RSS Feed MenuI had a freaky experience yesterday evening.
A week ago, I wrote a column contrasting conservative enthusiasm for the third-party challenger in the NY-23 special election to the conservative indignation against the third-party challenger in the New Jersey gubernatorial election.
To make the point, I indulged in a bit of fun: I spoofed a recent interview Hugh Hewitt had done with the N.J. challenger, Chris Daggett. I quoted Hugh’s words, but substituted Doug Hoffman as the target.
Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt this week offered a stern condemnation of this fratricide on his popular program, calling the third-party candidate: “…. a wrecker, a selfish “look at me” poser …. It takes an outsized ego to look at poll after poll that puts you behind not one but two candidates by more than 10 points and still declare yourself in the hunt.” Whoops! Sorry, rewind. Fzzzzwwwwvvvvwwwzzzp. That was an editing error. Hugh Hewitt was not blasting Doug Hoffman, the third-party candidate in New York. In fact, Hoffman is the darling of talk radio and Fox News, which have helped to spread Hoffman Fever for the past few weeks.
Yesterday I got a call from a booker on the Hewitt program inviting me to appear to defend my words. I cheerfully accepted.
I expected that Hewitt would want to talk about the New Jersey and New York races, the role of moderates vs. conservatives in the GOP, etc. I also looked forward to reminding Hugh that in 2005 he had bet a steak dinner that Harriet Miers would be confirmed by the Senate for the U.S. Supreme Court… and that I was still waiting by the phone for his invitation.
Instead I got this.
You drove off of an on-ramp, you drove off of the highway, you ran by, sideswiped me … You wrote this sloppily, you did no research, you can’t back it up, you didn’t bother to call me. In fact, it is the worst kind of drive-by punditry that I have seen in a long time from you. … You are an outrageous example of the worst kind of yellow journalism out there.
There’s much more besides, and you can read it in full here.
Whew. I didn’t know that the rules of journalism required a “mother may I” phone call for permission before publishing a send-up. Still: I truly did not intend to slight Hewitt by teasing him, and I am sorry that he feels I did so.
On air, as I hope the transcript shows, I did my best to avert the kind of ugly quarrel that erupted. But as the saying goes, you cannot escape a quarrel with a man who is determined to quarrel with you.
Yet notice something: We never did get around to discussing what the underlying topic of our interview was – the races in New York and New Jersey.
We spent 20 minutes, two full segments, on Hugh’s bruised feelings.
DF: I don’t know why you want to make this conversation about you.
HH: Well David, you name me in your columns. Why shouldn’t it be about me.
DF: ..or even about you and me.
HH: If you’re going to name me in your columns, aren’t you going to be man enough to stand up and back up your aspersions on me?
DF: But I didn’t make aspersions, and I’m not hostile to you, and I’m not being critical of you.
As you see, my point made zero impression.
I should have thought that a man who dispenses the kind of violent language Hugh Hewitt dispensed throughout the interview – accusations of cowardice, accusations of misrepresentation, accusations of slander, etc. etc. – would have had the toughness to withstand a little gentle teasing. But no. On the radio, it seems, the tolerance for criticism goes only one way: the host may vilify anyone and everyone in the most extreme language. But one little spoof against the host, and it’s like you slapped a baby.
It all goes to confirm a wonderful lesson my father-in-law taught my son: When you face a bully, no matter how much bigger than you, always swing for the nose. There hasn’t been a bully born who won’t burst into tears when he sees his own blood.
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UPDATE
Hugh Hewitt posted a reflection on our encounter here.
Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 8:43 PM
David Frum and I mixed it up on air tonight. The two columns I challenge him on are here and here. Frum accused me of narcissism because I treat the references to me in both of them as attacks on me. You read them and decide for yourself.
The transcript will be posted here later. The audio will be available at the Hughniverse. I invited David to continue the debate in the third hour of the show. He declined. The unwillingness to confront anger in his targets doesn’t speak well of Frum. Neither does his unwillingness to own what he writes.
One more reply: It’s hardly apt for Hugh to describe his show as a “debate.” In a debate, both sides are informed in advance of the topic, both sides get equal time, and neither party controls the other’s microphone. But leave that go. What is truly disingenuous is for Hugh to complain that I was unwilling to confront his anger. I did confront it – for every minute of the scheduled time. If Hugh felt that he had failed to make his points effectively within the alloted period, how is that my fault?
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UPDATE
Very briefly, a competely inappropriate headline and image went up over this piece. For that, I do sincerely apologize.
MI-GOPer // Oct 29, 2009 at 8:48 am
more nonsense from our New Majority Village Idiot. Way to hoe that row, ottoBS! WHat a good O-bot.
ottovbvs // Oct 29, 2009 at 10:23 am
mi-goper // Oct 29, 2009 at 8:48 am
“more nonsense from our New Majority Village Idiot”
………from the latest NBC/WSJ poll……there seem to be rather a lot of village idiots…….but keep up contaminating the dog food I’m sure you’ll be proved right someday
*** Time to resurrect that dog food metaphor? While impressions of Obama’s professional performance are mixed, the same can’t be said of the Republican Party at large. Put simply, the GOP’s brand is still a mess. According to the poll, just 25% have a positive opinion of the party (compared with 42% for the Dem Party), which ties the GOP’s low-water mark in the survey and which is a worse score than it ever had during the Bush presidency. (Honest question: Can the party still blame Bush for their problems if their numbers have gotten lower since he left the scene?) In addition, only 23% approve of the way in which congressional Republicans have handled health care (compared with 43% for Obama). And looking ahead to the 2010 midterms, 46% prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, versus 38% who want a GOP-controlled Congress. Last month, Dems held a 43%-40% advantage. Also, don’t miss this: Despite being out of office and (relatively) out of the news, Sarah Palin’s fav/unfav in our poll has dropped from 32%-43% in July to 27%-46% now. In fact, her numbers now are nearly identical to Nancy Pelosi’s (26%-42%). By the way, both Palin and Pelosi are more popular than the Republican Party.
sinz54 // Oct 29, 2009 at 10:35 am
blogenfreude: Your involvement in PNAC and the needless invasion of Iraq has empowered these wingnuts….go back to Canada
AFAIK, David Frum was not a member of PNAC. But he was a speechwriter for Bush (on economic issues), and he did support the invasion of Iraq.
And David Frum cannot “go back to Canada.” He became a U.S. citizen in 2007.
I know you hate Frum and all Republicans. But try to get your facts straight.
sinz54 // Oct 29, 2009 at 10:49 am
ottovbs: party professionals like David let the Morlocks out of the basement when it served their purpose but now they have taken over the house and are burning it down.
No, that’s not quite right.
The fundamental problem is that the original raison d’etre for the conservative coalition had ended.
The conservative coalition had three components: Social conservatives; free market advocates; and anti-Communist hawks. What held this coalition together since the 1950s was really anti-Communism: Free market advocates hated command economies, and the social conservatives considered Communism to be “atheist” and “godless” and “secular.”
But the economic and foreign policy battles were eventually won: Taxes had been cut dramatically, the USSR was gone, Communism was spent as a possible threat. So activists in those issues drifted away, which is what always happens when the issue they care most about no longer matters.
As a result, the only sure component of the conservative coalition left was the social conservatives–because their issues were the only ones yet unresolved. Taxes had been cut dramatically, the USSR was gone–but Roe v. Wade remained in effect. So the social conservatives were the easiest to keep mobilizing.
ottovbvs // Oct 29, 2009 at 10:56 am
sinz54 // Oct 29, 2009 at 10:35 am
” I know you hate Frum and all Republicans. But try to get your facts straight.”
………He may be slightly wrong on some of his facts but he’s surely right in the spirit of his comments……..I’m a semi admirer of David’s because he was the first highly visible pundit to blow the whistle on Palin, but he was definitely a fully paid up member(if only a minor one) of the Republican establishment that summoned up these demons because they were useful…….and now they have taken over…….it’s been going on for well over 20 years but accelerated in the nineties when the party became much more southern and polarized (Gingrich’s leadership was the tipping point I think)…….In the medium term there is no chance whatever of exorcizing these demons……so things will take their natural course.
ottovbvs // Oct 29, 2009 at 11:13 am
sinz54 // Oct 29, 2009 at 10:49 am
…….You’re right in some respects but these factions are much more interrelated than you suggest…….the Reagan coalition as I’ll call it was composed of economic, nationalist and social conservative……..the economic conservatives (who could also be called the management conservatives) have largely jumped ship outside the south and mormon corridor(I’m one of them) so Republicans are left overly dependant on the socials/nationalists who are largely interchangeable and a strategy which I will call Roveism or polarization which relied on maximizing their vote. Roveism requires drummers like Limbaugh and Hewitt, and it also has the electoral effect of polarizing the type of people who get elected within the GOP. The problem with Roveism is that it alienates large slugs of country. Rove himself perceived this potential problem hence his out reach to hispanics but by then it was too late. He’d lost control of the demons he’d conjured up and they weren’t interested in accomodation with the immigrant community……….The Southern strategy and Roveism/polarisation have left the GOP entirely dependant on the most socially conservative/nationalist segment of the electorate which is concentrated disproportionately in the South and mormon corridor. Even worse it’s predominantly white and aging(see that latest NBC/WS poll I mentioned above)…….it looked smart at the time but has proved to be a massive miscalculation that will probably take a generation to correct.
Contrarian_Libertarian // Oct 29, 2009 at 1:59 pm
sinz54: But the economic and foreign policy battles were eventually won: Taxes had been cut dramatically, the USSR was gone, Communism was spent as a possible threat. So activists in those issues drifted away, which is what always happens when the issue they care most about no longer matters.
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Interesting point — and it makes a lot of sense.
But while tax rates were lowered, our spending path wasn’t. And that’s always been my biggest frustration with the Republicans: they’re great at pushing for tax cuts, and virtually unwilling to push for spending cuts….which are, obviously, a lot more politically perilous.
Moreover, I’d say that our wacky jihadist friends have filled the void that the Soviets left in terms of providing an external threat to unify around fighting.
The best model for what Republicans need to become, IMO, is Gov. Mitch Daniels in Indiana. Rhetorically, he’s not an ideological firebrand. He does prefer to keep taxes low for all the right reasons — but he’s most intently focused on reforming government to make it more efficient and cost-effective. He’s keenly aware of how to attract capital investment. And, best of all, he’s not afraid to pull out the budget ax.
That seems to fit perfectly both what Republicans and the country need right now.
rubenseagle // Nov 1, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Ottovbs wrote: “Rove himself perceived this potential problem hence his out reach to hispanics but by then it was too late. He’d lost control of the demons he’d conjured up and they weren’t interested in accomodation with the immigrant community. The Southern strategy and Roveism/polarisation have left the GOP entirely dependant on the most socially conservative/nationalist segment of the electorate” Otto, actually, some of the most socially conservative people around are immigrants. According to a 2007 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Hispanic Center, nearly half of second-generation Latinos think that abortion should be illegal, while 65 percent of first-generation Latinos think it should be outlawed. Latinos, along with African Americans, seemed to tilt the scales on the passage of Prop 8 here in California. And in 2008, McCain lost the Latino vote soundly to Obama, but the reasons were typical of most Americans concerns: jobs and the economy. You write the electorate they are serving is “white and aging.” Maybe so, but highly religious Latinos who define themselves as “renewalists,” spirit-filled Christians and Catholics, is huge and growing dramatically. And yes, in poll after poll, they say that their spirit life affects their political vote. And yes, they are overwhelmingly conservative.