David Frum's opinion has made it to the frontpage of several progressive websites, including ours. It's definitely worth reading, although its only real novelty is that it is being espoused by a conservative. However, on one issue, it is totally wrong and deliberately misleading. And that is his assertion that Republican leaders were trapped into the strategy they pursued. Good people were forced to act badly and stupidly. Republicans love to talk about personal responsibility, except when it is their own, then someone else is always to blame. Make no mistake the Republicans, all of them, made the choice to behave the way they did. And they are 100% accountable.
Frum's relevant quote is as follows.
Some of our leaders were trapped. They were trapped by voices in the media that revved the Republican base into a frenzy that made dealing impossible. I mean, you can’t negotiate with Adolf Hitler, and if the President is Adolf Hitler, then obviously you can’t negotiate with him. So some of the blame has has got to go to those who said, who got the psychology of the party to a point where a lot of good people, reasonable people were trapped
First to call people leaders who simply follow the current media firestorm is on its face absurd. But to say these leaders were trapped into the course they chose is an even greater stretch.
I remember thinking, some smart Republican is going to make himself a hero forever by standing up to the Birthers, the Tea Partiers, and other of a similar ilk. Some Republican is going to say we may disagree completely with the new President and his agenda, but we still have an obligation to work with him in the best interests of the country. At least one Republican was going to call the crazies for what they are. But it never came. The harshest condemnation of a birther, from a Republican, I ever heard was that they were silly. Republicans ran from the cameras when they were asked where the President was born. The only note of regret, I ever heard, was the exasperation in George Voinivich's voice when one day he said the Republican's have too many Southerners.
It is the thing the Republicans should be most ashamed of. They do know better, yet they continue to allow this idiotic and truely damaging element of their base to dominate the party. To say that these leaders are good people who were trapped by circumstances is exactly wrong. It is because they are not good people that they allowed themselves to take the easy way, and go along with the loudest most insistent members of their base, despite knowing just how wrong that choice was, not only for the party, but for the country. And this is why the current incarnation of the Republican party and its leadership deserves are harshest condemnation. They deserve no sympathy for being put in an uncomfortable position. It was their job to give direction not to be directed.
Frum's analysis tends to make us think that the real story is that the Republicans made a political error that may cost the party. That may be true, but the true story is that the Republicans ignored the best interests of the country in order to pursue the best interests of a select few. And this is a much greater crime. Do not be decieved by the criticism, Frum is ignoring the real sins of the Republican Party. He is trying to make you think that the Republican Party is really a bunch of good guys who have inadvertantly allowed themselves to be hijacked by a small renegade faction. The Republican Party is exactly what it appears to be and we should never let that be forgotten.