Editing David Frum (section)

=== White House ===
Following the USA 2000 election of [[George W. Bush]], Frum was appointed to a position as a speechwriter within the [[White House]]. He would later write that when he was first offered the job by chief Bush speechwriter [[Michael Gerson]],
{{Blockquote|text=I believed I was unsuited to the job he was offering me. I had no connection to the Bush campaign or the [[Bush family]]. I had no experience in government and little of political campaigns. I had not written a speech for anyone other than myself. And I had been only a moderately enthusiastic supporter of George W. Bush... I strongly doubted he was the right man for the job.<ref name=Novak>{{cite news |url=http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/axis-of-ego/ |title=Axis of Ego |last=Novak |first=Robert D. |date=March 24, 2003 |work=[[The American Conservative]] |access-date=February 10, 2017}}</ref>}}

While still a [[Canadians|Canadian]] citizen, he was one of the few foreign nationals working within the Bush White House. He filed for [[naturalization]] and took the oath of [[Citizenship in the United States|citizenship]] on September 11, 2007.<ref name="nyt 01-06-08"/> Frum served as [[special assistant to the president]] for economic speechwriting from January 2001 to February 2002. Conservative commentator [[Robert Novak]] described Frum as an "uncompromising supporter of [[Israel]]" and "fervent supporter of [[Ariel Sharon]]'s policies" during his time in the White House.<ref name="Novak"/> Frum is credited by his wife with inventing the expression "[[axis of evil|Axis of Evil]]", which Bush introduced in his 2002 State of the Union address.<ref>{{cite web|title=Proud wife turns 'axis of evil' speech into a resignation letter|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/feb/27/usa.matthewengel|date=February 27, 2002|work=[[The Guardian]]|first=Matthew|last=Engel|access-date=October 3, 2011}}</ref> During Frum's time at the White House, he was described by commentator [[Ryan Lizza]] as being part of a speechwriting [[brain trust]] that brought "intellectual heft" and considerable policy influence to the Bush Administration.<ref>{{cite news |title=Write Hand|url=http://www.thenewrepublic.com/052101/lizza052101.html|date=May 11, 2001|magazine=[[The New Republic]]|first=Ryan|last=Lizza|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020220104855/http://www.thenewrepublic.com/052101/lizza052101.html|archive-date=February 20, 2002|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Shortly after the [[September 11 attacks]], Frum hosted [[Ibn Warraq]], a pseudonymous Muslim apostate and critic of [[Islam]], at an hour-and-a-half luncheon at the White House.<ref>{{cite web|title=Holy War|url=http://prospect.org/article/holy-war|date=December 19, 2001|work=[[The American Prospect]]|first=Chris|last=Mooney|access-date=July 17, 2016}}</ref>

While serving in the Bush White House and afterward, Frum strongly supported the [[Iraq War]] by furthering the conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein was in league with the terrorist group Al-Qaeda.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}} In later years, however, he would express regret for that characterization, saying that it owed more to psychological and group identity factors than reasoned judgment:

"It's human nature to assess difficult questions, not on the merits, but on our feelings about the different 'teams' that form around different answers. To cite a painful personal experience: During the decision-making about the Iraq war, I was powerfully swayed by the fact that the proposed invasion of Iraq was supported by those who had been most right about the Cold War—and was most bitterly opposed by those who had been wrongest about the Cold War. Yet in the end, it is not teams that matter. It is results. As Queen Victoria's first prime minister bitterly quipped after a policy fiasco: 'What wise men had promised has not happened. What the damned fools predicted has actually come to pass.'"<ref name=Frum2013>{{cite news|last1=Frum|first1=David|title=Opinion: Controversial Immigration Report May Be Right|url=http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/13/opinion/frum-heritage-report-immigration/|access-date=April 24, 2017|publisher=CNN|date=May 14, 2013}}</ref>

He later acknowledged that it remains unclear how the USA "could have delivered better success in Iraq" in terms of replacing Saddam with a "more humane and peaceful" government.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Frum|first=David|date=2019-05-15|title=Take It From an Iraq War Supporter—War With Iran Would Be a Disaster|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/the-iraq-war-was-a-failurewar-with-iran-would-be-worse/589534/|access-date=2020-06-14|website=The Atlantic|language=en-US}}</ref>

Frum left the White House in February 2002. Commentator [[Robert Novak]], appearing on CNN, claimed that Frum was dismissed because his wife had emailed friends, saying that her husband had coined the "axis of evil" phrase. Frum and the White House denied Novak's allegation.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Engel|first1=Matthew|title=Proud wife turns 'axis of evil' speech into a resignation letter|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/feb/27/usa.matthewengel |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=October 3, 2011}}</ref>

Frum opposed the [[Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination|nomination of Harriet Miers]] for the [[Supreme Court of the United States]], on the grounds that she was insufficiently qualified for the post, as well as insufficiently conservative.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjM1NDExNTgwNmFkYjc5ODJkNWFjNTdmYzg0MDIyMGQ=|title=Madame Justice|last=Frum|first=David|date=October 3, 2005|work=[[National Review]]|access-date=March 13, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081004003034/http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjM1NDExNTgwNmFkYjc5ODJkNWFjNTdmYzg0MDIyMGQ%3D|archive-date=October 4, 2008|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}</ref>