As long as we’re talking about David Frum, there was a back-and-forth today between Frum and some idiot named Tunku Varadarajan who writes for the Daily Beast and thinks Peggy Noonan is the best columnist in the country. Essentially, Tunku thinks Frum is sucking up to “liberal elites” by criticizing tea partiers:
David is a man I’ve known professionally for almost a decade, and with whom my social interaction has always been very genial. He is a good and energetic man, and has, in the years since he left service at the White House, dedicated himself to being what I call a “polite-company conservative” (or PCC), much like David Brooks and Sam Tanenhaus at the New York Times (where the precocious Ross Douthat is shaping up to be a baby version of the species). A PCC is a conservative who yearns for the goodwill of the liberal elite in the media and in the Beltway—who wishes, always, to have their ear, to be at their dinner parties, to be comforted by a sense that liberal interlocutors believe that they are not like other conservatives, with their intolerance and boorishness, their shrillness and their talk radio. The PCC, in fact, distinguishes himself from other conservatives not so much ideologically—though there is an element of that—as aesthetically.
There’s something very rich indeed about a regular contributor to the Daily Beast accusing others of spending too much time at dinner parties. As I understand it, the Beast is supposed to be an on-line version of Ben Bradlee’s living room. Or is that just what it ends up sounding like most of the time?
Cliff
What? The Daily Beast has jackass contributors?
Everyone, come quickly and look at this!
Amanda in the South Bay
Doesn’t Paul Campos of LGM fame also write for the Daily Beast?
I wouldn’t exactly associate that group of bloggers with polite society, but this is all veering into inside baseball territory.
Little Dreamer
Remind me to never invite Tunku Varadarajan to dinner, he’s already full.
Stooleo
David Frum, speech writer for W is now being described as this.
I take this as good news. They are a snake devouring its tail. I hope, eventually that the Republicans will drain their swamp like they did with the John Birchers in the 50’s. But right now the in-fighting is going to be savage. I really think that the passing of the health care bill has been a dagger in their heart. They are disillusioned , sullen, beaten and now they are going to feast on their own. David Frum is just the appetizer.
Mark S.
I don’t know why, but Tunku’s writing reminds me a lot of McMegan. Maybe it’s the gross simplifications presented without a shred of evidence (“Big Pharma, for instance—wound up with a dud deal”) all leading up to an idiotic conclusion:
I’m sure that will all be quite popular.
Silver
Ah, another esteemed fellow at the Hoover Institute, the home of knowledge and wisdom…
Anyways, fuck Frum. Excuse the Godwin violation, but he’s Rudolph Hess, nothing more.
Batocchio
In the same post, Frum claims he stood up to Rachel Maddow – and makes the mistake of linking the segment. I remembered that bit, but I watched it again. Yeah, Frum acted like a sanctimonious weasel, pushed false equivalencies, and she called him on it: “I just don’t think what we do on this show is at all equivalent to people yelling “kill him” from the audience at political rallies.”
Silver
I feel the need to point this out:
An intensely private man, Gigot is arguably the most influential conservative journalist that many Americans have not heard of. Master of his domain—the editorial page of the Journal—he puts out an unsigned daily editorial column that has all of the intellectual heft and political ingenuity that the Republicans, in their battle with the Obama administration, lack so embarrassingly. As was the case under his predecessor, Robert Bartley, Gigot’s is the only editorial column that actually sells newspapers.
That’s Tunku’s writing. Accompanied, of course, by a photo of Gigot (sounds like one of those French faggot commies to me, btw) on Meet the Motherfucking Press.
Anyone who buys the WSJ for the editorial page is retarded. Not Trig retarded, Sarah retarded.
Mark S.
@Silver:
That’s the fucking truth.
bago
Remember Josh Marshall talking about he DC is wired for conservatism? It’s true in almost every sense. There are no dc punks, no dc ravers, no dc art shows playing merzbow or einsturzende neubaten. You are either monied and priveleged, or you are the help. You know how Ana Marie Cox does the pants status and Gibbs tie alert level? It’s a very thinly satirized satirization of dc life.
It’s why Sally Quinn gives an old guy a blowjob and gets a column in religon, while Clinton gets a blowjob and gets impeached.
Not the right sort of people you see…
Anne Laurie
Unless there are two Tunku Varadarajans, this is the weasel who got his start 20+ years ago writing a gossip column for Punch magazine during its “defend Margaret Thatcher to the death” phase. His highest ambition was to become the male Hedda Hopper, which kind of brings the “first as tragedy, then as farce” trope to its highest pinnacle of frivolity.
Cacti
@Mark S.:
Yep.
If we could just cap non-economic damages for victims of preventable medical error, it would lead to increased Healthcare access and affordability for everyone.
Just like Texas
kansi
Jeez, Doug. Listening to Laura Ingraham and reading the Daily Beast? Must have been a tough day. My hat’s off to you.
georgia pig
Because we all know that intolerance and boorishness is the only thing that arouses a conservative intellectual’s flaccid soul. Ross Douthat as a baby version of a species, what, like Alien? What a fitting image.
kid bitzer
well, there is something to his caricature of frum, broooks, and chubby as people constantly trying to ingratiate themselves to liberals.
i don’t think it’s the most accurate characterization, but from a certain perspective it’s right.
they are parasites and spreaders of lies; they need their hosts. in that sense, those three seek out polite company the way that plague baccili and aids viruses seek out human company.
and it’s okay with me if they wind up hated by the more forthright enemies of humanity as well.
DougJ
@Batocchio:
In fairness, that probably does qualify as standing up.
JD Rhoades
See, that’s the thing. They’re such thin-skinned princesses that they really do believe that saying “George Bush didn’t tell the truth about Iraq” is exactly the same as calling for his death and the death of all conservatives.
The Grand Panjandrum
Ross is Baby Brooks? I love it.
Violet
Oh, Tunku. He used to write for the WSJ. I’ll never forget this little Arts & Leisure gem. Excerpt:
and an example of the “delicious circumstances”:
Ah, yes! I wonder what the little people are doing today?
Seriously, this man wouldn’t be in the same sporting venue with tea partiers if he could avoid it, unless they were the help. And if indeed they start eating their own and the violence happens to wingnuts, he’ll be shocked – shocked! – that anyone would resort to violence.
They really don’t know what they’ve created or what to do with it.
kid bitzer
@violet —
that piece about eating all those lardy flaky pies with whole eggs in them?
that wasn’t tunku. that was tunch.
after that, he ate a cricketer.
ksmiami
You watch, next these goon are going to go after Larison even though he has made it quite clear that his conservatism bears little resemblance to its current definition. I have been tempted to pre-emptively offer him a space in the Dem party, but it is a bridge to far for him I think.
Liberty60
Larison writes with clarity and fact-based reason.
Regardless of what conclusions he arrives at, those first two facts alone make him an apostate to the conservative cult.
schrodinger's cat
Tunku Varadarajan is pretty glib and his columns are not that great. I think you are probably graded on curve when you are conservative pundit. What else can explain Brooks, Douthat, Varadarajan etc getting columns in major newspapers.
For proof see the latest offering by Brooks in NYT this morning.
Svensker
@Violet:
Hah! I met Tunku a couple of times at parties in Manhattan. In fact, I think “Manhattan Man” must have been our mutual “friend.” Tunku was (is) an Anglo-Indian who is more upper class Brit than Prince Charles. He talked constantly about upper class Brit stuff and was very rude and condescending to those of us who don’t fit his snobby upper crust image of what his life was supposed to be like. He ditched my friend after it became clear that the most of the people attending the parties had a net worth less than $2 million. A social climbing horse’s ass, in other words. Just like that cricket article.
KXB
Varadarajan used to be a decent writer. At times, I think he still is. But lately, his pieces are predictable, and lacking in originality. And it is a bit much for him to chastise Frum for hanging out with the social circuit. In the early 1990’s, when Varadarajan was the NY-based correspondent for a British newspaper, he was cited by “The New Yorker” as one of the most eligible bachelor’s in NY’s social circuit. He is now married with children, but domestic life seems to have diminished his capacity for original writing.
DougJ
@Violet:
Awesome!
For obvious reasons, I can’t bring myself to mock him for devoting an entire column to wine in that manner.
DougJ
@Svensker:
It is often said, usually by Indians, that the last Englishman will be in Indian.
Svensker
@DougJ:
Teh gay, we’re supposing, too.
Violet
@DougJ:
I used to enjoy his stuff in the WSJ because it was usually of this Arts & Leisure variety. Having an English side of the family, a lot of his observations cracked me up. The English side of my family appreciated this one as well. There’s a certain culture surrounding cricket and he definitely captures it to a certain extent, although he’s far more upper-crust than anyone I know.
Someone upthread described him as something of a social climber and I’d say from reading these types of columns of his for years, that’s about right.
Joel
Rich coming from a professor of something or other at NYU.
ed
I like “Li’l Bobo” or occasionally, “Bobito”.
schrodinger's cat
@DougJ: He does have the affectations of a “pucca saheb”. I have been to several cricket matches but all I had was peanuts, guess I didn’t hang out with the right kind of people.
ETA: Cricket is very popular in India and not just with
the upper crust.
Bill Murray
1. I thought the national sport of England was association football, and
2. DC used to have a great punk scene. Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Jawbox etc.
bobbo
What Kid Bitzer said.
The far-right disdain for Frum is stupid because he is one of them, but it is extremely irritating how little pushback he got from liberals back when he was a proud member of the far right. E.g., his seat at “Left, Right, and Center” (now occupied by the execrable Tony Blankley) was a horror show of Bush propaganda.
Chris Andersen
@kid bitzer:
I think it is more that they try to ingratiate themselves to the beltway conventional wisdom crowd. You know, the crowd that most liberals consider to be apologists for the corporate state and most right-wingers consider to be apologists for the socialist state.
Lynn Lightfoot
Well, consider Tina what’s her name. [I’ve mercifully forgotten her last name, but not my visceral and intellectual reaction to her malign influence on discourse of any kind.] When a person comes to prominence because his or her chief passion is fashion, well, what can you expect? Foolishness, faddishness, adolescent tastes and values, that’s what. She nearly ruined the New Yorker.
cliff
@Cliff:
are you trying to hijack me?