This is how much I’ve been off the grid today while attending to some family medical issues.
I was the last person on the internet to find out about David French possibly being a third-party candidate for the #NeverTrump movement.
In fact, I didn’t even find out about it from the internet. One of the LI authors texted me at 6:30 p.m.: “You must be excited to see the independent candidate could be a National Review guy, lol.”
My response, word for word, or should I say word: “Wut?”
Here’s how the story broke at Bloomberg News, Kristol Eyes Conservative Lawyer David French for Independent Presidential Run:
Two Republicans intimately familiar with Bill Kristol’s efforts to recruit an independent presidential candidate to challenge Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have told Bloomberg Politics that the person Kristol has in mind is David French — whose name the editor of the Weekly Standard floated in the current issue of the magazine.French is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to the website of National Review, where French is a staff writer, he is a constitutional lawyer, a recipient of the Bronze Star, and an author of several books who lives in Columbia, Tenn., with his wife Nancy and three children….According to one person deeply involved in the efforts to recruit an independent challenger, the search has focused on individuals who have one or more of the following three traits seen as vital for credibly launching such a bid: fame, vast wealth, and elective experience. Reached by phone Tuesday evening, French declined to answer questions about any possible run.
CNN is kinda, sorta, almost confirming the news:
Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard magazine and a leader of the conservative movement to find an alternative to likely major-party nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, confirmed to CNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel on Tuesday that the search has zeroed in on French….His writings have been sharply critical of Trump.”The party of Lincoln is in ruins. A minority of its primary voters have torched its founders’ legacy by voting for a man who combines old-school Democratic ideology, a bizarre form of hyper-violent isolationism, fringe conspiracy theories and serial lies with an enthusiastic flock of online racists to create perhaps the most toxic electoral coalition since George Wallace,” French wrote in March.
I have communicated many times with French on legal related matters, and he always struck me as a really good guy. But I can’t say that I know a lot about him other than his columns at National Review and television appearances. He has been one of the most articulate anti-Trump authors anywhere. And a relentless opponent of Obama executive overreach.
The Daily Wire summarizes 5 Things You Need To Know About David French:
1. French graduated from Harvard Law School, and served in Iraq in Diyala Province as Squadron Judge Advocate for the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, where he was awarded the Bronze Star. He is a major in the United States Army Reserve (IRR).2. He lives in Tennessee with his wife Nancy, a New York Times best-selling author, and their three children.3. He is the past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and has defended religious liberty on college campuses, serving as a senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defending Freedom.4. He has written the New York Times-bestselling Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can’t Ignore, as well asHome and Away: A Story of Family in a Time of War and A Season for Justice: Defending the Rights of the Christian Church, Home, and School.5. In 2012 French was awarded the American Conservative Union’s Ronald Reagan Award.
The immediate reaction to write him off strikes me as protesting too much. If he’s such a LOSER! why bother?
The internet has reacted with all the glory and grossness it could muster on short notice, and that’s quite a lot.
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