That’s gratitude for you–David Frum, the Bush speechwriter who coined the term “axis of evil,” offered a stark take on Republicans’ “just say no” health care reform approach.Three days later, the American Enterprise Institute fired him. They say it’s not connected, of course.
I’m guessing the sentence that offended most was this: “A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.”
Uh-oh.
On the other hand, they should have known–Frum is Canadian.
Crass as such a naked firing is, that kind of audacious methodology is why the GOP manages to pull off its party-wide monolithic messaging. Just witness yesterday’s truly remarkable call for the Democrats to take responsibility for brick-through-window antics against Democrats, coupled with Clark Kent Republican Eric Cantor’s absurdist “They shot up my office, too.” (Say Richmond Police: “‘What we were describing yesterday in fact describes an act of random gunfire,’ said Public Information Manager Gene Lepley. …A police statement on the incident, which occurred early Tuesday morning, suggested that someone had fired a bullet up into the air and it went through the window of the building [not the window of Cantor’s office] on the way back down. While it went through a window, it did not penetrate the blinds, according to the police.”)
That GOP maneuver was short-lived, but it had the effect of changing headlines from “Democrats attacked for health care reform” to “members of Congress attacked.” So it worked, and now the news has moved on.
Where’s George Lakoff when you need him?
UPDATE: Real now?
