Whither the conservative establishment in today’s bilious political landscape? Certainly the typical Tea Party denizen, with his “I Wanna Party Like It’s 1773” T-shirt and “You Lie!” trucker hat, would seem out of place on the Frums’ well-tended grounds, nibbling chicken skewers and mini-B.L.T.’s. In the presence of Ms. Hirsi Ali, at least, there was a sense of shared purpose.

On hand was a coterie of commentators, more in summer-frock mode than Fox News attire — Laura Ingraham, Mona Charen, Meghan Cox Gurdon and Barbara Amiel, the wife of the disgraced media baron Conrad Black, now incarcerated at a Florida prison. Michael B. Oren, the Israeli ambassador, historian and former academic, whose recent op-ed article in The New York Times described the Gaza-bound flotilla as an attempt by “religious extremists” to “destroy any hope of peace,” was continually pulled into serious tête-à-têtes. Also milling about the white-painted porch and leafy garden were the “independent” gay journalists Jonathan Rauch and James Kirchick and members of the disenchanted left, most notably the contrarian in chief Christopher Hitchens.

But the majority of guests occupied a newly precarious purgatory. Among those on the waning right was the host, Mr. Frum, who welcomed everyone with brief, glowing remarks about the guest of honor, using words such as “strength,” “courage” and “intelligence.” Mr. Frum lost his salaried post at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, in March, after calling the passage of health care legislation the Republican party’s “Waterloo.” The institute denied any connection between the two events, but Mr. Frum’s column elicited a ferocious slap from the conservative blogosphere. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal editorial page witheringly described its former employee this way: “Mr. Frum now makes his living as the media’s go-to basher of fellow Republicans.”