That Giant Swooshing Sound

It's a strange thing to go to bed at night plain old David Frum and wake up in the morning the "controversial" David Frum -- and stranger still to have the same thing happen twice in one year.

The first time it happened to me was in February 2002. I resigned from the White House staff at the end of January. About two weeks afterward, an e-mail my wife had written to some family and friends about my role in the 2002 State of the Union address was intercepted by the online magazine Slate and published. As I was packing up my things as scheduled at the end of the month, a colleague of mine came running into my office -- Robert Novak had just gone on CNN to announce to the world that I'd been fired.

The story was entirely invented. But what does that matter? What happened next was like one of those sandstorms that suddenly rise up in the desert. They're a strange part of the local climate in Washington, D.C. One minute you're walking along, minding your own business, and the next, everything is howling around your ears, and your skin is being sheared off by swooshing grains of dirt. The phone never stops ringing, and photographers show up on your front steps, and your children's teachers cluck at you sympathetically, and you get weary of your own voice saying over and over and over again, "I'm sorry, I have nothing more to say on the matter."

In time, of course, the whole thing dies down -- and everybody forgets what it was about, or even if it was about anything at all. All they remember is the sandstorm itself.

Years ago, my wife and I lived in Brooklyn Heights in a brownstone apartment. Our landlord, a man of great age, lived on the lower two floors. One day, the bell of the brownstone buzzed. I raced downstairs, but my landlord shakily beat me to the door. Hobbled by stroke, he still managed to shamble his way to the stoop, where stood a shaggy young man in jeans and a T-shirt, raising money for Greenpeace.

"Good afternoon, sir. I represent an environmental organization -- some call us controversial -- but . . ."

"Greenpeace!" my landlord snorted with contempt. "Aren't you the people who blew up that French boat in Australia?" He was referring to the Greenpeace boat, the Rainbow Warrior, which was in fact bombed by French intelligence while in harbor in New Zealand. The young man was startled. "No, sir -- it's the other way round . . ." Too late. SLAM.

There may be something to be said for the French view of the matter. For many years afterward, an English friend of mine used to try to ease his way out of immigration difficulties at French passport control by loudly declaring, "Je supporte le sinking du bateau Rainbow Guerrier . . ." But the details have been lost to history.

What remains is this catch-all, the single word "controversial," into which all manner of notoriety, earned and unearned, justified and unjustified, can be crammed.

We can use the description to cover for our imperfect human memory. Who remembers now what exactly Oliver North was supposed to have done wrong during the Iran-contra affair? Much less whether he was guilty or innocent? Or what ultimately happened to him? Better to reserve judgment, and to apply a simple word that means -- "He's famous -- but I've forgotten why."

The description has even greater utility as a way to avoid offering an opinion when an opinion might be dangerous.

"Do you like Rush Limbaugh?"

"Well, he's certainly controversial."

In this case, the word simply means -- "You go first." The word functions like a pair of asbestos-coated tongs, with which potentially lethal materials can be picked up and held far, far away from oneself.

For me, though, the word has always had a much more precise and even painful meaning. A few weeks ago, I woke up to being "controversial" once more. After leaving the White House, I decided to write a book about my experiences. Nothing so remarkable about that -- my former boss, Karen Hughes, just received a million-dollar advance for hers, and good for her. I told my story in as lively a way as I could, without (naturally) betraying any of the confidences that had been imparted to me. And suddenly even before the book was released I heard the familiar sound of that desert sandstorm beginning again . . .

Up came whipping this enormous maelstrom of accusation and counter-accusation about what I said and what I didn't say, and who was mad and who was not mad, and what the White House thought and what it didn't think. The New Yorker magazine flatteringly (but absurdly) blamed me for everything it didn't like in President Bush's foreign policy. So did North Korean state media. The only thing missing was my old pal Bob Novak's latest attempt at fictionalized biography.

So there's that third meaning of the word "controversial": It is: "I'm going to kick you around the block before I know anything about you or what you've done."

In practice, of course, all three meanings run together. Or rather, they all run one after another. The third meaning blends backward into the second and ultimately reduces itself to the first -- until you find yourself being asked by the man in the next seat on the plane: "David Frum? Hey -- didn't you blow up that French boat in Australia?"