Apparently Bush's "Axis of Evil" was coined by former Bush speech writer
David Frum. Frum is the ultra right wing son of a late
CBC news anchor and somewhat left-leaning
Barbara Frum. Shortly after Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech, Frum's wife
Danielle Crittenden started emailing friends and associates claming her husband coined the term. Below is her email which someone eventually forwarded to the press:
Dear all,
I realize this is very "Washington" of me to mention but my husband is responsible for the "Axis of Evil" segment of Tuesday's State of the Union address. It's not often a phrase one writes gains national notice -- unless you're in advertising of course ("The Pause that refreshes") --so I'll hope you'll indulge my wifely pride in seeing this one repeated in headlines everywhere!!
D
Frum basked somewhat temporarily in the glory generated by his wife's email but then he promptly quit his
cush job at the
White House. This lead many to speculate that the President was less than pleased that the only interesting thing he ever said in his presidency, the only thing he ever said that no reporter then ran to Clinton for clarification, was being scooped by a porky little Canadian.
Frum and the White House denied his departure had anything to do with his wife's
cattiness. Frum, however, tried to lob some credit back to the President, claiming he originally wrote "
axis of hate" which Bush changed to "axis of evil".
Frum quickly dashed off a tell-all book
The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency Of George W. Bush in which he claims no one in the Bush White House could be described as having a "high-powered
brain".