It’s amazing that CNN put out a press release last October touting “Democratic strategist Maria Cardona and conservative columnist David Frum have joined the network for the 2012 election season.” (Italics mine.) David Frum is not a conservative. Look no further than his latest CNN opinion piece, “Bloomberg’s Visionary Plan Against Obesity.”
“Some object that the mayor's proposal to restrict serving sizes will restrict liberty. But the liberty restricted is not the liberty of the soda-drinker. If they wish, soda drinkers can buy a 2-liter bottle of soda at the grocery for about $1.70 and pour as much of it down their throats as they wish,” he snobbishly wrote.”The liberty that is being restricted is the liberty of the soda seller to manipulate known human weaknesses to the seller's advantage and the buyer's detriment.” (Italics his.)
Would a conservative write something like this?
Human beings are not reasoning machines. We are animals who have inherited certain propensities not always well-adapted to modern urban life. We evolved in conditions of food scarcity. Our bodies have adapted to store food energy against famine; our subrational minds crave sweetness. The sugary beverage industry has invested massively to understand better how to use our very human natures against us.
Coca-Cola is closer to cocaine than people realize. Human beings are childish animals who need to be restrained by bureaucrats like Michael Bloomberg.
Maybe this will fail, Frum concluded, but “when we do at least [sic] succeed in this difficult struggle for public health, we will all owe New York's visionary mayor our thanks for leading the way.”
Or, if you think maybe Frum’s conservative on the air, this was his Bill Moyers-ish comments after the John Edwards mistrial was declared on The Situation Room last Thursday:
FRUM: Supposing John Edwards had been elected president and supposing this story had been kept secret, as you say, we don't know very much about these campaigns anymore and we know a lot less than we used to these days. Wouldn't he have owed a colossal favor to Fred Baron? Wouldn't he have been in a position where he could not have refused anything Fred Baron ask?...
We are in a situation where vast, undisclosed amounts of money can be raised outside the campaign finance system, for a presidential candidate, to use for any purpose, including buying the silence of people with damaging information about them. That is a very scary outcome.
I think with this and combined with Citizens United, we have a lot of annoying paperwork requirements, but there's no campaign finance system in the United States at all anymore. We have gone back, essentially, of a system of unlimited, secret donations for any purpose.
After Edwards spoke to reporters, Frum was asked to comment, and just repeated: "I think we will rue this day. If this is a legal precedent, we have just ripped off the last limits on what people who might be president can do with the money they ask for from powerful friends."
