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David Frum bids farewell to Marketplace
David Frum. The long-time Marketplace commentator says he has come to recognize that his "views are not very representative of the conservative mainstream."
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David Frum, columnist and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, speaks during a live taping of 'Meet the Press' in 2009.
KAI RYSSDAL: David Frum has been a regular commentator for this program for years, offering the voice of the political right against Robert Reich and the views of the political left. It's been, for the most part, a mutually agreeable relationship. We alienate different segments of our audience every other Wednesday.
A couple of months ago, though, David came to us and said, "I'm not the right guy anymore. What I think doesn't match up with some of the more robust voices in the Republican Party today." So as a way to say goodbye we thought we'd have him on to explain. Hey David.
DAVID FRUM: Hey, thank you.
RYSSDAL: So why this move? Why is this no longer a good fit for you?
FRUM: Well, we've been doing a point/counter-point here between me and Bob Reich for a couple of years. And it's been a lot of fun. I've certainly learned a lot from it. But I think that there's a kind of expectation that when you do it that you represent the broad point of view of your half of the political spectrum. And although I consider myself a conservative and a Republican, and I think that the right-hand side of the spectrum has the better answers for the long-term growth of economy -- low taxes, restrained government, less regulation -- it's pretty clear that facing the immediate crisis -- very intense crisis -- I'm just not representing the view of most people who call themselves Republicans and conservatives these days.
RYSSDAL: Let me quote you back to yourself in a post that you made on FrumForum not too long ago. You say: "Under the pressure of the current crisis -- intoxicated by anti-Obama feelings and incited by talk radio and Fox -- Republicans have staked out an extreme position on the role of government." That's where we are in this discussion, right?
FRUM: It's not just the role of government though. We have got a sick patient -- the American economy. And we can see that the patient in the next bed -- the European economy -- he's looking even sicker and there's a real risk of contagion. And what I think we have to do at a moment like this: Have a very, very open creation of money and credit. This is not a moment for government to be cutting back. Here's where Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes agreed. They didn't necessarily agree about why to do this medicine, but as to what the medicine was, they did broadly agree. But it's not the medicine that's being prescribed now. The fact is I'm kind of an outlier. And it's a service to the radio audience if they want to hear people explaining effectively why one of the two great parties takes the view that it does -- it needs to have somebody who agrees with that great party. I'm hoping that the party will eventually agree with me, but I can't blink the fact that I don't agree with them on this set of issues.
RYSSDAL: You seem to be staking a lot on the hope or the expectation that in the long run the Republican Party will come back to where you are. I'm reminded of course -- since you mentioned him -- of John Maynard Keynes and his line about "in the long run." In the long run, man, we're all dead.
FRUM: Well, I hope it's not going to take that long. And unlike Keynes, I don't smoke so I may have a little bit more leeway in front of me. But in politics and public policy there are better and worse answers. There are things that work and things that don't work. Right now we're watching state governments try to balance all of their budgets at the same time in the middle of this crisis. We've seen half a million public sector jobs disappear. Now, if these were good times, I would applaud that. We need to see a thinner public sector -- especially at the state and local level. But we're seeing what happens when you do that as an anti-recession measure and you make the recession worse. And even though we're in a technical recovery, incomes and employment -- all of that remains lagging for people -- I think that we've rediscovered in this crisis something that I think we all knew. Which is, there's a reason why the people of the 1930s built some kind of minimum guarantee -- unemployment insurance, health care coverage and things like that. And it's not because they wanted to be nice. It's because in a crisis when people lose their jobs, if there is no social safety net they loose 100 percent of their purchasing power.
RYSSDAL: I should say that for those who need their David Frum fix, he's not disappearing. You are going where, David, to CNN for the political season, right?
FRUM: I am going to be one of a bevy of CNN commentators and I'm continuing to do most of my work writing on my website, where I can say look, here's what I think and I don't have to represent myself as a champion for a large numbers of people. These are my views -- take them or leave them.
RYSSDAL: David Frum is, as you heard me say, the editor of FrumForum. He used to be a speechwriter for President Bush. And David, I hope we'll have you back every now and again.
FRUM: Thank you very much.
RYSSDAL: Next week, Robert Reich. After that, we'll have some new conservative voices on the broadcast.
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While David Frum rightfully recognizes that the more vocal elements of the right have moved to the right of his positions, why does it then follow that he should give up his platform on Marketplace? Isn’t this a call for Marketplace or American Public Media to make?
Arguably, for ten years, the right has been indulged to a fantasy-land where the American economy can sustain unaffordable tax cuts, unaffordable wars, banks too big to fail, and shadow lending institutions beyond regulation. In 2008, when a financial crisis proved all of this unsustainable, rather than reexamining its assumptions, many on the right retrenched into their fantasy…thus was born what David Brooks has dubbed the “Alternative Reality Rightâ€.
Now, just because one opposes wealth redistribution and supports lessened regulation and lower taxes, does not make one split with reality. Thus our public debate needs center-right commentators to distinguish the Alternative Reality Right from the broader right-of-center half of the American polity. If Mr. Frum feels his positions are no longer in sync with the dominant voices in today’s Republican Party, this says more about the party than him. Should this not make Mr. Frum’s commentary more needed and critical? It does not follow that he should feel compelled to relinquish his platform.
"Rather than just doing a two way point/counter-point, why not add a centrist commentator to make it a three way debate."
Frum is the centrist, that's the point. Two successive administrations of runaway spending have moved the conservative center further to the right on the fiscal continuum.
It seems that Marketplace has succumbed to the NPR obsession with political propaganda. Yes, Robert Reich gives us the Democratic party line, but that is not real insight. A Republican view is not likely to be any more informative. Both are mainly wishful thinking and/or statements that someone wants us to believe, mostly not significant insight.
Frum thinks he's a pragmatist, but he is a naive fool. Frum seems to believe the U.S. is on the verge of enacting radical austerity measures. The sad truth is our political apparatus is hardwired to grow government. With the so-called radical right in control of the House we still have spending growing at 5%.
The Austerity Myth: Federal Spending Up 5% This Year
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/588254/201110170805/The...
Rather than just doing a two way point/counter-point, why not add a centrist commentator to make it a three way debate. I think that the political and economic views of most people lie somewhere in between the far left and the far right. Yet the news media in general seems to be focused on the two extremes which serves to further polarize the country and gives the people in the middle no voice and very little visibility. I think that it's time for marketplace to lead the way and bring more moderating voices into the discussion.
It was disingenuous of Frum to state that the conservative polar-opposite of Keynes was Friedman, as the (inaccurate) premise for his conclusion that support for further stimulus is across the political spectrum.
Not true, as anyone who is a fan of F.A. Hayek will tell you.
Indeed, his first major work "The Road To Serfdom" warned against having the state plan and control major aspects of the economy.
It is a truly sad state of affairs -- make that -- a DANGEROUS state of affairs -- when Mr. Frum feels he can no longer speak his mind about what is right for the country but must instead be dragged down by the dogma of a fringe whose ideas have no basis in economic theory. I can't find the words, but something is really wrong when left and right aren't allowed to agree on a course of action as Mr. Frum admitted to. So, the listeners of Marketplace will be treated to some far right economic theory that even conservative economists don't agree with. Marketplace should put no one in Frum's place -- it's no different than the global warming debate. If you have 1000 scientists say humans are causing global warming and 1 scientist say humans aren't, it is disingenuous to say that both sides of the argument have an equal weight. If Marketplace puts on some "government-and -entitlements-are-the-problem-and-we-need-to-cut-government-spending" commentator they will be doing just that -- flying in the face of the vast majority of real economists.
Years ago, the commentators on this program were basically only from the Cato Ins, American Enterprise Ins and other right wing Think Tanks, as if only they had all the answers..
Then after criticism --to 'balance' the program Robert Reich was added to balance it out.
However, what we have now, is not what K.R. calls a balanced view from the Right and the Left, but rather a view from the Right and one from the Center. I have yet to get to hear a real view from the Left on this program.
Is this not Public Radio? Are we not supposed to hear what a real Marketplace of ideas should be providing us, about the real world out there?
The voice of moderates is slowly being silenced and that's scarey. We can all see what happens when politics plays more and more to their 'base' - seesawing from one extreme to the other. The same is happening with economics with the extremes being big business and the Occupy group. I would like to start a party called 'Radical Moderate' with the slogan of 'Let's revive Common Sense'. David Frum is NOT a hard core conservative, otherwise he would not be saying that government plays a role in crisis times to protect the welfare of the people. His voice will be missed.
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