Unselfconcious

I’ve just come across a post at Hot Air that unintentionally lays bare a few absurdities and pet peeves of mine.

The author writes:

David Frum published an essay called “The Palin Fantasy” over the weekend. Even as the House of Representatives was preparing to pass the most blatantly unconstitutional assault on America’s freedom in Congressional history, Frum found something really outrageous to write about: Matthew Continetti’s admiring essay on Sarah Palin’s populist appeal. It’s a good thing Frum has his priorities in order. We wouldn’t want Palin to get into office and drop a few trillion dollars of unsustainable debt on us.

Thoughts:

1) This excerpt is the quintessential example of the double standard that movement conservatives unthinkingly apply to those deemed loyalists versus those deemed dissidents. The author expresses contempt for David Frum because as Democrats passed historic health care legislation in the House, he was wasting his time arguing for several hundred words about Sarah Palin’s populist appeal — whereas the author seems completely unbothered that during the very same debate about health care, The Weekly Standard dedicated its cover and the efforts of a talented staffer to an extended essay arguing for several thousand words about Sarah Palin’s populist appeal.

Isn’t it telling?

Though David Frum runs a low traffic Web site explicitly dedicated to the political future of the Republican Party, it is deemed contemptible for him to spend time talking about former Governor Palin, whereas The Weekly Standard, one of the most influential conservative magazines in America, does so at far greater length without so much as a peep in protest from the same writer.

2) Of course, we can take this analysis one more step. The author argues that it is folly for David Frum to criticize an article on Sarah Palin when the right should be focusing all its energy on opposing the health care legislation now en route to the Senate… yet the author finds that when it comes to his own writing, rather than focus on health care, it makes sense to write a blog post complaining about the fact that David Frum is complaining about an article on Sarah Palin instead of writing about health care.

3) The Alien and Sedition Acts, the Fugitive Slave Act, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II — one might regard any of those as likely candidates for “the most blatantly unconstitutional assault on America’s freedom in Congressional history,” but this author instead cites the House legislation on health care as his pick. As someone opposed to that legislation, is it too much to ask that my fellow critics stop using rhetoric so hyperbolic, ahistorical and obviously wrongheaded that they are bound to be deemed idiots by a sizable percentage of their audience, and probably everyone who doesn’t already agree with them?