David Frum

Abstract

are many anecdotes chronicling David Frum's commitment to conservatism, but perhaps the most telling comes from his wife, journalist Danielle Crittenden: think I was the only conservative woman outside of his sister that he'd ever met...We're politically completely likeminded, which I think horrified his parents. I think they were hoping that he would meet someone that wasn't so politically egging him on.1Not that Frum needs any encouragement. As one of the leading voices on the political right in both and the United States, he has called himself a conservative since the tender age of 15, thanks to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyris The Gulag Archipelago and a less than convincing spell working for an NDP candidate in Ontario's 1975 provincial election. To many North Americans, Frum is simply the man who penned the infamous axis of evil line into US President George W. Bush's 2002 state of the union address. Longtime conservatives however, will know that he has been a rising star in right-wing circles right from the time his mother, Barbara Frum, became a household name as a host on CBC radio and television. As a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and regular contributor to National Review magazine, he has found an ever-expanding base for his views.In many ways Frum represents the stereotypical arch-conservative or neoconservative. He is suspicious, almost scornful of the United Nations and state-owned broadcasters such as CBC and BBC; he views gay marriage as a threat to the institution of marriage; there is the overt disdain toward former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the preoccupation with the inherent flaws of liberalism and its supporters; and of course, he was among the earliest proponents of invading Iraq.Yet Frum's writing, though occasionally alarmist, is devoid of the crude bombast and sensationalism that mar the credentials of many conservative torchbearers such as Ann Coulter. They are definitely of the same ilk in terms of their anti-liberalism and desire for regime change in the Middle East. However, unlike Coulter, Frum is more of an intellectual than an exhibitionist, and many of his points ring true with those who loathe to be labeled conservative. He takes the left to task for sympathizing with its enemy's enemy in the form of Islamist extremists in their joint antiAmericanism; he is one of a growing number of people on the right calling on the United States to rethink its relationship with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan-two hotbeds of global terror. And on health care, a sore point for Canadians, he speaks for many on all sides of the political spectrum when he urges a reduced role for government.In the six books he has authored, as well as in his regular columns in the National Post and other publications, Frum has often expressed his disappointment with Canada's overbearing welfare state and its failure to live up to its potential, a sentiment that only became stronger after n September 2001. His frustration with his native country is clear in The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush, which recounts his one-year term as presidential speechwriter and special assistant to Bush. He justified Bush's decision to omit from his list of countries to be thanked following 9/11, arguing that Canada was not omitted to send some elliptical message. was omitted because it is easy to forget friends whose governments give you no cause to remember them.Although Frum has stated in interviews that he identifies more with his adopted homeland, he is encouraged by Stephen Harper's election last year. There is now an effective right-of-centre political party and that's good news for everybody because it means that the Canadian political system can be more responsive, he says.The Canadian media have made much of the fact that the son of a cherished icon of Canadian broadcasting could turn out to be a staunch rightwinger. Although his mother never publicly disclosed her political leanings, both Frum and his sister Linda described her as a small-1950s liberal. …