David Frum Blasts GOP's 'Dangerous Tactics' on Debt Ceiling Debate
David Frum is bashing conservative Republicans again – this time for playing hardball with President Obama and using the debt ceiling deadline as blackmail to get what they want. Frum writes in a CNN.com op-ed that the GOP demand for "total surrender" by the president on the debt ceiling debate gives him "horrible flashbacks" to the party's staunch opposition to the health care bill – which failed – in what he deemed the conservatives' "Waterloo."
What details are jumping out at Frum to make him believe that the president is so utterly reasonable and Republicans are reckless in this debate?
First, he seems to bend over backwards to extol Obama's munificence, listing the president's "startling moves" in making concessions on Medicare and Social Security, and large spending cuts to boot.
Then he lays Obama's offer side-by-side with the Republican refusal to agree on any sort of tax increases without offsetting cuts, and thus kindles his outrage against the GOP. "Obama offered Republicans a lot of spending cuts if only they would move even slightly to meet him," Frum writes, narrating what he believes to be the real behind-closed-doors story.
Frum is only guessing, but with his investigative glasses he thinks Obama is being generous and Republicans are being radically stubborn, instead of the Republican spin that President Obama and the Democrats are inconsistent in their offers.
"But it would be remarkable, wouldn't it, for a president to say on TV that he was willing to do something as unpopular as raise the Medicare age – and then say in secret: Nah, I'll do the popular thing instead. Wouldn't you expect the behavior to be the other way around?" he asks.
So this is Frum's belief: he is willing to trust Obama on this one and leave the crazy Republicans out in the dark with the coyotes – namely by dogging them with accusations of using "dangerous tactics" and living by "taboos" such as "negotiation is not allowed."
To read Frum's entire piece, click here.
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Comments
Frum... Prissy.... chrissy... bobbie S all
Submitted by OldJarhead77 on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 3:34pm.
on their knees for Obama! A Trio of Obama Prison wives.....
Don't forget David Brooks
Submitted by Red Jeep on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 4:09pm.
!
Typical
Submitted by bkeyser on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 3:37pm.
^
Frum
Submitted by jessieH on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 3:56pm.
Don't know this bum, Frum, but I trust the American Citizens to know what is best for them, not some guy who grew up in Kenya and knows nothing about our Nation, and, one who has said he is a Muslim. Cut, Cap & balance is the only way to stop the madness, in D.C.. Maybe Frum is taking handouts from Uhbama, I don't know. Why we care what he thinks is still a mystery.
Frum is a big-government, ruling class McCain moderate
Submitted by lsudolemite on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 4:10pm.
who has been justly ostracized by conservatives due to his open hostility toward the Tea Party. He was one of the brains behind this "No Labels" garbage. Used to write for National Review once upon a time, now he occasionally emerges from under his rock to bash conservatives.
Just Another RINO Desperate For Lefty-Love!
Submitted by RMR on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 4:09pm.
Looks like David Frum's taking the Kathleen Parker route to "fame and fortune" at CNN.
I wonder who will be his Client #9? Anthony Weiner?
I notice
Submitted by StarAZ on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 4:27pm.
Frum never gets a job on either side.
This guy Frum's name can be found in the Dictionary...
Submitted by jawebster1 on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 6:02pm.
under RINO!
I watched a documentary the other night on Seal Team 6. Someone on the show said that Seal Team members can recognize another Seal Team member just by the way he looks and carries himself, even if they have never met him before.
All I have to do is look at and listen to Frum on TV and I can tell immediately that he is not a conservative.
Sinking Frum
Submitted by Chris Norman on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 8:39pm.
Frum went - er - from - a fairly well-known (among conservatives) conservative commentator and columnist to just another useful idiot occasionally trotted out on CNN, etc. to bash conservatives under the guise as a "reasonable conservative". I suppose he does it to get his occasional three minutes of dubious fame (if appearing on little-watched CNN counts towards "fame"). His is a voice of irrelevancy.
Why should we care what David
Submitted by goon on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 12:27am.
Why should we care what David Frum has to say?
If no one cared this site
Submitted by Chris Norman on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 12:44am.
If no one cared about things like this, this site would have no reason to exist. To whom should NewsBuster's coverage be limited?
I nominate Mike Malloy and
Submitted by Jer on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 1:18am.
I nominate Mike Malloy and dailyKos. Else how would anyone ever be aware of their bias--being that it is so cleverly concealed.
;-)
Jer
Know your enemy. David Frum is an enemy to all...
Submitted by jawebster1 on Wed, 07/20/2011 - 2:39am.
conservatives.
Since he calls himself a Republican it is important to know that he is, in fact, a RINO and when he speaks, it is important for everyone to know that a RINO is speaking.
My mother had a great saying. She said, always consider the source...and I do!