fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

David Frum’s Zany World

If you were asked to speak at your local church on the day’s Scripture reading on account of your wedding anniversary, would you spend most of the time talking about anti-Christian persecutions, the ethics of intelligence gathering and warmongering? No, you probably wouldn’t. But then you’re not nearly as odd as David Frum. Asked to […]

If you were asked to speak at your local church on the day’s Scripture reading on account of your wedding anniversary, would you spend most of the time talking about anti-Christian persecutions, the ethics of intelligence gathering and warmongering? No, you probably wouldn’t. But then you’re not nearly as odd as David Frum. Asked to give the d’var Torah on Numbers 13:1-15:41, where the Israelites spy out the land of Canaan and Joshua and Caleb urge the people to advance into the land in spite of the resistance they will meet (which their fellow spies make out to be too great), he manages to cover a lot of ground, from English anti-Semitism (that mean, old Ian Fleming!) to the slightly more germane topic of intelligence work as it relates to the history of the Jewish people, and offers this self-serving tripe:

Ironically enough, Sh’lach could epitomize this outside critique of an intelligence organization. We see in Sh’lach intelligence going wrong in exactly the way outside experts often describe: 10/12ths of an intelligence organization allowing their own weaknesses, preferences, and institutional imperatives to distort their information getting. Only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh report the truth. As for Moses and Aaron, who opted to rely on the minority view of Joshua and Caleb, it was surely said of them that they were politicizing intelligence and “stove-piping” information, bypassing the proper channels.

Every occasion, from an exercise in exegesis to an occasion marking your own wedding, apparently must be used to advance the filthy cause of this war. Nothing can be left untouched by the desperate need to justify a war of aggression founded in deceit. Every sphere of life apparently must be dragooned to serve Frum’s propaganda. To add to the shamelessness of the speech, Frum effectively ties the duplicitous methods behind the Iraq war to the capture of the Promised Land, aligning himself and his fellow liars with Joshua and Caleb and, I suppose, aligning Mr. Bush with no less than Moses. Turning everything on its head, Frum has aligned the liars with the true servants of God and made those who counseled against a war of aggression into another batch of the ten spies who were unwilling to claim the land that God had given Israel. There is apparently no limit to the man’s dishonesty.

Via Steve Sailer

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here