He says not. He says it had nothing to do with his Waterloo blog post, that it was just a matter of hard times. But the timing would naturally make one suspicious.
Twenty-three hours ago, David Frum was still trying to preach reason to his fellow Republicans, with this Tweet:
Anger is Not a Solution: The American people don’t care about accusations of socialism, they care about results. http://bit.ly/9dyg4P #tcot about 23 hours ago via twitterfeed
Two hours later, he was posting this:
AEI Says Goodbye: I have been a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute since 2003. At lunch tod… http://bit.ly/cXMtib #tcot about 21 hours ago via twitterfeed
This rather naturally led observers to think he was fired for departing from the increasingly strident, increasingly extreme orthodoxy of his party.
But he says not. He says, in fact, that the guy who canned him “welcomed and celebrated” the Waterloo piece. Hmmm.
Here, by the way, is Mr. Frum’s resignation letter to AEI President Arthur Brooks:
Dear Arthur,
This will memorialize our conversation at lunch today. Effective immediately, my position as a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute is terminated. I appreciate the consideration that delays my emptying of my office until after my return from travel next week. Premises will be vacated no later than April 9.
I have had many fruitful years at the American Enterprise Institute, and I do regret this abrupt and unexpected conclusion of our relationship.
Very truly yours,
David Frum
Whatever the case, there’s no doubt that the arbiters of the new orthodoxy were on his case for daring to speak reason to those who are out of power.
The Wall Street Journal had already expressed the displeasure of the Mark Sanford wing of the party (of which they are the purest expression, even more so than AEI) in an editorial that among other things said:
Mr. Frum now makes his living as the media’s go-to basher of fellow Republicans, which is a stock Beltway role….
That, of course, is the ultimate sin on the right, and has been since the days of Spiro Agnew.
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I don’t know if Mr. Frum was fired or not. If he was, he was careful not to burn his bridges, which is totally reasonable. As I said in an earlier post, I contacted both SC senators and asked what alternate proposals they (or other Republicans) were making. The replies I got made it clear that they either had no clue as to what it means to be working poor (a very large group of South Carolinians) or they don’t care. Now the GOP is saying that it does approve of some of the measures; it just wants to strip others out. Why did we not hear from them about the ones they approved of? From what I hear, they are very much against the tax increases and the medicare reductions, both of which affect only the very wealthy (200k+, which is a lot in SC). I hear no proposals for alternate ways of funding this bill. Do they plan to leave it unfunded? That is less than economically responsible. They also oppose any regulation of the health insurance industry. I realize that the goal of private insurance companies is to make money. Insurance companies are not sneaky; that’s their goal–it’s not to ensure that people get good health care. I think that peoples’ health is too important to relegate to companies who don’t have that as their priority unless there is some oversight. BTW, I have good health insurance.
@Karen
As usual, I agree with you, but you did not extend the scope of your unaffordability class far enough. I read that the average annual cost of private health insurance for a family of four (which means we are not likely talking about folks older than middle age, btw) is $13K+. How many people in the middle class can afford $1,000 a month? I, too, have great health insurance, but if you didn’t work for an employer who provides at least reasonably subsidized group coverage, you were likely screwed before the reform bill.
Why doesn’t everyone see this?
I don’t know, Kathryn. I have a friend who is single, in her 50’s and is the head of a small non-profit, which cannot afford to offer it’s employees insurance. She is hardly ‘working poor,’ although the cost of her health insurance takes a huge chunk out of her earnings, making it almost impossible to save for retirement. For those who make less and have families to support, the situation is hopeless.
That’s exactly what I was trying, apparently badly, to say. Even the working *middle class* cannot afford insurance, for the most part, unless it is seriously subsidized by the employer. Sure, they can *pay* it, but then they aren’t saving for retirement (conservatives–read: investing in our economy), living in a safe neighborhood, helping their kids through college without crippling loans, etc. You have to make quite a bit of money to offset the cost of having to pay for your own health insurance. I have friends who went without health insurance for many years–upper middle class!
The new bill also allows small businesses to claim about a third of their health-care payments annually in a tax rebate. For businesses already paying these costs, it’s almost like a surprise stimulus.
Check out this post, in which Mr. Frum elaborates further on his firing. Curiouser and curiouser…
I can’t get the link to work…
Kathryn, You are clear. My “I don’t know” was in respones to your question, “why doesn’t everyone see this?” If this health insurance bill lacks things, blame should (I think) be laid at the GOP’s feet. BTW, have you seen the remix of “Yes, we Can”?
If my employer is getting a kickback on their portion of my insurance premium, doesn’t it seem correct to assume that I should get back an equal portion of my premium payment?
Example: If the government rebates 30% to my employer, shouldn’t my rebate also be 30%? Otherwise I end up picking up a larger percentage of my insurance costs and is of no savings to me.
@ Karen–No–I’ll check out You Tube!
@Walter–why should there be savings to you? This is about making health coverage available and affordable to all. This may result, because it’s hard to draw a superfine line, in some employers’ who were good guys all along benefiting, but why you, a mere employee, should get anything back–in this Right-To-Work state, you should be grateful you have a job and benefits (right?)
Walter, If your employer is getting a 30% kickback so that he can afford to offer you insurance at an affordable rate, that means you win, because now you’ve got insurance, whereas if your employer did not get that kickback, he could not afford to put that much money into your insurance. It’s your insurance the employer is paying with that ‘kickback.’
Back from a trip, on which my wife and I listened to most of Bob Schiefer’s This Just In on tape. A lot of interesting stuff. I had forgotten how much trust the American people had in government, until the Kennedy assassinations, Vietnam, and Watergate all shattered that. I guess it was naive trust, but the 60s certainly were a different time. Interesting how McGovern’s position on several issues back in 1972 seemed radical, but were probably correct.
All that to say that the current political climate seems rooted to some extent in the gradual development of distrust, leading to fear. Why else would the GOP followers be so irrationally opposed to helping people like myself who can’t get proper insurance? Fear seems to have morphed into a kind of fantasy land, where people have their own ideals, listen to their own news sources, and interpret truth for themselves without interaction with opposing viewpoints.
Herb,
There is nothing stopping people who need help to go to sources outside the government to get assistance. The problem sane GOP members have is with the current trend of turning the government into the mechanism by which money is transferred from person A to person B. It is an inefficient process filled with fraud, waste, and abuse. It is also a system that decides just how much a person is supposed to contribute to others. It establishes a system where people become dependent on the government which results in some people deciding it is better to take a handout than to work to improve themselves.
Poor people would be better served by charities and churches than by government programs.
@Herb
Fear which has been irresponsibly fanned by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Back, and John “Armageddon” Boehner…
Doug, I applaud your desire to see “poor people . . . better served by charities and churches than by government programs.” Unfortunately, most churches aren’t really in the business of serving poor people, preferring to focus their efforts on building programs and preschools for the children of their members. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to recruit volunteers for prison ministry, even though it’s a commitment of time rather than money.
Kathryn & Karen – What if my employer has no problem affording health insurance coverage for it’s employees, if they’re getting a kickback I think I deserve my share.
As far as feeling grateful to have a job and benefits, it’s a fear I’ve never had because I’m not locked down to SC and really can find another job anytime I want without too much trouble. I’d be more concerned with trying to sell my house than finding work.
Kathryn, agreed, but it has its roots historically. Being an enthusiastic Young Republican in 1964, I became disillusioned when I realized that I was part of a movement whose goal seemed to be that government by the wealthy, for the wealthy, should not perish from the earth, but become dominant in the US. No one I observed had any clue about the situation of the poor, or about the need for the Civil Rights movement. And we needed to fight the communists in Vietnam, we just needed to do it with nuclear weapons and wipe them out.
It seems to me that trust has been undermined on both the left and right of the political spectrum, with the result that everybody is afraid, and the situation polarizes more and more.
An older person pointed out to me recently that after WWII, Americans seemed to be characterized by courage. There was the threat of nuclear war and communism, but we were doing a pretty good job of containing that. The 60s and 70s changed all that.
Steve’s point to Doug is well made. Not that there are not genuine outreaches of churches and charities into our communities, but 1) they usually involve a very small part of the members, and have too little effect, and 2) they are in some respects like a band-aid on a much deeper wound. We should explore how this could be done better, but to me, the big challenge is that too often our churches represent the same ideological fortresses that are the problem in the rest of our society.
I think that government must address an issue like health care, otherwise the gulf between the haves and have-nots continues to grow, with a great danger to our society. The entitlement syndrome is the danger on the other hand. We seem to be sliding into a polarizing situation where we cannot address the extremes on either side, and come to a workable solution. We don’t fight the communists any more, we fight the Americans on the other side of the political spectrum.
So we seem to be increasingly tying ourselves up in knots. I have hopes that a new generation of leaders will come up who are less self-serving and self-preserving, who are willing to do the hard work of understanding various root causes of problems, and address the fears of both sides. It will take some willingness to cross cultural boundaries, even in our own communities.
Nicely said, Herb! I agree on all counts.