Frum Hell, with Wild Palms

He wrote this anti-Ryan piece a week ago, but it's still worth noting: David Frum is an increasingly annoying, traitorous jerk who seems to be, well, the new David Brooks. 

It was bad enough when he was just attacking libertarians and Tea Party activists in favor of moderate Republicans, but now Romney and Ryan are too radical for him (I have no problem with people criticizing Ryan for being insufficiently radical).  Announce you’re a Democrat or just move back to Canada, David.  You won’t be missed (at least not until after this blog’s “Month of Partisanship” ends). 

I read Frum’s book Comeback a few years ago – his vision, such as it was, of a resurgent Republican Party.  There was almost nothing to it but focus group results...which I imagine is about what his soul looks like.  What a hollow, useless man. 

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On a more revolutionary note, the TV miniseries Wild Palms (from Oliver Stone of all people) turns twenty next year (as does the somewhat libertarian series Bablyon 5, incidentally). 

Here, the leader of the libertarian movement called the Friends (played by David Warner) risks all (amid media-induced hallucinations) to rescue his son (played by Brad Dourif, who has famously played weirdoes ranging from the Mentat in Dune to Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings, not to mention Chucky) from the clutches of the right-wing religious group that runs the country in 2007, the Fathers (all to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun”).

I remember talking to Andrew Corsello – who among other things wrote this article about Ayn Rand that quotes me – about Wild Palms back when it was first on.  I also recall him writing about trying then-novel “smart drugs” back in the crazy 90s, and I remember there was a whole counter where they had them on sale at the famous danceclub-in-a-former-church, Limelight.  We were all prepared for the strange world of 2007 as depicted by Wild Palms.  And basically we live there now.