By and large, Canada's been real good to us. They let us borrow Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and four-fifths of The Band. They started the National Hockey League and were kind enough to put four of the Original Six down here. (Hamilton's been screwed for over a century on this, by the way.) They didn't take to heart all those times we invaded them. Also, too...

...POUTINE!

That said, as the best neighbors we could possibly have, couldn't they have hung onto this guy? Ten years ago, he was writing books with Richard Perle and slandering all of his betters who were calling him and C-Plus Augustus out on their pet war in Iraq. Then, of course, the war went sour, and President Stupid nearly wrecked ther world, and the conservative "brand" took a beating, and Frum decided to wear out a path fleeing from the very political forces that had given him employment all these years and, now, has made a decent living tut-tutting about the bad turn conservatism has taken in the years since he left it. For example, this passage from his obit for the late Andrew Breitbart:

We live in a time of political and media demagoguery unparalleled since the 19th century. Many of our most important public figures have gained their influence and power by inciting and exploiting the ugliest of passions-by manipulating fears and prejudices-by serving up falsehoods as reported truth. In time these figures will one by one die. What are we to say of this cohort, this group, this generation? That their mothers loved them? That their families are bereaved? That their fans admired them and their employees treated generously by them? Public figures are inescapably judged by their public actions. When those public actions are poisonous, the obituary cannot be pleasant reading.

Frum is being battered in all the best saloons along the docks on the wingut side of Blogistan, and all I can say is, go get him, lads! When does Frum believe this "poisonous" time began? An hour ago? A week ago? The day they took his White House pass away? Cruelty and stupidity has been at the heart of conservative rhetoric since at least Joe McCarthy. Nobody was immune. Nobody ever was able to resist temptation. Remember Ronald Reagan's intimating back in 1988 that Michael Dukakis had been treated for mental illness? I do. Here's the young David Frum, joining in a general chorus playing the same noxious theme against Al Gore back in 2000:

Maybe a National Psychological Council would be a good idea after all — and maybe it could start by advising this former senator, vice president, and two-time presidential candidate that he [Al Gore] ought to seek out for his own good a cool and quiet darkened room.

Rush Limbaugh has spent the last two days engaging in the kind of misogyny that ought to make decent people spit on him when he walks down the street. Does Frum believe Limbaugh's influence in conservative politics began last Thursday? Back when they still invited him to CPAC, was Frum bothered by all those books in the exhibit hall about how Bill Clinton had murdered people back in Arkansas? Did he miss the 2004 presidential campaign? For all his faults, Andrew Breitbart was not sui generis in the American conservatism that once gave David Frum a very good living. He was an entirely predictable product of it. David Frum can comment on this as often as he wants, as long as he's wearing sackcloth while he does. Some ashes would be nice, too. Repent, you suckers.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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