David Frum
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200806300114 |
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
| Author | Yasmeen Mohiuddin |
| Subject Matter | Movers & Shakers |
Yasmeen Mohiuddin
David Frum
The son of a Canadian icon has found an audience south of the border
There are many anecdotes chronicling David Frum’s commitment to con-
servatism, but perhaps the most telling comes from his wife, journalist
Danielle Crittenden: “I think I was the only conservative woman outside of
his sister that he’d ever met…We’re politically completely likeminded,
which I think horrified his parents. I think they were hoping that he would
meet someone that wasn’t so politically egging him on.”1
Not that Frum needs any encouragement. As one of the leading voices
on the political right in both Canada and the United States, he has called
himself a conservative since the tender age of 15, thanks to Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago and a less than convincing spell
working for an NDP candidate in Ontario’s 1975 provincial election. To
many North Americans, Frum is simply the man who penned the infamous
“axis of evil” line into US President George W. Bush’s 2002 state of the
union address. Longtime conservatives however, will know that he has been
a rising star in right-wing circles right from the time his mother, Barbara
Yasmeen Mohiuddin is a regular contributor to International Journal’s Movers &
Shakers rubric.
1 Shelly Page, “The making of an anti-feminist: Danielle Crittenden knows exactly how
to rankle old guard feminists with her views on why women today are unhappy,”
Ottawa Citizen, 14 February 1999.
| International Journal | Summer 2007 | 179 |
| Yasmeen Mohiuddin |
Frum, became a household name as a host on CBC radio and television. As
a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and regular contrib-
utor to National Review magazine, he has found an ever-expanding base for
his views.
In many ways Frum represents the stereotypical arch-conservative or
neoconservative. He is suspicious, almost scornful of the United Nations
and state-owned broadcasters such as CBC and BBC; he views gay marriage
as a threat to the institution of marriage; there is the overt disdain toward
former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the preoccupation with the
inherent flaws of liberalism and its supporters; and of course, he was
among the earliest proponents of invading Iraq.
Yet Frum’s writing, though occasionally alarmist, is devoid of the crude
bombast and sensationalism that mar the credentials of many conservative
torchbearers such as Ann Coulter. They are definitely of the same ilk in
terms of their anti-liberalism and desire for regime change in the Middle
East. However, unlike Coulter, Frum is more of an intellectual than an exhi-
bitionist, and many of his points ring true with those who loathe to be
labeled “conservative.” He takes the left to task for sympathizing with its
enemy’s enemy in the form of Islamist extremists in their joint anti-
Americanism; he is one of a growing number of people on the right calling
on the United States to rethink its relationship with Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan—two hotbeds of global terror. And on health care, a sore point for
Canadians, he speaks for many on all sides of the political spectrum when
he urges a reduced role for government.
In the six books he has authored, as well as in his regular columns in
the National Post and other publications, Frum has often expressed his dis-
appointment with Canada’s overbearing welfare state and its failure to live
up to its...
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