NR columnist threatens to withdraw support from President

On NRO’s main page, under the heading “Supreme Court,” the article link said, “David Frum: The next one must be a superb choice.” I thought, “Must be a superb choice? So, Frum, what are you going to do if it’s not a superb choice? Write another self-promoting, condescending book about your year in the White House? I’ll bet that really has them trembling.”

But I was surprised. He wrote:

The harsh truth is, at this 5 year mark in the administration’s life, that its domestic achievements are very few. The most important, the tax cut, will likely prove temporary, undermined by the administration’s overspending. The education bill, the faith-based initiative, and the rest do not amount to much. Social Security reform will not happen; work on tax reform has not even begun; the immigration proposals are disasters that will never become law…. After that, what is there other than the Patriot Act and of course judicial nominations? But even on judicial nominations, thus far the president has only preserved the old balance on the court…. All this year, the president has been testing the limits of his support. Well we are at the limit now, and anything less than a superb choice for the O’Connor vacancy will overstep it.

I doubt that Frum seriously means that he will stop supporting Bush if the nominee is less than superb. But it is an index of Bush’s declining reputation, even among his neocon backers, that Frum would make a faux threat of doing so.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 29, 2005 12:44 PM | Send