FRUM AND DUKE SITTIN' IN A TREE...

Even among the hysterical choir of hardline Israel supporters who have responded to Walt and Mearsheimer's Israel Lobby paper with a steady chorus of slander, the glass-shattering spinto soprano of David Frum stands out. In his NRO diary he writes:

APR. 27, 2006: THINGS HAVE COME TO A PRETTY PASS ...
... when a man cannot argue that the United States is controlled by a sinister Jewish conspiracy without being accused of anti-semitism. That, at any rate, is the argument used by defenders of the now notorious Walt/Mearsheimer paper.

This is obviously a wildly dishonest representation of what Walt and Mearsheimer wrote, but Frum, equally obviously, is not interested in debating the paper's merits, or its lack of them, as much as he is in doing his part to make sure that future authors think twice before attempting any similar project.

Frum goes on to "support" his charge of anti-semitism against Walt and Mearsheimer by pointing out that...wait for it...their paper has been praised by anti-semites. This is a transparent and elementary fallacy, something one as educated and intelligent Frum surely must realize. It hardly needs pointing out that, according to Frum's reasoning, the fact that David Duke and other racists agree with Frum's position on affirmative action means that Frum is a racist. It says a lot about Frum's estimation of his readership that he thinks he can get away with this kind of crap.