“The mistakes are precisely the reason the people should trust the media.”

The speaker was Atlantic editor David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, in a recent appearance on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” Of all the defenses of the fake news surging from many sources, most reliably from CNN, Frum’s seems by far the most fatuous. On the other hand, one of his tweets is a strong contender.

“Inside the US, CNN’s reporting is protected by the First Amendment and the courts Outside the US, US-affiliated journalists do ultimately depend on the protection of the US government. Trump’s words are a direct attack on those international journalists’ freedom & even safety.”

And what about Trump his own self?

In a rambling Atlantic piece titled “How to Build an Autocracy,” Frum wrote that Donald Trump “represents something much more radical.” Trump is “a president who plausibly owes his office at least in part to a clandestine intervention by a hostile foreign intelligence service.” Says Frum, “If this were happening in Honduras, we’d know what to call it. It’s happening here instead, and so we are baffled.” But there’s more.

“We are living through the most dangerous challenge to the free government of the United States that anyone alive has encountered. What happens next is up to you and me. Don’t be afraid. This moment of danger can also be your finest hour as a citizen and an American.”

Readers would be hard pressed to find a clearer example of CNN, deep state Democrat and Hillary Clinton-style boilerplate. As Mark Levin said back in 2009, “where did this a-hole come from?”

Frum hails from Toronto and his late mother Barbara co-hosted CBC radio’s “As It Happens.” So he’s something of a celebrity brat, and his wealthy parents sent him to the best schools, Yale and Harvard, where Frum duly bagged his JD.

The Ivy League education led to gigs at the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Weekly Standard, and the Manhattan Institute. Then the George W. Bush administration hired Frum to write speeches and he is credited with coining the “axis of evil.” He has also authored books such as Dead Right, praised by William F. Buckley, and The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush.

After his stint in the White House, Frum hired on at the American Enterprise Institute but his support for Obamacare proved a poor fit. As that showed, despite the glittering credentials and friends in high places, Frum’s conservativism might not run very deep. As Mark Levin said, “in the foxhole with other conservatives, you know what this jerk does? He keeps shooting us in the back.”

After Devin Kelley murdered 26 people in a Texas church, Frum tweeted “lifetime gun ban for anyone who raises a hand against a woman or a child.” Tucker Carlson responded that Frum was “an unbelievably smart guy, probably one of the smartest people in Washington” and his tweet was “so brilliant that it’s been federal law for 21 years.”

The shooter Kelley, Carlson noted, was not allowed to buy the gun he used, and clearly disqualified from purchasing firearms. “The laws were on the books, the bureaucracy botched it.” Ignorance has no bounds, but trust in bureaucracy is more characteristic of liberals than conservatives.

When it came down to a choice between former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Frum made it clear that even before the election, “I have already voted for her.” As Frum explained, “She is a patriot. She will uphold the sovereignty and independence of the United States. She will defend allies. She will execute the laws with reasonable impartiality. She may bend some rules for her own and her supporters’ advantage. She will not outright defy legality altogether. Above all, she can govern herself; the first indispensable qualification for governing others.”

Corrupt (Clinton Foundation), arrogant (‘basket of deplorables”) Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign and lost the election. Soi disant conservative David Frum believes the winner Donald Trump “owes his office at least in part to a clandestine intervention by a hostile foreign intelligence service,” but can’t explain how it all went down. Even so, Frum thinks “the president should resign because – through incompetence, through servility to the Russians, he betrayed an American national secret… he has proved himself unworthy of the position he’s in.”

During the past eight years under POTUS 44 Thomas Sowell wondered, “How secure is any freedom when there is this kind of arbitrary power in the hands of one man?” For David Frum, under POTUS 45 Donald Trump, “we are living through the most dangerous challenge to the free government of the United States that anyone alive has encountered.” Terrorists don’t endanger journalists but Donald Trump’s tweets put them in peril. And of course, “the mistakes are precisely the reason the people should trust the media.”

Those fatuous absurdities surge from Ivy League alum David Frum, allegedly one of the smartest people in Washington. As the much smarter Canadian-born Nobel laureate Saul Bellow explains, “a great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”