I don't beleive so at all. Novak hit the nail on the head with this line:
"Frum, on the other hand, chose that moment to begin shooting at ''paleo-conservatives.'' He brackets me with his selected paleos--people whom I have never met or read and whose anti-Semitic and white supremacist views I abhor."
That is the heart of Frum's argument. It is nothing more than a guilt-by-association discrediting of the people he named and implicated in that same article.
I also read David Keene's remarks and his overall response in defense of Novak was also very weak.
Once again, I disagree. Keene too hit the issue dead on by calling out Frum's guilt-by-association tactics:
"Frum is among those who can't seem to accept the fact that those who disagree with him may not be in league with the devil...One can question the man's [Novak's] judgment and sometimes even his facts, but to suggest that Novak is no different from the crypto-fascists and Marxists organizing "peace" rallies these days says a lot more about David Frum than it does about Bob Novak."
Frum offered a highly detailed account of how certain members of the conservative movement, are standing in stark opposition to the courageous efforts taken by President Bush and his administartion in finally taking the actions to rid the world of a the dangerous lunatic of Baghdad.
In some respects, yes he did. But that is not the point of objection to his article. The objectionable portion is his use of guilt-by-association in an attempt to discredit Novak by tying him to the American Renaissancer fringe wacko types who he quotes and, most of all, their anti-semitism. That is an intellectually dishonest argument.
There has been a definite stench of disdain coming from remarks made by people like Novak, Buchanan and other paleocon's.
Since when is Novak a "paleocon"? He doesn't appear to consider himself one, nor, by his own admission, does he have much of anything to do with the American Renaissancer types that Frum attempted to associate him with in the smear piece.
The fact that Novak and Buchanan now support the troops, doesn't give them a pass for acting so wrongheaded in the lead up to this war.
Tell me this - why can't Novak, if he chooses, oppose the war as a policy prior to its starting? What is wrong with that? I fully support the war and have been calling for it for quite some time, but that does not mean I have a right to make personal attacks on Bob Novak for holding another view. It is as Keene appropriately put it: "Like many other conservatives, I happen to disagree with Novak's analysis of what's going on in the Middle East. But to suggest, as does Frum, that his disagreement with Bush's Iraq policy stems from a hatred of the president and the country is scandalously and irresponsibly absurd."
The essay by Frum was set up in the first two paragraphs and has more to do with those opening words, then anything else.
"From the very beginning of the War on Terror, there has been dissent, and as the war has proceeded to Iraq, the dissent has grown more radical and more vociferous. Perhaps that was to be expected. But here is what never could have been: Some of the leading figures in this antiwar movement call themselves "conservatives."
"These conservatives are relatively few in number, but their ambitions are large. They aspire to reinvent conservative ideology: to junk the 50-year-old conservative commitment to defend American interests and values throughout the world ... in favor of a fearful policy of ignoring threats and appeasing enemies.
And that's the truth.