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<DIV><FONT size=2>________________________________________<BR>Lutfi M.
Hussein<BR>Department of English<BR>Arizona State University<BR>Tempe, AZ
85287-0302, USA<BR>Email address: <A
href="mailto:lutfi.hussein@asu.edu">lutfi.hussein@asu.edu</A><BR>Homepage: <A
href="http://www.public.asu.edu/~lutfiawa/">http://www.public.asu.edu/~lutfiawa/</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
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size=3></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3><A
href="http://slate.msn.com/?id=2062571">http://slate.msn.com/?id=2062571</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3></FONT> </DIV></DIV><IMG height=1
src="http://c.msn.com/c.gif?NA=1132&NC=1262&DI=4098&PI=7315&PS=27974"
width=0><FONT size=3><STRONG>chatterbox</STRONG></FONT><BR clear=all><SPAN
class=clsLarger>David Frum: On Second Thought, I Didn't Coin "Axis of
Evil"</SPAN><BR><SPAN class=clsSmall><FONT color=gray>But now he can take credit
for whatever he wants.</FONT></SPAN><BR>By Timothy Noah<BR><SPAN
class=clsSmaller><FONT color=#cc0000>Posted <FONT color=#cc0000>Tuesday,
February 26, 2002, at 12:56 PM PT</FONT></FONT></SPAN><BR clear=all><!--After Date--><BR clear=all>
<P>David Frum has left the White House speechwriting staff, reports Robert Stacy
McCain in the <A target=_blank
href="http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020226-12681279.htm">Feb. 26
<EM>Washington Times</EM></A>. Robert Novak <A target=_blank
href="http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0202/25/ip.00.html">said yesterday</A> on
CNN's <EM>Inside Politics </EM>that "there's a lot of suspicion" that Frum was
"kicked out" because of the <A target=_blank
href="http://slate.msn.com/default.aspx?id=2061695">e-mail</A> his wife, writer
Danielle Crittenden, sent out to friends announcing that Frum was the author of
the phrase, "axis of evil." (There's strong circumstantial evidence that
Crittenden's father, <EM>Toronto Sun</EM> columnist and former editor Peter
Worthington, planted a reference to Frum's authorship of the phrase in a
<EM>Sun</EM> editorial published four days before Crittenden's e-mail leaked to
Chatterbox. For details, click <A target=_blank
href="http://slate.msn.com/default.aspx?id=2061695">here</A> and scroll down to
the updates.) But Frum says he submitted his letter of resignation on Jan. 24,
which would have been before Frum's authorship claim had leaked out anywhere,
and the White House press office backs him up. Even Novak admits that all his
unnamed White House sources say Frum was not ejected. (The "lot of suspicion"
Novak referred to is clearly his own.) Chatterbox has a hard time believing that
the Bush White House is such a ghastly place that a gifted writer like Frum
would get the boot for something so trivial as this.</P>
<P>More interesting than whether Frum jumped or was pushed is Frum's <A
target=_blank
href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/C/20020226/wxfrum?hub=homeBN&tf=tgam/realtime/fullstory.html&cf=tgam/realtime/config-neutral&vg=BigAdVariableGenerator&slug=wxfrum&date=20020226&archive=RTGAM&site=Front&ad_page_name=">assertion
to John Ibbitson</A> in the Feb. 26 Toronto <EM>Globe and Mail</EM> that the
phrase he coined was not "axis of evil," but "axis of hate," and that someone
changed "hate" to "evil." In a <A target=_blank
href="http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak10.html">Feb. 10
column</A>, Novak reported that it was White House chief speechwriter Michael
Gerson who made the change. That would lend credence to <EM>Time</EM> magazine's
version of events, which is that Frum <EM>and Gerson</EM> coined "axis of evil."
In the <EM>Globe and Mail</EM> interview, Frum now says, "I think it was
actually the president" who scratched out "hate" and scribbled in "evil." Is
this a gracious fib? Quite possibly.</P>
<P>Regardless of who coined it, "axis of evil" is superior in terms of meter
because the two syllables in "axis" match the two syllables in "evil." Two
syllables are a particular necessity for Bush because he tends to bite off
one-syllable words in a very awkward and unpleasant manner. But why not "axis of
hatred"? That would have been more precise. We can argue all day about the
nature of evil, but hatred is pretty easy to identify, and there's no denying
that Iraq and Iran harbor a lot of it. (North Korea is more of a cipher, but its
inclusion in this trio has always been awkward.) "Axis of hatred" also would
have gone down more easily with U.S. allies because it's less jingoistic. One
can imagine nonviolent or minimally violent ways to reduce or eliminate hatred,
but there's no mollifying evil. The "axis" part, however, would remain
problematic, both because the word is an inadvertent homage to Benito Mussolini,
who first applied it to the World War II fascist alliance, and because Iran,
Iraq, and North Korea aren't an alliance at all.</P>
<P>[<EM>Update, Feb. 27</EM>: In the Feb. 27 <EM>Toronto Sun</EM>, Frum
father-in-law Worthington manages to <A target=_blank
href="http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/worthington.html">write an entire
column</A> about this affair without mentioning that the <EM>Sun</EM> was the
first to report, almost certainly at Worthington's instigation, that Frum had
coined "axis of evil." Worthington provides additional corroboration to Frum's
version of events--he, Worthington, heard Frum say he was leaving the White
House before the State of the Union address was
delivered.]</P><BR></BODY></HTML>