Frummery

In a column last week, Bush ex-speechwriter David Frum implied that Hugh Hewitt opposed a third-party candidacy in the New Jersey gubernatorial race while supporting one in a House race in New York:

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt this week offered a stern condemnation of this fratricide on his popular program, calling the third-party candidate:

.... a wrecker, a selfish "look at me" poser .... It takes an outsized ego to look at poll after poll that puts you behind not one but two candidates by more than 10 points and still declare yourself in the hunt.

Whoops! Sorry, rewind. Fzzzzwwwwvvvvwwwzzzp. That was an editing error. Hugh Hewitt was not blasting Doug Hoffman, the third-party candidate in New York. In fact, Hoffman is the darling of talk radio and Fox News, which have helped to spread Hoffman Fever for the past few weeks.

No, Hewitt was attacking the third-party candidate in New Jersey's gubernatorial race, an independent named Chris Daggett who has drawn votes from the official Republican standard-bearer, Chris Christie.

When Frum wrote that Hoffman is "the darling of talk radio" after having just quoted Hewitt, he left the reader with the impression that Hewitt was for Hoffman. Why drag him into the column otherwise? When an outraged Hewitt told Frum on his program yesterday that he doesn't support Hoffman, nor spoiler candidacies in general, Frum admitted that he didn't know Hewitt's position on the New York 23rd and hadn't bothered to check.

In a blog post describing the confrontation, Frum said that in retrospect, he should've been more careful. Whoops! Sorry, rewind. Fzzzzwwwwvvvvwwwzzzp. Frum called Hewitt a bully and impugned his manhood.

Hat tip to Mike Cheever