Frum finished at AEI

And now the show begins.

Only yesterday I noted Republican mouthpiece David Frum’s critique of the GOP strategy against health care, published at his web site under the title, “Waterloo“:

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

Today, The New York Times‘ Adam Nagourney reports that Mr. Frum has been “forced out” of his fellowship at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Mr. Frum said he was taken out to lunch by the president of the organization, Arthur C. Brooks. He said Mr. Brooks told him the institute valued a diversity of opinion, and welcomed that one of its scholars had become such a high-profile critic of Republican legislative leaders. Mr. Frum, who has been with the institute since 2003, said that he was asked if he would considering being associated with the institute on a nonsalaried basis.

Mr. Frum declined.

“Does it have anything to do with what would be the most obvious explanation of what happened?” he said in an interview after his lunch. “I don’t know. That’s not what they say.”

Asked if he believed that explanation, Mr. Frum responded, “I’m not going to say that they’re not telling the truth.”

Mr. Brooks, however, praised Frum as “an original thinker and friend to many at A.E.I.”. He also suggested that Frum chose to leave of his own free will, and had not been forced out. “We are pleased,” said Mr. Brooks, “to have welcomed him as a colleague for seven years, and his decision to leave in no way diminishes our respect for him.”

Asstastic

Words … well, they just don’t suffice today. Plenty of clichés apply, to be sure, but this is beyond the pale.

(A tip o’the hat to Slog’s Kelly O.)

Meet Elizabeth Warren

So The New York Times deems, and so it shall be: It is time to meet Elizabeth Warren:

Among all the dramatis personae of post-financial crisis Washington, there is no one remotely like Ms. Warren, 60, who has divided the town between those who admire her and those who roll their eyes at her ….

…. Ms. Warren has two roles here: officially, as head of Congressional oversight for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and unofficially, as chief conceiver of and booster for a new consumer financial protection agency. Fusing those projects and her academic work, she has become the most prominent consumer advocate in years.

In a blitz of television appearances, she offers a story of how 30 years of deregulation has rewarded the financial industry but led to abusive practices and collapses that have hurt ordinary Americans — the same taxpayers who are paying for bank bailouts.

Ms. Warren’s climactic hour begins now: three years after she hatched the idea for the agency, the White House has backed it, the House of Representatives has approved it and it is a top Democratic priority in the Senate.

Many fans, including Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, hope Ms. Warren will run it. But even if the agency is approved, it might be far weaker than what she envisioned, thanks to fierce opposition from the financial industry.

Her admirers are many, including President Obama and House Financial Services Chairman Rep. Barney Frank. As Jodi Kantor’s story for the NYT hits the newsstands, Professor Warren is already well-known to fans of Bill Maher’s Real Time, on HBO. Her two appearances to date have shown her endearing, such that my first response was like that of a child to a puppy: “Can we keep her?”

The DSM and the autism overdose

As the men and women in suits hash out definitions for the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V), Dr. Allen Frances considers the lessons of the last revision, in 1994:

There has been an “epidemic” of autism in the last fifteen years. This used to be a very rare condition diagnosed less than once in every two thousand kids. Now it is diagnosed once in a hundred. We will elsewhere take up the foolish theory that this was cause by vaccination. Here we will trace the real causes.

People change slowly, if at all. In contrast, fads in psychiatric diagnosis can come and go in a fast and furious fashion. The autism fad resulted from changes in DSM4 (published in 1994) interacting with a strong societal push.

There were two DSM4 contributions: 1) the inclusion of a surprisingly popular new diagnosis, Asperger’s Disorder; and, 2) much less importantly, editorial revisions meant only to clarify the criteria for Autistic Disorder, but which may have inadvertently lowered the threshold for its diagnosis.

The societal contributions were: 1) expanded school and therapeutic services whose reimbursement often required an autism diagnosis; 2) increased advocacy; 3)reduced stigma—especially when many successful people admitted to having Asperger’s; 4) extensive press coverage; 5) an explosive growth in internet information and social interaction; and as a result of all these, 6)improved surveillance and identification by doctors, teachers, families, and by the patients themselves.

For many of the newly identified patients, getting a diagnosis has brought the advantages of: 1) improved school and therapeutic services; 2) reduced stigma; 3) increased family understanding; 4) reduced sense of isolation and; 5) internet support and camaraderie.

But there are always costs. With its lowered diagnostic thresholds and resulting increased inclusivity, Asperger’s brought autism to the fuzzy boundary with normal eccentricity and social awkwardness. Some people are misidentied as having the diagnosis, when they really don’t. This is especially true when the diagnosis is made in less expert hands in primary care medical facilities and in school systems ….

Another real headline

Another real headline:

Terrorists ‘could use exploding breast implants to blow up jet’

The story, via the Daily Telegraph:

Radical Islamist plastic surgeons could be carrying out the implant operations in lawless areas of Pakistan, security sources are said to warned.

Explosives experts have reportedly said just five ounces of Pentaerythritol Tetrabitrate packed into a breast implant would be enough to blow a “considerable” hole in the side of a jumbo jet.

It would be virtually possible for airport security scanners to detect the explosive if hidden inside a breast, medics have said.

Joseph Farah, a terrorism expert, told The Sun: “Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaeda are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery.”

Plastic surgeons may also have inserted the chemical into the buttocks of would-be suicide bombers.

The discovery was reportedly made after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a London-educated Nigerian, attempted to blow up an airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas day with explosives packed into his underpants.

Hours after his attack failed, British intelligence services reportedly picked up “chatter” from Pakistan and Yemen that alerted them to the bizarre new method.

I’m waiting for the B-class horror version: Tits of Terror, starring Nicole Eggert and Karen Black, directed by Uwe Boll.

And, yes, we’ll skip the predictable clichés.

A few words, in lieu of a thousand

A picture need ony speak a few words. Then again, I’m still not sure what it says:

The poster the young boy is looking at reads, “Warning! PLO agent in the White House!”

From Giles Whittell‘s report for The Times:

Two separate meetings between President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, failed today to produce so much as an official photograph as a deep chill settled over US-Israeli relations and secrecy shrouded any efforts to repair them.

The Israeli Prime Minister was due to fly home from Washington after three days marked by fierce Israeli defiance on the issue of settlements and an extraordinary silence maintained by both sides after his three-and-a-half hour visit to the White House.

The meeting was overshadowed by Israeli approval for 20 new apartments being built for Jews in Arab east Jerusalem — a move denounced by one senior US official as “exactly what we expect Prime Minister Netanyahu to get control of”.

White House staff denied Mr Netanyahu the usual photo opportunities afforded a visiting leader, issued only the vaguest summary of their talks — let alone a joint statement — and reversed a decision to release an official photo of their meetings.