Most significant is the largest glaring omission of the article: Wilson’s deliberate violence to the founding principles of the nation, and the Constitution. At one point, Frum writes:

The gradual progress that the U.S. has made since 1787 has all depended on the respect Wilson and other leaders had for the original plan, as much as some on the right insist that they betrayed it.

But Wilson did betray it, because he (and other leading Progressives) did not “respect” the Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence—in other words, “the original plan.” As Harvey Mansfield wrote years ago, Wilson was the first American president to attack the Constitution. Wilson, along with his contemporary progressive intellectuals like Frank Goodnow, John Burgess, Charles Beard, J. Allen Smith, etc., all argued openly that the Constitution, and the philosophy of the founders, was obsolete, and needed to be replaced. Far from “respecting” the “original plan” of the founders, Wilson and his compatriots expressed open contempt for it. How does Frum—or anyone—miss this?