Fric And Frac Fire Frum

After reading the Wall Street Journal's article about the American Enterprise Institute cutting David Frum, I couldn't help thinking how deep the GOP is into their own self-destruction. We certainly don't want to slow down their momentum.

In the following excerpt, the "disaster" Frum writes about is not the health care reform bill, but his description of the way the congressional party leaders handled it.

WaPo Excerpt:
"A huge part of the blame for today's disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves," Frum wrote. "At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama's Waterloo -- just as health care was [Bill] Clinton's in 1994. . .

Wall Street Journal Excerpt:
Mr. Frum now makes his living as the media's go-to basher of fellow Republicans, which is a stock Beltway role. But he's peddling bad revisionist history that would have been even worse politics. The truth is that Democrats never had any intention of working with Republicans, except to pick off two or three Senators and calling it "bipartisanship."

That's not the way I saw it, particularly when one considers the live televised health care summit with President Obama. This was the GOP's best chance to correct the failed strategy described by Frum, and prove to America that they were the party of idea's as they claimed. They blew it big time.

But the GOP's biggest mistake was when they invited and picked their number one partisan, Congressman Paul Ryan, to open the summit discussion on behalf of their caucus. Here they are all sitting around the tables at a historic meeting called a "summit" to work an above-board deal on health care for all to see and one of the two parties brings in and sets the stage with a bomb-throwing ideologue.

You'll remember Ryan began his diatribe by first talking about a 38 trillion dollar Medicare obligation and making common knowledge statements about deficits and debt. He called the health care reform plan a gimmick full of smoke and mirrors loaded with double counting, hidden spending and finally a Ponzi scheme, descriptions far more fitting for his Roadmap novel. But does that sound like someone who wants to win over the opposition and engage in dialogue to negotiate a deal? Not in my book. And judging by the democrats reaction to Ryan's teardown at the summit, not in their book either.

Sure, Ryan was entitled to his criticisms, but in the end that's all he offered. He had no ideas or plans whatsoever to exchange with the democrats to make the reform plan work. Instead he finished by demanding the whole process “start over, that’s basically the point.” In short, Ryan was the final GOP point man confirming what Frum saw from the beginning as the guaranteed failure that no negotiations, no compromise and no nothing will bring. They were going for all the marbles again with Ryan. He could have saved everybody some time at the summit by offering just a one word statement in place of his entire speech – “NO.”

The televised summit could have been the GOP’s finest hour with the HCR bill, instead it showed America that its perception of the Republican party was fully exposed and confirmed on reality TV, and they are indeed the party of no and no ideas.

The truth is, it was the Republicans who had no intention of working with Democrats on health care reform from the beginning as Frum pointed out, and confirmed at the end as Ryan sealed their fate. So in my view, Frum hits the mark with his constructive criticism of the direction and motives of the Republican party.

Washington Post Excerpt:
Frum has long been a contrarian conservative. He emerged as a harsh critic of Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign and resigned from the National Review after Obama was elected. "I am really and truly frightened by the collapse of support for the Republican Party by the young and the educated."

He has also been at war with much of the talk-radio right. Frum wrote a Newsweek cover story last year lambasting Rush Limbaugh, calling the host a "walking stereotype of self-indulgence -- exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party."

Yeah, where does David Frum get off criticizing GOP's finest? The nerve! The WSJ, AEI and the GOP certainly have no need for a traitor like that. Dump the guy. Serves him right. Thank yooo GOP. Stay the course.

Urban Dictionary
Fric and Frac -- Those two idiots you know and see often, who always hang out together. One is never seen without the other. Retarded Siamese Twins. Synonymous with and the update of "Tweedledum and Tweedledee".

"Oh great, look out, here come Fric and Frac."
"Yeah man. Disperse! Before they get here and try to hang out with us!"