Thrasymachus on VDare on Auster on Steyn on Frum

You can look all these people up yourself since links suck in Blogger (and now they suck in WordPress too) but you can see the circular firing squad of today's conservative world.

There is nothing new or interesting or remarkable about Frum's defection. The System regularly peels off weak members of the herd- Frum's site even features a patrician New York congressman, Harris Reid, who became a Democrat in 1972. This usually happens during periods of conservative weakness- there were probably many other examples from the 60's and early 70's. David Brock did it in the 90's, I think because Clinton proved resilient and one can't really be a gay Republican.

Steyn's attitude is thus the most accurate. He is too kind to Frum, I suppose because he is a more relaxed fellow and doesn't see a need to make an enemy. But Frum is not that significant anyway. The backstabbing of Colin Powell and even Peggy Noonan last year was much worse.

Auster wants the opportunity to rip on "neocons" in general and Frum's warmongering. Of course you can see that the paleoconservative objection to the war has essentially the same Calvinist-pacifist snivelling tone that the objection of the left does- "It's none of our business! Who are we to tell them how to live? If they hate us it's because we interfere with them! If we left them alone everything would be fine!"