Wow. After being exiled from The American Enterprise Institutefor daring to speak the truth, David Frum is today demonstrating he's not going to go quietly into that good night.
I was rather shocked to see featured prominently on the front page of Frum's website, FrumForum the diary of "A GAY OFFICER AT WAR." In it the author, identified as only RD, observes:
...how the religious fundamentalists in Afghanistan are strikingly similar to religious fundamentalists in America – who are also trying to force their literal interpretation of Holy Scripture onto everyone else through laws. While I served in Afghanistan the American “cultural war” exploded with California’s Proposition 8 and the pending discharge of an 18-year decorated combat pilot under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
I think Frum's decision to not only run this, but to make it impossible for his readers to miss it, speaks volumes about the growing fissures in the direction conservatism is taking in America. While the teaparty faction is screaming bloody murder about the left wanting to "let gays into the military!" this post undermines the awful specter of that, but tacitly confirming: the gays are already there. And Frum, a respected member of the Republican establishment is providing them a voice.
Interestingly, the lead paragraph is a message that couldn't be more precisely tailored to align with the teaparty's supposed values:
The first surprise is how extensive the waste, fraud and soldier frustration is because of the rigid Pentagon bureaucracy. What I found was how the military wastes millions of tax-payer dollars every year while degrading military readiness. I was stunned by how much was wasted because it was “the wrong color money”; because “if we don’t spend it we won’t get it next year” and because “the rules say so” – not so much because something actually improved our war-fighting ability.
And the bulk of the post is actually about fraud, mismanagement, waste and bureaucracy. The headline, and the inclusion of the comparisons between American Evangelicals and Taliban, however seem aimed to fire a shot against the bow of the teapartiers.
I guess Frum's ready to embrace his heretical tendencies whole-heartedly. He's ready to join other disaffected Repbulicans, like Andrew Sullivan and countless others, who are increasingly fed up with the religious extremists running the show. It's looking like there's another prominent vote for renegotiating the deal Reagan made with the Devil Jerry Falwell back in the 80s.
Frum's apparently not going to back away from this civil war, but aiming straight at the heart of it. What does American conservatism care more about? The waste, the inefficiency, the bureaucracy? Or would they rather fight the continuing culture wars, dividing people between the sinners and the saints? Demonizing groups of people; even those who share your values; like serving the country, keeping us safe, opposing excess, wasteful spending.
It concludes:
More to come…
LOL, I'm sure. I'll get the popcorn.
Update 1: Mixed reaction from the 30-ish comments so far posted on the FrumForum:
Let me think, what happened the last time a psychologist was given a gun, and was consistent in their criticism of the United States Military. Anyone remember?
I’ve seen numerous comments even on the pages of this blog from readers who think of this as a “Christian nation” and will only be happy once every government building is draped in the Ten Commandments and school prayer is forced back into the classroom. Whatever the flavor, fundamentalism is not pretty.
his phony gay officer needs to pay attention to detail. The AF “pilot” he mentions is NOT a pilot. He’s an O5 weapons system officer and flies backseat. His crime was that he hired a male prostitute to play around in the hot tub at his quarters.
The TheoCons in the Republican party constantly undermine our call for limited government. You cannot say you want limited government in healthcare and then turn around an pass a ballot initiative mandating sonograms for women seeking an elective abortion as it happened here in Texas in the Republican primary.
I'm at least hopeful the more blatantly homophobic, ad hominem attacks are so far, in the minority. I'm not familiar with Frum's readership though to know what it means to the GOP overall.
Update 2: Yesterday, Glenn Beck famously ridiculed Obama's potential choice for the Supreme Court as being a "gay, black, handicapped, woman, immmigrant."
And as Teabaggers laughed deliriously at the thought, I was thinking, "Now, which of those characteristics by default, invalidates a candidate for being an appropriate choice for the Supreme Court? Is it the black part? The handicapped part? The gay part? The immigrant part? Is there some magic that occurs when all of these are present that renders a person incapable of sound thought and judgement?"
That's the heart of the Teabagger's platform: America is a place where traits like gay, black, female, immigrant, disqualify you from having any claim to the levers of power. To have people such as that making important decisions is laughable. Outrightly laughable.
Just as a humorous aside, today, Fred Karger, long-time Republican operative and consultant, and LGBT rights activist is using the Southern Republican Leadership Conference as a venue to make himself the first GOP candidate to declare for the 2012 Presidential run.When I first heard this, I was sure it was a lark, a stunt. But who knows where Karger really wants to go with this?