Conservative Icon David Frum Endorses Clinton

David Frum, a conservative pundit and former speech writer for President George W. Bush, has gone all endorsing Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. He did so with an extended piece in the latest edition of The Atlantic.

He made the argument in an article titled “The Conservative Case for Voting for Clinton.”

In recent years there has been a disappointing lack of intellectual honesty on the part of political pundits. Once, both in the pages of journals such as The New Republic and The National Review as well as on cable news programs, both liberals and conservatives alike could be counted on to acknowledge certain truths and to even admit sometimes that the other side has a good point.

But today any such concession is considered treason by each camp and pundits get into heated debates which are more like the theatrics around professional wrestling matches, where the show as a whole is more important than the outcome, rather than engaging in an honest open dialogue.

So it is refreshing, to say the least, to hear someone like Frum who has been as partisan as anyone over the years come out and acknowledge a fact even if it hurts his side’s agenda. As Bill Maher put it so well, “sometimes you just have to punt.” Since politics today is covered more like the way that ESPN covers sports and its so hard to tell the difference between the political talk shows on the radio and the sports talk stations, the football analogy is an apt one.

After this https://t.co/wVN5gZ4Kev a few ppl asked what I personally would do. I don’t imagine much of the world is awaiting the answer, but

— David Frum (@davidfrum) November 2, 2016

Frum opened his piece in The Atlantic by acknowledging all of the reasons that Republicans should fear a Hillary Clinton Presidency. She will, of course, promote a liberal agenda. And Frum declares that the Clintons did sell access to Hillary when she served as Secretary of State. They did so through the guise of contributions to the Clinton Foundation. And David Frum lists all of the reasons why any reasonable Republican or Conservative American should always choose to vote for the Republican candidate over the Democratic one.

But this years is different. David Frum goes on to give a concise argument as to why Donald Trump is simply not capable of being President of the United States, whereas Hillary Clinton, in spite of all of her flaws, is qualified.

"Scum," "madman," "hater," and other words you'll find in articles about Donald Trump https://t.co/xxxUQne66X pic.twitter.com/XANs8u0oEO

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) November 2, 2016

Here is just a glimpse of David Frum’s well phrased argument:

“Yes, I fear Clinton’s grudge-holding. Should I fear it so much that I rally to a candidate who has already explicitly promised to deploy antitrust and libel law against his critics and opponents? Who incited violence at his rallies? Who ejects reporters from his events if he objects to their coverage? Who told a huge audience in Australia that his top life advice was: “Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe it”? Who idealizes Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, and the butchers of Tiananmen as strong leaders to be admired and emulated?”

“Should I be so appalled by the Clinton family’s access-selling that I prefer instead a president who boasts of a lifetime of bribing politicians to further his business career? Who defaults on debts and contracts as an ordinary business method, and who avoids taxes by deducting the losses he inflicted on others as if he had suffered them himself? Who cheated the illegal laborers he employed at Trump Tower out of their humble hourly wage? Who owes hundreds of millions of dollars to the Bank of China? Who refuses to disclose his tax returns, perhaps to conceal his business dealings with Vladimir Putin’s inner circle?’

We highly recommend reading David Frum’s whole article in The Atlantic here.