Rightmare

To the finger-wagging Thomas Frank, Republican rule has been a disaster

(TIM BOWER)

The Wrecking Crew
By Thomas Frank
Metropolitan, 369 pp., $25

If there's one thing Thomas Frank has, it's certitude. As a result, he has been singularly successful in getting his political views noticed, which, of course, is his goal. No self-doubt restrains his assaults; no nuance clutters his pages; his are books not of arguments but of pronouncements. Frank clearly holds his conclusions to be self-evident, his insights both noble and incontrovertible. Thus it follows quite naturally that disagreement, even skepticism, is proof of a substantial deficiency in either intellect, instruction, or character.

This belief in the superiority of his understanding has led to two books, one building on the other. In the first, "What's the Matter With Kansas?," Frank concluded that Kansans, who fairly often vote in ways he finds puzzling, are too stupid to know what's in their best interests (which would be, of course, the very views Frank himself espouses). Now, in "The Wrecking Crew," he backtracks a bit. Kansans, it now appears, are not stupid so much as they are dupes. Republicans (or "conservatives," since he uses the terms more or less interchangeably) are operating a con. Born apparently with neither conscience nor scruple, Republicans are, in Frank's view, evil-minded connivers. They do not simply see the world differently than he does; they are thoroughly contemptible folks out to destroy all that is best about America.

Some of Frank's readers (and presumably some who read this review) will, at this point, nod and recognize that the author is merely stating what they, too, believe to be the obvious truth. Those are the people for whom this book was written.

Let's keep an open mind, though. Perhaps Frank is right. After all, consider what we learn of Republicans from the author's detailed analysis: "On the right bullying holds a special, exalted position. . . . This is a movement that adores bullies . . . that longs for a bully mean enough to put the weaklings back in their place forever."

Frank is especially alarmed by conservatives' "romantic passion for the mafia," as documented by the fact that Rudy Giuliani is "a big fan of 'The Godfather' " and that Jack Abramoff tended to wear a black fedora (proof, Frank says, of Abramoff's "gangster fetish"). This is, of course, upsetting to learn: Here I had always thought Abramoff wore the hat because (a fact that Frank fails to mention) he's an Orthodox Jew. But then, in Frank's style of "analysis" perhaps all Orthodox Jews have a gangster fetish, the black hats and all.

Frank's concern is not only about conservative activists but about the entire environment in which they live: T-bone steaks, golf courses, and the brick Colonials he assumes are limited to those parts of the greater Washington landscape that serve as the special preserve of conservatives (one could, of course, see as many liberals as conservatives in Washington's finer neighborhoods and pricier restaurants, but such an observation would merely divert one from the point he wishes to make). Frank decries the plush offices of conservative organizations, apparently having never visited those of the various Soros institutions or the impressive suites of the left-leaning Center for American Progress. He faults Washington for the almost complete absence of neighborhood taverns (though I can point to half a dozen from my office window or my apartment building). He writes with disdain of "a Capital Beltway that is essentially an all-hours Mercedes speedway," which will be news to all who have been stuck on it in their overheated Chevys.

To his credit, Frank does not always stretch so broadly. In this book, in particular, he relies heavily on sources, among them the ubiquitous "reportedly" and "I'm told." He also uses concrete examples of genuine conservative weirdness (here he's unfortunately right) but usually drawn from the doings of an ultra-nutty fringe at least a quarter-century in the past.

What's more, even when he gets some of his facts right, he screws up the interpretation. Here's one example: In 1994, when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives for the first time in nearly half a century, newly elected GOP legislators chose to skip a traditional orientation session at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in order to attend one at the conservative Heritage Foundation. The Kennedy School's Institute of Politics, which ran the sessions, was forced to cancel. Frank reads into this a mark of a "rising" against Harvard and the "rest of the East Coast schools." It's an interesting tale, but what really happened (I was there, teaching then at the Kennedy School) was much different. Even though Republicans had just taken over the House, the institute's leaders insisted on continuing to work with the outgoing Democratic leadership to shape the agenda, determine speakers, and essentially ignore the incoming group of congressional leaders. The arrogance was Harvard's, not the GOP's. And if Frank had not been so determined to score a predetermined point, he would have found the facts easy to dig out. This tendency to leap to convenient conclusions, however, is very much a part of the book's method. If you're certain that you own the truth, then you're freed from the burdens of fact and logic that otherwise tend to bog a book down.

What is sad here is the missed opportunity. Some of what Frank points to is certainly worthy of raised eyebrows at a minimum and in some cases his, and our, scorn. I've tossed in some pointed condemnations of my own on a fairly regular basis. Consider the questionable forced resignations of US attorneys and the Justice Department's use of ideological litmus tests in hiring high-level administrators. But by choosing to be a polemicist (a liberal Ann Coulter, if you will), burying a few legitimate concerns in a mountain of hyperbole, selective outrage, and deliberate blindness, he has turned what could have been an informative book worthy of discussion into just another loosely constructed rant.

Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman, now teaches at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is the author of "Reclaiming Conservatism."