news magazine.-History:It was founded in the United Kingdom by Jolyon Connell in 1995. In April 2001, the magazine began publishing an American edition; an Australian edition followed in October 2008. Dennis Publishing publishes the U.K. and Australian...
. He is the founder of FrumForum.com (formerly NewMajority.com), a political group blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
, and serves on the board of directors
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
of the Republican Jewish Coalition
Republican Jewish Coalition
The Republican Jewish Coalition , founded in 1985, is a political lobbying group in the United States that promotes Jewish Republicans. The RJC claims that it is the most important voice on conservative political issues for the Jewish-American community...
.
Background
Born in TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Frum is the son of the late Barbara Frum
Barbara Frum
Barbara Frum, OC was a Canadian radio and television journalist, acclaimed for her interviews for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.-Personal life:...
, a well-known journalist and broadcaster, and Murray Frum, a dentist, who later became a real estate developer, philanthropist, and art collector. Frum's sister, Linda Frum
Linda Frum
Linda Frum is a Canadian author and journalist, and a Conservative member of the Canadian Senate since 2009.Frum was born in Toronto, Ontario, the daughter of Barbara Frum, a journalist and Murray Frum, a real estate developer. Her brother is the political author and journalist David Frum...
, is a member of the Canadian Senate
Canadian Senate
The Senate of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the House of Commons, and the monarch . The Senate consists of 105 members appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister...
. Frum is married to writer Danielle Crittenden
Danielle Crittenden
Danielle Ann Crittenden Frum, who writes under the name Danielle Crittenden , is a Canadian author and journalist....
, the stepdaughter of former Toronto Sun
Toronto Sun
The Toronto Sun is an English-language daily tabloid newspaper published in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is known for its daily Sunshine Girl feature and for what it sees as a populist conservative editorial stance.-History:...
editor Peter Worthington
Peter Worthington
Peter Worthington is a Canadian journalist. A foreign correspondent with the Toronto Telegram newspaper from 1956, Worthington was an eyewitness to the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963, and can be seen in photographs of the event. He remained with the Telegram until it folded in 1971...
. The couple has three children. He is a distant cousin of economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman
Paul Robin Krugman is an American economist, professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times...
.
At age 14 Frum was a campaign volunteer
Political campaign staff
Political campaign staff are the people who formulate and implement the strategy needed to win an election. Many people have made careers out of working full-time for campaigns and groups that support them, but in other campaigns much of the staff might be unpaid volunteers...
for a New Democratic Party
New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...
candidate. During the hour-long bus/subway/bus ride each way to and from the campaign office in western Toronto, he read a paperback edition of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
's Gulag Archipelago his mother had given him. "My campaign colleagues jeered at the book — and by the end of the campaign, any lingering interest I might have had in the political left had vanished like yesterday’s smoke."
He graduated from the University of Toronto Schools
University of Toronto Schools
The University of Toronto Schools is an independent secondary day school affiliated with the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario, Canada...
in 1978 where he was the School Captain
School Captain
School Captain is a student appointed or elected to represent the school.This student, usually in the senior year, in their final year of attending that school...
. At Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
he simultaneously earned Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
and Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
degrees in History, graduating in 1982. He was in Directed Studies
Directed Studies at Yale University
Directed Studies at Yale University is a selective humanities study program for freshmen. It follows the Great Books of the Western tradition, and resembles Princeton University's Interdisciplinary Approaches to Western Culture, Columbia University's Core Curriculum, The University of Notre Dame's...
, a type of "Great Books
Great Books
Great Books refers primarily to a group of books that tradition, and various institutions and authorities, have regarded as constituting or best expressing the foundations of Western culture ; derivatively the term also refers to a curriculum or method of education based around a list of such books...
" curriculum. According to The American Conservative
The American Conservative
The American Conservative is a monthly U.S. opinion magazine published by Ron Unz. Its first editor was Scott McConnell, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy....
:
Frum earned his Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...
(J.D.) at Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
in 1987. Frum has described one of his study methods:
After graduating from Harvard, Frum returned to Toronto to serve as an associate editor of Saturday Night
Saturday Night (magazine)
Saturday Night was a Canadian general interest magazine. It was founded in Toronto, Ontario in 1887.The publication was first established as a weekly broadsheet newspaper about public affairs and the arts, which was later expanded into a general interest magazine. The editor, Edmund E. Sheppard,...
. He was an editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal from 1989 until 1992, and then a columnist
Columnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....
for Forbes magazine in 1992-94. During his tenure at the Journal, Frum "accepted the freelance assignment that would make his name: a 1991 cover story for The American Spectator
The American Spectator
The American Spectator is a conservative U.S. monthly magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. From its founding in 1967 until the late 1980s, the small-circulation magazine featured the writings of authors...
attacking Pat Buchanan
Pat Buchanan
Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought...
." From 1994 through 2000 he was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. During the 1990s he attended "three or four" Bilderberg Group
Bilderberg Group
The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an annual, unofficial, invitation-only conference of approximately 120 to 140 guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are people of influence. About one-third are from government and politics, and two-thirds from...
meetings as a guest of Conrad Black
Conrad Black
Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, OC, KCSG, PC is a Canadian-born member of the British House of Lords, and a historian, columnist and publisher, who was for a time the third largest newspaper magnate in the world. Lord Black controlled Hollinger International, Inc...
.
Following the election of George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
in 2000, Frum was appointed to a position within the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
. Frum would later write that when he was first offered the job by chief Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson
Michael Gerson
Michael John Gerson is an op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, a Policy Fellow with the ONE Campaign, and a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as President George W...
,
Still a Canadian citizen, he was one of the few foreign nationals working within the Bush White House. He had filed for naturalization
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....
and took the oath of citizenship
Citizenship in the United States
Citizenship in the United States is a status given to individuals that entails specific rights, duties, privileges, and benefits between the United States and the individual...
on September 11, 2007. Frum served as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Speechwriting from January 2001 to February 2002. He is credited with inventing the expression “axis of evil
Axis of evil
"Axis of evil" is a term initially used by the former United States President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002 and often repeated throughout his presidency, describing governments that he accused of helping terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction...
” Bush introduced in his 2002 State of the Union address, since Frum's wife, Danielle Crittenden
Danielle Crittenden
Danielle Ann Crittenden Frum, who writes under the name Danielle Crittenden , is a Canadian author and journalist....
, bragged about it in e-mails that were picked up by the media. Frum shortly afterwards resigned from his position. Both he and the White House denied any connection to the incidence. He later explained, that he used the term “axis of hatred”, referring to terrorist groups and extremist governments, in the first draft of the speech and the phrase was changed to “axis of evil.”
While serving in the Bush White House, Frum was "one of the most vociferous voices . . . calling for war in Iraq," and "wrote in 2003 about the Iraqis 'welcoming their liberators.'"
Frum strongly supported John Roberts, George W. Bush's nominee for Chief Justice of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States
The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States...
. However, like many conservatives, he opposed the nomination of Harriet Miers
Harriet Miers
Harriet Ellan Miers is an American lawyer and former White House Counsel. In 2005, she was nominated by President George W. Bush to be an Associate Justice of the U.S...
for the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, on the grounds that she was insufficiently qualified for the post, as well as insufficiently conservative.
On October 11, 2007, Frum announced on his blog that he was joining Rudolph Giuliani's presidential campaign as a senior foreign policy
Foreign policy
A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...
adviser.
Frum was a fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
of the American Enterprise Institute
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...
, a conservative think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
, from 2003 until March 25, 2010, when his paid position was terminated and he declined to accept the offer of a non-paying position. Media reports noted that the termination came three days after Frum's strongly worded criticism of the Republican strategy on health care reform
Health care reform in the United States
Health care reform in the United States has a long history, of which the most recent results were two federal statutes enacted in 2010: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act , signed March 23, 2010, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 , which amended the PPACA and...
, but Frum said that the AEI had not cited his criticism as the reason for his termination. It was also suggested that he was fired for criticizing Fox news, saying "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox.”
NewMajority.com and FrumForum.com
On November 16, 2008, The New York Times reported that Frum would be leaving National Review where he was a contributing editor and run an online blog. Frum announced to readers of his blog that he would be starting a new political website, NewMajority.com, describing it as "a group blog, featuring many different voices. Not all of them… conservatives or Republicans." He added that he hoped the site would "create an online community that will be exciting and appealing to younger readers, a generation often repelled by today's mainstream conservatism." The website was launched on January 19, 2009, on October 31, 2009, it changed to FrumForum.com.Writings
Frum's first book, Dead Right, was released in 1994. It "expressed intense dissatisfaction with supply-sidersSupply-side economics
Supply-side economics is a school of macroeconomic thought that argues that economic growth can be most effectively created by lowering barriers for people to produce goods and services, such as lowering income tax and capital gains tax rates, and by allowing greater flexibility by reducing...
, evangelicals, and nearly all Republican politicians." Frank Rich
Frank Rich
Frank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...
of the New York Times described it as "the smartest book written from the inside about the American conservative movement," William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...
found it "the most refreshing ideological experience in a generation," and Daniel McCarthy of The American Conservative
The American Conservative
The American Conservative is a monthly U.S. opinion magazine published by Ron Unz. Its first editor was Scott McConnell, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy....
called it "a crisply written indictment of everything its author disliked about conservatism in the early ’90s." He is also the author of What's Right (1996) and How We Got Here (2000), a history of the 1970s, which "framed the 1970s in the shadow of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, suggesting, 'The turmoil of the 1970s should be understood ... as the rebellion of an unmilitary people against institutions and laws formed by a century of war and the preparation for war.'" Michael Barone
Michael Barone (pundit)
Michael Barone is a conservative American political analyst, pundit and journalist. He is best known for being the principal author of The Almanac of American Politics, a reference work concerning US governors and federal politicians, and published biennially by National Journal...
of U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
praised How We Got Here, noting that "more than any other book… it shows how we came to be the way we are." John Podhoretz
John Podhoretz
John Podhoretz is an American neoconservative columnist for the New York Post, the editor of Commentary magazine, the author of several books on politics, and a former presidential speechwriter.-Life and career:...
described it as "compulsively readable" and a "commanding amalgam of history, sociology and polemic."
In January 2003, he released The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush, the first insider account of the Bush presidency. As the title suggests, Frum also discusses how the events of September 11, 2001 redefined the country and the President. Frum writes, "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."
Frum's book An End to Evil
An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror
An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror is a 2004 book about the "War on Terror", analyzing Islamic terrorist networks and proposing policies the United States government should adopt to defeat them...
was co-written with Richard Perle
Richard Perle
Richard Norman Perle is an American political advisor, consultant, and lobbyist who began his career in government, a senior staff member to Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 1970’s...
. It provided a defense of the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, and advocated regime change
Regime change
"Regime change" is the replacement of one regime with another. Use of the term dates to at least 1925.Regime change can occur through conquest by a foreign power, revolution, coup d'état or reconstruction following the failure of a state...
in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
. Furthermore, it called for a tougher policy with North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
, as well as advocating a tougher U.S. stance against Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
and other Islamic nations in order to "win the war on terror" (from the book's subtitle).
In 2008, he published Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again, a work which garnered "lavish praise from his friends." Former Congressman David M. McIntosh
David M. McIntosh
David Martin McIntosh is a lawyer who served as a Republican representative from Indiana from January 3, 1995, to January 3, 2001. McIntosh was the Republican candidate for Governor of Indiana in 2000, losing to incumbent Democrat Frank O'Bannon He is currently a candidate in Indiana's 5th...
called "required reading for all GOP candidates."
Frum writes a weekly column for Canada's National Post newspaper and The Week
The Week
The Week, styled as THE WEEK, is a weekly news magazine.-History:It was founded in the United Kingdom by Jolyon Connell in 1995. In April 2001, the magazine began publishing an American edition; an Australian edition followed in October 2008. Dennis Publishing publishes the U.K. and Australian...
news magazine. He was also a commentator for American Public Media
American Public Media
American Public Media is the second largest producer of public radio programs in the United States of America after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and operates radio stations in Minnesota, California, and Florida. Its station brands are Minnesota Public Radio,...
's "Marketplace
Marketplace (radio program)
Marketplace is a radio program that focuses on business, the economy, and events that influence them. Hosted by Kai Ryssdal, the show is produced and distributed by American Public Media, in association with the University of Southern California...
" until his final appearance on October 12, 2011. His writings appear frequently in the New York Times, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
's Il Foglio
Il Foglio
Il Foglio is a Italian centre-right daily newspaper, with circulation of about 13,000 copies per day. It was founded in 1996 by the Italian journalist and politician Giuliano Ferrara, after he left as editor of the magazine Panorama- Characteristics :...
, and the Daily Telegraph.
Political views
In a NewsweekNewsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
column, Frum described his political beliefs as follows:
I'm a conservative Republican, have been all my adult life. I volunteered for the Reagan campaign in 1980. I've attended every Republican convention since 1988. I was president of the Federalist Society chapter at my law school, worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and wrote speeches for President Bush—not the "Read My Lips" Bush, the "Axis of Evil" Bush. I served on the Giuliani campaign in 2008 and voted for John McCain in November. I supported the Iraq War and (although I feel kind of silly about it in retrospect) the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I could go on, but you get the idea.
Frum supported John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
in the 2008 Presidential election
United States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...
, writing "I vote for John McCain". In an article for National Review Online he posted days before the 2008 election, he gave ten reasons why he was going to vote for McCain instead of Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
. Frum had previously been a vocal critic of Republican presidential candidate McCain's choice of Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...
as his running mate
Running mate
A running mate is a person running together with another person on a joint ticket during an election. The term is most often used in reference to the person in the subordinate position but can also properly be used when referring to both candidates, such as "Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen were...
on the ground that Palin was unqualified to assume the presidency. Speaking of Palin's performance during the campaign, Frum stated, "I think she has pretty thoroughly — and probably irretrievably — proven that she is not up to the job of being president of the United States." Nevertheless he ultimately stated his support for Palin, writing "But on Tuesday, I will trust that she can learn. She has governed a state - and ... it says something important that so many millions of people respond to her as somebody who incarnates their beliefs and values. At a time when the great American middle often seems to be falling further and further behind, there may be a special need for a national leader who represents and symbolizes that middle."
In 2009, Frum denounced the various anti-Obama conspiracy theories as “wild accusations and the paranoid delusions coming from the fever swamps”.
On August 14, 2009 on Bill Moyers Journal, Frum challenged certain Republican political tactics in opposing healthcare and other Democratic initiatives as "outrageous," "dangerous", and ineffective. As Congress prepared to pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. The law is the principal health care reform legislation of the 111th United States Congress...
in March 2010, Frum again criticized the Republican strategy of refusing to negotiate with President Obama and congressional Democrats on health care reform, saying that it had resulted in the Republicans' "most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s". Prior to making this statement, Frum had been associated with the American Enterprise Institute. He resigned from the AEI a couple days later.
In 2010, Frum was involved in the formation of the centrist group No Labels
No Labels
No Labels is a political organization of Republicans, Democrats, and independents in the United States whose stated mission is to address the politics of problem solving...
, as a "founding leader."
In June 2011, following the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York
Same-sex marriage in New York
Same-sex marriage in the U.S. state of New York became legal on July 24, 2011, under the Marriage Equality Act, which was passed on June 24, 2011, by the New York State Legislature and signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo on the same day...
state, Frum's weekly column for CNN.com
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
was titled "I was wrong about same-sex marriage." In it he described the evolution of his opinion
Overton window
The Overton window, in political theory, describes a "window" in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on a particular issue. It is named after its originator, Joseph P...
from a "strong opponent" fourteen years prior; while he had feared that its introduction would cause "the American family [to] become radically more unstable," he now feels that "the case against same-sex marriage has been tested against reality. The case has not passed its test."
In his blog, Frum describes the Tea Party as “a movement of relatively older and relatively affluent Americans whose expectations have been disrupted by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. They are looking for an explanation of the catastrophe – and a villain to blame. They are finding it in the same place that [Michele] Bachmann
Michele Bachmann
Michele Marie Bachmann is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing , a post she has held since 2007. The district includes several of the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities, such as Woodbury, and Blaine as well as Stillwater and St. Cloud.She is currently a...
and her co-religionists located it 30 years ago: a deeply hostile national government controlled by alien and suspect forces, with Barack Obama as their leader and symbol”. And he explains Bachman's political views, some of which he calls “paranoid”: “It emerges from a religious philosophy that rejects the federal government as an alien instrument of destruction, ripping apart a Christian society. Bachmann’s religiously grounded rejection of the American state finds a hearing with many more conventional conservatives radicalized by today’s hard economic times”.
In a September 2011 article, Tablet Magazine
Tablet Magazine
Tablet Magazine is a two-time National Magazine Award-winning online publication of Jewish life, arts, and ideas. Sponsored by Nextbook, it was launched in June 2009. Its Editor in Chief is Alana Newhouse....
wrote: “as the Tea Party has come to dominate the GOP, Frum has been transformed in a remarkably short period of time from right-wing royalty to apostate”, and quoted him as saying: “There’s a style and a sensibility in the Republican Party right now that I find myself removed from, [but] you can do more good for the country by working for a better Republican Party than by leaving it to the extremists. What have they done to deserve that inheritance?”
Writing for New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
magazine November 2011, he described his reaction to fellow Republicans, who had distanced themselves from him, saying, "Some of my Republican friends ask if I’ve gone crazy. I say: Look in the mirror." He described the development of an "alternative reality" within which the party, conservative think-tanks, and right wing commentators operate from a set of false facts about the economy and nonexistent threats to their traditional base of supporters. He expressed concern over the inability of moderate Republicans to criticize their conservative brethren, contrasting this to the 1960s split between moderate Ripon Republicans
Ripon Society
The Ripon Society is an American centrist Republican think tank based in Washington, D.C. They produce The Ripon Forum, the Nation's longest running Republican thought and opinion journal....
and conservative Goldwater Republicans
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
, when moderates such as Michigan governor George Romney
George Romney
George Romney may refer to:*George Romney , English portrait painter*George W. Romney , executive & CEO of American Motors Corporation, Governor of Michigan, U.S. presidential candidate, father of Mitt & G. Scott Romney*George S. Romney , president of the institution now known as Brigham Young...
were publicly critical of the conservatives.
Non-political views
Frum considers himself “a not especially observant Jew." He has written in his blog that he enjoys reading history, particularly histories of the American Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. He has also visited Civil War battlefields. Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton was a Founding Father, soldier, economist, political philosopher, one of America's first constitutional lawyers and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury...
and Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
are among his favorite historical figures. Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
is his favorite novelist.
External links
- Frum Forum
- Column archive at The Huffington PostThe Huffington PostThe Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
- Column archive at the National PostNational PostThe National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...
- Column archive at National Review Online (2009)
- David Frum Bids Farewell To Marketplace, MarketplaceMarketplace (radio program)Marketplace is a radio program that focuses on business, the economy, and events that influence them. Hosted by Kai Ryssdal, the show is produced and distributed by American Public Media, in association with the University of Southern California...
, October 12, 2011 - When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?, David Frum, New York Magazine, November 20, 2011
Videos
- BloggingHeads: Was Bush Right?, April 25, 2010
- Conservatives and the World Online conference where David Frum defends US policy in Iraq and the Middle East but predicts the end of Republican dominance of the White House. Part of the conference Conservative Predominance in the U.S. : A Moment or an Era ? Videos and texts online.
- Video interviews/discussions with Frum on Bloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers...