Watch Out, Frum -- You're Next

David Frum, who I thought was pretty interesting and provocative in his criticisms of Rachel Maddow (who I happen to like quite a lot) on her show last night, is getting pummeled by his conservative brethren for his negative thoughts on McPalin.

He responds to them via his National Review Online column as they accuse him of selling out:

Do my correspondents (and now my Corner colleagues) truly believe that - but for my pitiful media and social ambitions - nobody in America would have noticed that Sarah Palin cannot speak three coherent consecutive words about finance or economics?

In the past month, Sarah Palin's unfavorability ratings have risen by 12 points. She briefly boosted the McCain ticket, but that effect subsided by the end of September. Blue-collar white women (!) now reject Palin as unqualified for the presidency 48-43, according to the Wall-Street Journal/NBC poll.

It's flattering to be told that my eagerness to clink glasses with the Washington social elite is the driving cause behind the shriveling public support for the Alaska governor. Flattering - but not very convincing. Tens of millions of people have tuned in to watch Sarah Palin field questions from Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, and then to share a stage with Joe Biden. If Palin's public support is now collapsing, it is her own doing.

Possibly it is bad form for me to acknowledge this reality. As one of my correspondents wrote this very morning:

PLEASE KEEP YOUR REMARKS TO YOURSELF! Nobody but Democrats wants to hear them.

Well he may have a point.

Perhaps it is our job at NRO is tell our readers only what they want to hear, without much regard to whether it is true. Perhaps it is our duty just to keep smiling and to insist that everything is dandy - that John McCain's economic policies make sense, that his selection of Sarah Palin was an act of statesmanship, that she herself is the second coming of Anna Schwartz, and that nobody but an over-educated snob would ever suggest otherwise.

Who knows? Perhaps if I do that enthusiastically enough, somebody somewhere might even pour me a free drink or invite me onto the airwaves for a 3 minute Monday morning sunrise interview. And after all: What else could I possibly want?

Conservative creds... easy come, easy go.