Observations From The Front

Yesterday, professional conman David French posted this ridiculous sob story, where he nails himself to the cross, claiming he was sent to save mankind from Donald Trump. The result of his efforts has been a journey of suffering. It’s all nonsense, of course. Put yourself or your opinions out into the pubic and you will attract all sorts of nuts. I get on-line stalkers and weirdos all the time and I’m just running a blog. Go on TV and the pool of potential jerks and meanies goes up exponentially. It’s one of the trade-offs.

I’ve been pointing out for  along time that French is a nutter.  He’s the sort of guy that lives by the credo, “whatever is worth doing is worth overdoing.” These sorts of people can never dabble in anything, They get into something and it becomes all consuming. They begin to organize their lives around the obsession. Then all of a sudden, they lose interest in it and find some new obsession. You see that with French, who lurches from one fanaticism to the next. In every case, he goes well beyond what is reasonable.

Glenn Beck has this same defect. He could not be just a guy at the bar, he had to be a legendary drinker. Then it was drugs. Then it was religion, politics, history and I think now he is working on the details for his planned Utopia. The thing you see with Beck, that you see with French, is that their obsessions are not internal. They get into things that they can make a grand show of in order to impress people they see as their betters. Beck’s Blaze operation is an obvious attempt to replicate what Roger Ailes did with Fox News.

Whether or not nutjobs like French and Beck possess the self-awareness to know what they are doing is debatable. My hunch is the guys with the religious aspect to their lunacy secretly see themselves as the second coming. Beck and French both pitch themselves as prophets sent to save mankind. It’s not explicit, as that would get them locked up, but it’s just under the surface. If Beck’s thing ends like The People’s Temple, no one would be surprised as he increasing sounds like a cult leader.

The only reason I’m aware of French piece is Jonah Goldberg was flogging it on Twitter last night. Goldberg used to wave Beck around like a Medusa head back in the day. Before that he was fond of using Rod Dreher as his spear catcher. The fact that both were becoming religious nuts at the time suggests something. Now he is using French to step on mines for him, suggesting it is getting near the end of French’s run in the big foot conservative press. Maybe Beck has an extra purple shroud for him.

Anyway, what I pointed out on Twitter is that this is pretty much a classic response from a conman when his scheme falls apart. They also play the victim card. Their whole raison d’être is to exploit the virtues of others. They prey on the trust of good people. When that runs aground, they prey on the sympathy of good people. The game here is to shift the focus away from the traitorous behavior of the NeverTrump loons and onto a few potty mouthed villains on Twitter. It’s just another grift intended to victimize good people.

One of the responses had a pic of French on one of his TV appearances. This was on MSNBC and it occurred to me that a good lesson for the alt-right, one the Left learned long ago, is to punish collaborators mercilessly. All of the big shot “conservatives” have a habit of working for media outlets at war with decent Americans. If you are working for the enemy, regardless of your reasons, you are working for the enemy. After liberation, the French shaved the heads of women who slept with Nazis.

That’s the lesson from the failure of Conservative Inc. They sold their collaboration as part of their clever plot to convince the enemy of the rightness of their cause. They were not collaborating. No! They were going into the lion’s den to confront Lefty in his own lair! We know now that that was always bullshit. They were paid actors in league with Progressives to fool decent people into quietly going along with the madness being foisted on us. It’s why these rocked ribbed conservatives are now on the side of the Left opposing Trump.

The alt-right and affiliated movements are suddenly getting many new recruits from the disbanding armies of the Official Right. With a bigger audience, the opportunities to make money inevitably creep into the minds of the entrepreneurial. There’s nothing wrong with making a living, but anyone doing so by going on the cable shows or collaborating with the major media should be assumed to be a collaborator. If Mike Cernovich wants to sell books and videos, that’s fine. When he starts turning up on Fox News, he should be assumed to be Cypher.

All wars are media wars and all wars require sacrifice. If the people offering themselves up as leaders of your thing are easily tempted by offerings from the other side, you can never trust them. No man is so virtuous that he can resist the highest bidder. If being on TV is your goal in life, you will sacrifice your cause for it. That’s what happened with National Review and the rest of Conservative Inc. Like petty nobles bribed with a few extra acres of land or merchants bought off with title, they decided it was better to live a lie than suffer for the cause.

74 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Brock
Brock
7 years ago

David’s wife Nancy also wrote her own piece of victimization in the Washington Post yesterday using an incident from her own childhood. This has the feel of a coordinated attack from a couple who have spent their lives trying to break The GOP establishment elite. I am from the same town as Nancy and the same church, though a different congregation. I talked to a mutual friend who would have been witness to all of this and he was shocked, but reminded me Nancy had always had “more than one identity” as he put it. Knowing the minister Nancy is… Read more »

Larry Darrell
Larry Darrell
Reply to  Brock
7 years ago

I was at Harvard Law School at roughly the same time as French (I don’t remember him or Cruz). I was older than him, but could not imagine a girl “accompanying” me to Law School! I think we all looked and behaved like precocious teenagers. I would not have known what to do with a girl who “accompanied” me there! Was she sent to watch over him?

Brock
Brock
Reply to  Larry Darrell
7 years ago

Ha! Well, I believe they did get married somewhere around that time. Nancy mentioned in Red State attending classes at NYU and people hating her because she was Southern. She also mentioned writing a brief column for a Philadelphia paper where, as she tells it, she received more hate mail than any columnist ever had.

Lulu
Lulu
Reply to  Brock
7 years ago

She sounds like what my cousin used to call an Injustice Collector.

Severian
Reply to  Brock
7 years ago

I think everyone who was ever on the “gifted” track (or whatever they called it; doubt such a thing exists now) has run into one of these people. I have to admit, they fascinated me — we’re both 14 years old, but while my main concerns are zits and figuring out how to talk to girls, they’re lining up extracurriculars for Ivy apps and figuring out where best to get their second Master’s Degree. We’re both worried about getting dates for the Homecoming Dance, but while I’m shooting for the prettiest girl who might conceivably go out with me, they’re… Read more »

Lulu
Lulu
Reply to  Brock
7 years ago

Very, very interesting, Brock. And somehow not unexpected. Just informed local details to fill out an outline (the Frenches) that looked and sounded familiar. They are types. Found amongs Democrats and Republicans. Trying desperately to shake the straw out of their hair and BE SOMEBODY!

When will one of their younger children- the invisible ones – get fed up and bolt the suffocating nest?

Zeroh Tollrants
Zeroh Tollrants
Reply to  Brock
7 years ago

Thank you for this insight, I’ve been studying the French duo a bit this last few months & appreciate the additional details.

Member
7 years ago

“…attending a veterans’ charity event in D.C…” “..friends at church…” “…my youngest daughter is African-American…” “…more victims are coming forward…” “…attending lunch with friends after church…” Nauseating virtue signaling.

Lulu
Lulu
7 years ago

YES!!! I thought you’d topped yourself with The Big Rake. Now this. So eloquently articulating the thoughts so many of us out here have been having for a long, long time. We would think something simple like: “Why does he talk that way when he is supposedly Conservative? What exactly is he up to?” French has been a transparent fraud for quite a long time. He gets a lot of boosting from his fellow frauds. It was interesting to see Fred Barnes wiggle a bit but actually smile and kind of nod when Lou Dobbs was reaming the corrupt media… Read more »

Brock
Brock
Reply to  Lulu
7 years ago

I think Kristol was helping David raise his profile a bit. David and his wife Nancy live in Columbia, TN. He was interviewed by WKRN in Nashville this past week on his refusal to support Trump. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam also refuses to support Trump (and supports Common Core, etc. etc.). Interestingly enough, Gov. Haslam is term-limited as governor. Sen. Corker is also up for reelection in 2018 and isn’t popular. Tennessee has no readily-recognizable Republicans. I suspect David has political ambitions of his own. To see him try for governor or senator wouldn’t surprise me at all, but he’ll… Read more »

Doug
Doug
Reply to  Brock
7 years ago

Brock, it’s probably a pretty sure bet they are operatives George Soros States Attorneys General operation to install cultural marxists actors disguised as elected representatives in various key state positions.

Severian
7 years ago

When I’m dictator, the various tax-code dodges that allow “think tanks” to exist shall be eliminated. If anyone wants to *pay* French and the rest of Cucky’s Own Virtue Battalion for their thoughts, so be it… but contributions shall not be tax-deductible, and contributions of over 3 figures shall be prominently listed *before* the table of contents (if an NR-type outfit has to put out a 400-page issue each month, with 398 of those pages devoted to listing small contributions so be it — figure out a viable business model, “conservatives”). Violations, of course, to be punished by whatever method… Read more »

Member
7 years ago

This year has sowed so much distrust in me in regards to Conservative, Inc. that I no longer give guys like French the benefit of the doubt when I read what they write. I saw this yesterday and the words that immediately popped into my head were – Michelle Fields. In the year of conservative media hoaxes, I just can’t uncritically assume that French and his buddies are telling the truth about the harassment they’ve received. I don’t have any doubt that they’ve received some nasty e-mails. I’d bet they used to get a lot of nasty e-mails long before… Read more »

teapartydoc
Member
7 years ago

We have yet to see a “conservative pundit” go down in a blaze of glory telling an audience that the show he has been appearing on in a branch of the left wing media complex has been using him as a shill to engender the impression that the medium has a semblance of objectivity. Hasn’t happened.

teapartydoc
Member
Reply to  Lulu
7 years ago

I was thinking of Master Cuck George Will, in particular.

Holding My Nose
Holding My Nose
7 years ago

Rock ribbed Conservatives joining with the Trump hating Left is an example of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. The left will use them as long as they are useful and then chuck them under the bus.

CaptDMO
CaptDMO
Reply to  Holding My Nose
7 years ago

“….strange bedfellows”?
A dead whore, or a live boy?

ChiefIlliniCake
ChiefIlliniCake
Reply to  Holding My Nose
7 years ago

On November 9th, after we shake off the hangovers from our glorious Trump victory and begin assembling the public gallows, the Cucks will be the first to swing through the traps.

Because at least the Democrats were honest enough to hate us out in the open.

Whitehat
Whitehat
Reply to  ChiefIlliniCake
7 years ago

And the best thing is scary clown clinton will have to accept a Trump victory otherwise she is undermining democracy.

stubb
stubb
Reply to  Whitehat
7 years ago

You have too much faith in the obligation Lefties feel to be consistent or rational.

stubb
stubb
Reply to  Whitehat
7 years ago

Or democracy that doesn’t serve their purposes.

Lulu
Lulu
Reply to  Holding My Nose
7 years ago

It’s one thing to emblazon Conservative on one’s sweatshirt or have it tattooed somewhere. It is quite another thing to believe in the simple things it stands for and try to make those prevail in our land.

David French and his cronies “virtue signalling”? You betcha. Just words.

A.T. Tapman (Merica)
A.T. Tapman (Merica)
Member
7 years ago

I laughed. This virtue signaling cuck has been made to cry. He boasts about his service in Iraq, he was an Army lawyer. I suppose he could have received a Purple Heart for his severe paper cut. I do judge people by their looks and I have found this method to be quite accurate. He looks like one would imagine a cuck in real life looks. Look carefully at the rest of the NR writers, there is definatly something going on there. The rest of never Trump has a similar (((look))).

ChiefIlliniCake
ChiefIlliniCake
Reply to  A.T. Tapman (Merica)
7 years ago

My late Dad always said it. You can tell them by the shape of their heads.

Lulu
Lulu
Reply to  ChiefIlliniCake
7 years ago

Someone else noticed!

Monty James
7 years ago

https://mobile.twitter.com/BrentHBaker/status/789605472932429824

Forgive my inability to do a proper link, but the url goes to a twitter post quoting Jonah Goldberg’s delusion about the media getting tough on Hillary after the election. No, not delusion. The lousy bastard’s on the other side and he’s gaslighting, clumsily.

Larry Darrell
Larry Darrell
7 years ago

My impression is that French and his wife both strongly imply that French was involved in combat in Iraq. From what I can tell, he was nothing more than a lawyer behind the lines, but they both leave it marvellously vague.

Lulu
Lulu
Reply to  Larry Darrell
7 years ago

His wife wrote a book on the stresses of having him in Iraq for a year. They are a matched pair. And hey, we actually SELL our whining!!!

Lulu
Lulu
Reply to  Lulu
7 years ago

He was a squadron JAG. All I’ve heard that he did was arrange leaves back to U.S. for soldiers who needed them. A major in the Army Reserve, he got a Bronze Star for being there.

Rurik
Member
Reply to  Lulu
7 years ago

Confirms my dimmest expectations. a Commissar.

PV van der Byl
PV van der Byl
Reply to  Lulu
7 years ago

It is very easy for officers to get Bronze Stars without the “V” device. A V on a Bronze Star stands for Valor. Those indicate actual combat and there far fewer of them. I would wager DF’s medal did not have the V.

Ivar
Ivar
Reply to  Lulu
7 years ago

When I was in the Bronze Star was known as “The Officers’ Good Conduct Medal.”

Chiefillinicake
Chiefillinicake
Reply to  thezman
7 years ago

The skirts will be our ruination.

Andy Texan
Reply to  Chiefillinicake
7 years ago

They already are and the whole Western Civ to boot. Sad.

Larry Darrell
Larry Darrell
Reply to  thezman
7 years ago

I often wonder if the Pentagon quartermasters/desk jockeys who see as much combat as you or I are eligible for the very generous life-long veterans benefits (free health care, pensions, etc.) that are soldiers receive and fully deserve.

TB2000
TB2000
Reply to  thezman
7 years ago

There are JAGs who are deployed with very forward units, for example JAGs embedded in SF units. Often (but not always) have prior infantry background. Always have extensive qualifications – Airborne, Ranger, etc., and are often in very vulnerable positions. Marine Corps JAGs go through the same 6-month Basic School as all Marine Officers and were involved in door-kicking at the Battalion level in Iraq. This is a very small proportion of the overall JAG force, and no idea what French’s deal was. But just FYI.

Lulu
Lulu
Reply to  TB2000
7 years ago

I’d daresay it’s a quantum leap from an Army Reservist JAG to a Marine Corps JAG! And Airborne Rangers are a class apart as well. ZMan was right about paper cuts.

ganderson
ganderson
Reply to  thezman
7 years ago

I remember seeing an interview, a long time ago, with William Safire. The host asked him a question about having served in the Army, like it was a big deal. Safire said something on the order of (quote from memory) ” Yeah I was drafted and sent to Germany in the 50’s . I’m not sure I should get any extra credit for such non-hazardous duty.” It would seem we have more Frenches and fewer Safires today

Rurik
Member
Reply to  Larry Darrell
7 years ago

JAG-weenie behind the lines? Enforcing ROE compliance on the real combatants, from what I can tell.

Montefrío
Member
7 years ago

If being on tv is your goal in life, you have no life.

“No man is so virtuous that he can resist the highest bidder.” Don’t agree, and not because I consider myself a paragon of virtue. Some of us truly don’t much care about money and the mostly extraneous crap it buys. Selling out is too costly for some of us when shaving time rolls around and there’s the stubble-faced sell-out staring back.

One thinks of Richard Rich and St Thomas More’s famous rejoinder about selling out for Wales.

CapyainMike
CapyainMike
7 years ago

That whole article reads like an SJW trolling parody. The comments are even worse. What a gaggle of utterly clueless buffoons.

King George III
King George III
7 years ago

The man himself:

comment image

You can just see it in his eyes.

My money is on partial (((merchant))) ancestry as well.

Lulu
Lulu
Reply to  King George III
7 years ago

His Facebook photo before someone said “David, for cripe’s sake grow a beard!!!!”

comment image?

Solomon Honeypickle IV
Solomon Honeypickle IV
Reply to  Lulu
7 years ago

He looks like someone who would get along smashingly with Jarred Fogel.

Solomon Honeypickle IV
Solomon Honeypickle IV
Reply to  Lulu
7 years ago

He looks like a paedophile mortician.

Bill Quick
Reply to  Lulu
7 years ago

Now he’s going for the Mark Levin look.

ChiefIlliniCake
ChiefIlliniCake
Reply to  Lulu
7 years ago

Behold the Cuckus Homoerectus in all of it’s bald glory.

Doug
Doug
Reply to  ChiefIlliniCake
7 years ago

Lord love a Duck! I feel somehow soiled just looking at it’s portrait.
This SJW in cucktard drag should drive by my house. The 5ft x 3ft Confederate flying in my yard would give him a cultural marxist apoplexy siezure.

Fuel Filter
Fuel Filter
7 years ago

Excellent essay, Z.

I think this quote applies equally to Beck, French, Goldberg, 3/4ths of the “Republican” members of congress, NRO-Type cucks and to Conservatism Inc. equally:

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
~ Eric Hoffer

Chiron
Chiron
7 years ago

I said this before in this blog, the “Right” media is made of Liberals that are pro-War Zionists, they’re the modern day Pharisees, heck, they work for the Pharisees!

It’s no surprise they want Hillary, she is one of them.

Magnolia
Magnolia
7 years ago

I always thought that Glenn Beck wanted to be the next Andrew Breitbart. Watching his self-inflicted empire collapse has been entertaining but rather sad as well. I tune into his show now and then to hear how pathetic it has become. He really boxed himself into a corner and he’s paying for it big time. It’s getting harder and harder for him to have a show that’s actually something you want to listen to. And knowing Beck, he’ll probably endorse Trump the day before the election just to cover his ass and get attention.

Yankee Girl
Yankee Girl
Reply to  Magnolia
7 years ago

I’d never heard of David French until reading this column. Am interested in this as a fellow Tennessean. Also, I cannot understand how the local talk radio station (1510 AM WLAC) STILL has the Glenn Beck show on in the mornings. Also, wasted air time in the evening w/ Marc Levin on WTN 99.7 FM, which I sometimes turn on for a few minutes before they air Michael Savage’s program which is live in the middle of the day elsewhere. As you can tell, I’m sort of a talk radio junkie and try to find stuff worth listening to on… Read more »

meema
Member
7 years ago

Is it not telling that all the headlines this morning gasp about Trump’s comments yesterday about suing the liar/accusers? Not too much mentioned about Trump setting all time record for attendance to the rally in Gettysburg. I’m over the ‘news’ and the shills who push it, I don’t believe the polls, and I cannot for the life of me understand how the merchandisers can have so many ways to profile the American public and not have a clue who we really are and what we really think. We know they are working overtime to rig the numbers. Even so I… Read more »

james wilson
james wilson
Reply to  meema
7 years ago

Brexit 52, Remain 48. The seven major final polls were biased to Remain by four to eleven percent.

meema
Member
Reply to  james wilson
7 years ago

It’s a problem for the fixers. They can’t skew the numbers for HC with too big a percentage because it would just be too fishy. They don’t want to be exposed by the machines being audited. So what to do? They do not really have a clue how many millions plan to vote for Trump because a huge block of folks are keeping it to themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out there are many who say they are voting for Hil but will vote otherwise once in the privacy of the voting booth. Let’s just say, who doesn’t… Read more »

Andy Texan
Reply to  meema
7 years ago

Supporters of HRC have become very cocky 2 weeks out. They fully believe the polls. Let’s hope our people are smart and mad enough to vote anyway.

teapartydoc
Member
7 years ago

At the end of The Terror in the French Revolution people who were practically communist in their approach to politics were accused of being monarchists, and the people of Paris simply accepted the ridiculous accusations as being true. And whether the accusations had any truth to them mattered not to the officials in charge, either. The only thing that mattered was power. Trump may be our Danton going to the guillotine.
It’s up to us to get him off of that tumbril and go after his accusers.

Reply to  teapartydoc
7 years ago

Don’t bother with the accusers, send warnings to the enablers; the newspapers, the TV networks. Cancel subscriptions, stop watching.

el_baboso
Member
7 years ago

Your readership is exceptionally well connected, Z, something that reflects very well on you. One small defense of those fighting our post-modern wars: the definition of what constitutes the “front” and the “rear” is pretty fluid these days. I would hazard that if you found yourself in some FOB getting rocketed 3-4 times a week or were on some advisory team driving through Injun country to the ministry of justice five days a week, you might consider that combat. No movie I have seen or book I have read does justice to what modern warfare has become. Though it might… Read more »

Lulu
Lulu
Reply to  el_baboso
7 years ago

Hear what you’re saying. But somehow French doesn’t seem as though he was ever within 100 miles of anything very hazardous. Just something about him. Maybe a total lack of humility and gratitude for getting back here safe after only one year. Some don’t last anywhere near that long in those war zones. Just looks and sounds like the same A-word he has always been. Her dopey book (or is it theirs?) on the angst of their one year separation doesn’t help with that image.

fodderwing
fodderwing
7 years ago

Got my sample ballot in the mail the other day. An astounding number of “No Party Affiliation” candidates are on the ballot in this once staunchly Republican neck of the woods. It’s over for these guys. Other things are beginning to jell.

Lulu
Lulu
Reply to  fodderwing
7 years ago

“Declined to State” is the fastest growing party registration in California.

Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams
7 years ago

Spend enough time down in DC and the beltway to know there would be little fun being a ne’er do well conservative journalist who never gets invited to the really cool parties in Chevy Chase. And gets treated like a leper on the street. So they collaborate.

CaptDMO
CaptDMO
7 years ago

Saaaay…whatever happened to the discovery phase of Michael Mann’s liable/slander
“civil” case?
Mr. Gore not available as an expert forensic character witness?

Zeroh Tollrants
Zeroh Tollrants
7 years ago

If you only read Mr. French’s piece and missed the one by MRS. French in the Washington Post, then you were deprived of the insanity bookend. She was molested, or had a Harlequin romance love affair, (I’ve worked w/abuse victims for decades & even I’m not sure what to call that), and became a lib Goth, then a holy roller wife & mother, and it’s all Donald Trump’s fault.

Or, at least, that’s what I got out of it…

Solomon Honeypickle IV
Solomon Honeypickle IV
7 years ago

The Cubs *and* the Indians getting in must be a sign, a portent, of something, right?

thor47
thor47
7 years ago

“whatever is worth doing is worth overdoing.”
I thought all men lived by this motto. Real men do it for things worthwhile: sex, rock and roll, what’s right.

Omega3
Omega3
Reply to  thor47
7 years ago

I like Hunter Thompson’s “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
Wow, they are really turning pro as of late.

Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams
Reply to  Omega3
7 years ago

I really miss him. Probably the only journalist that could have made sense of this mess.

Member
7 years ago

I don’t know what the Presbyterians are doing this Sunday but the Catholics were reading Luke 18:
“The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”
I was laughing, thinking of that virtue signaling Jeremiad, when my wife elbowed me. I declined to share, mainly because I don’t want to give that website any more clicks.

firefirefire
firefirefire
7 years ago

Fir3Cubed
‏@Fir3Cubed
@jaketapper @DavidAFrench let’s ask the price the Palin’s paid Joe the Plumber the millions affected by the Obama fiasco, this ain’t beanbag
3:41 AM – 22 Oct 2016