When Conservatives Go Bad: Bashing Limbaugh to Sell Books

We've seen this before. A neo-conservative luminary says something critical about conservatism, is showered by adulation by the liberal press, finds that he likes it and tries to springboard the criticism to launch a bigger career. In David Frum's case, this was started with his criticism of Sarah Palin, but Copious Dissent has his number and reports the sad trajectory from there.

Personally, I wish I could generate an audience simply by people hating my guts. But, that is David Frum's entire shtick. He writes a book about how Conservatives "can win again" by abandoning Conservatism, and it is only read by 25,000 staunch Conservatives who think Frum is full of crap. The truth is that liberals don't read Conservative political strategy books, Conservatives do. And Conservatives don't think Frum is a Conservative.

And he's doubled down now by criticizing Limbaugh because: a. he's finding that he's burned almost every bridge with the conservative/ Republican wing who want nothing more to do with him (why should they, they like Sarah) and b. as I can attest from this site's activity, nothing moves traffic like Rush Limbaugh. So criticizing El Rushbo is a classic move, but probably not enough to save his livelihood (in the middle of a recession for everyone and a depression for print media).

Let's call it David Brock Syndrome. The next step is to write a book about how the evil conservative movement pulled the wool over his eyes lo these many years.

Mr. Frum will have to come up with a new name though; "Blinded by the Right" is taken.

My personal beef is that criticism of conservatism from within the GOP is nothing new. We even have a name for these people: Rockefeller Republicans. So Mr. Frum, welcome to the Gerald Ford wing of the GOP. I'm sure they have extra rooms available.