It has been interesting to watch the fracas over David French from my perch in Pittsburgh, PA, a place where people get fired on the spot for offending customers.
French should not be fired, as that term is commonly understood. He should never have been hired in the first place.
French is a supposedly conservative pundit who first opposed Trump (Never!), then toyed with the idea of mounting a presidential campaign against him, and failing to stop his election victory, engaged in a passive-aggressive game of “priggish and churlish” #Resistance.
Saying French should be fired is the worst thing ever, somehow, in the Washington echo-sphere. Which seems a bit hypocritical coming from people who scorn immigration laws so they can get their grass cut more cheaply, even as it crowds low-wage Americans out of the labor market.
It also fails to take Frenchism – which has been singularly dedicated to firing the president – to its natural consequence.
In the idealized past French longs for in his diatribes against present day incivility, fraternal correction was considered a work of mercy.
Expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden was for their own good, after all. Imagine how creatures tinged with original sin would have behaved if everything they wanted was right there outside the hut for the taking?
Similarly, telling conservative pundits who still long for Jeb! to go sell tires at a Walmart may be the only way to help them realize what complete jerks they have been for the last three years.
I quibble only on a semantic point. French should not be fired, as that term is commonly understood. He should never have been hired in the first place.
To understand why is to ask, “what the hell is his job anyway?”
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In an unguarded moment he would probably say it is to create in the pith of the nation’s soul the uncreated conscience of humanity. Which is a big part of the problem.
Conservative, Inc. tends to be overwrought in its self-importance. The furrowed brows, the just-so bifocals, the stuttering interruptions on CNN panels where they are paid to play conservative minstrels... a vote for Trump was in part a vote to shut them up.
Just like liberals, they think themselves better because of their superior intentions; except, unlike their counterparts, they dare to cloak their posturing in treacly bible camp religiosity.
The most annoying of them – and French definitely is in that category – act like the only reason they don’t walk on water is their concern for the feelings of the water.
Mostly, NeverTrump pundits have been useful idiots to the belching Washington establishment.
Mostly, NeverTrump pundits have been useful idiots to the belching Washington establishment.
They were crucial to fundraising under the Conservative, Inc. formula: scare old ladies, demand money by making messianic claims, and by all means lose. That way they could ask for money again the next week.
To his credit, no element of Trump’s brand was constructed upon a moral pose, which only makes people uncomfortable anyway. Ask Mitt. Trump the sinner was actually more righteous than the posers because he confessed to sometimes being a cad, which sounds like a contradiction but is not.
In Christianity, publicly claiming to be holy is a big no-no. The apostle John wrote, “If we say, ‘We have not sinned,’ we make Jesus a liar, and his word is not in us.” As Jesus taught, in matters of giving alms never let the left hand know what the right hand is doing, so that it will remain private.
Jesus ate with tax collectors and would have certainly joined Trump at dinner without reducing whatever they discussed to a secret memo that was later leaked to The New York Times.
When James Comey did that, French wrote a typically overwrought piece in National Review titled, “The Comey Memo: The Allegation Is Serious, and There Is No Good Outcome.”
There, French posited among other priggish and churlish things, “If the memo exists, then there is compelling evidence that the president committed a potentially impeachable offense.”
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The dirty little secret is that most who make money churning public policy are not primarily interested in you. They are doing the bidding of lobbyists and donors that attach to Washington like a refueling hose on a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft.
It is big business. Washington, which does not manufacture cars or computers or steel, is somehow among the wealthiest regions in America.
Trump is many things, but mostly he is unconnected to the spigot. Those who feed off its flow want him gone. That’s why they make up stuff about children in cages and Russian interference.
Firing would only be redundant when relevance long ago vanished.
In the end, David French got high on his own supply. He snorted the neat rows of “a guy like you should be president” white powder Bill Kristol cut on the mirror in front of him.
He’s no different than the rest, in that respect. If you wish to delve deeper on that point, please see Michael Thau’s seminal 2017 critique of Rod Dreher over at American Greatness.
True to form, French has responded to his thoughtful critics by besmirching them as a mob, and then retreating to a sanctuary he calls “civility” where, apparently, he can say vicious things but nobody can respond because that’s cruel.
Uh-huh. Firing would only be redundant when relevance long ago vanished.
Thomas Farnan is a full time practicing lawyer from the heart of Trump-country. He has been featured in American Greatness, Townhall, the Observer, and PJ Media. You can follow him on Twitter.
