Christopher Buckley quits the National Review

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 4:57pm

From Salon.com:



Christopher Buckley, a man with perhaps the finest conservative pedigree in the nation, is an accepted member of the conservative elite no more.

Buckley is the son of William F. Buckley, Jr., and served for a time as then-Vice President George H.W. Bush's chief speechwriter. He also was, until very recently, a columnist in the National Review -- the magazine his legendary father founded.

That gig came to an end, though, shortly after he wrote a blog post last week in which he endorsed Barack Obama. The reaction on the right, Buckley writes today, was not friendly:

As for the mail flooding into National Review Online—that’s been running about, oh, 700-to-1 against. In fact, the only thing the Right can’t quite decide is whether I should be boiled in oil or just put up against the wall and shot. Lethal injection would be too painless.

Buckley offered to resign from the magazine shortly after the endorsement, he says:

This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.

Responding at the National Review Online, Lowry writes that there have been only about 100 emails, and very few threats of subscription cancellations:

No doubt part of what upset these readers was the dim view Chris expressed of them in his first Daily Beast post. So it goes. It's an intense election season and emotions are running high. We continue to have the highest regard for Chris's talent and wit, and extend to him warmest regards and understanding

Further down the page at NRO, meanwhile, Andy McCarthy speculates that Buckley has been tricked into making the endorsement. Obama, he proposes, is not actually the good writer who so impressed Buckley, and "Dreams From My Father" was ghost-written by -- who else? -- William Ayers.

Seems like the way to win back the alienated members of the conservative intellegentsia, no?
― Gabriel Winant

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:08pm

It's all falling apart: the dream of a permanent Republican majority.

The fragile alliance that Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and the elder Bush worked so hard to piece together, ripped asunder by the reckless arrogance and greed of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their imbecilic neocons.

Bwahahahahaha!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 6:42pm

Can I just give you a little feedback? That sentence that begins with "The" and ends with "neocons" is gorgeously constructed.

[javero]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 7:25pm

PJ--u da man!

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 8:10pm

Prior to this, he was just another Conservative sleaze

Now, he is the apple of everyone's eye because he backs Obama. What a shock - not.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 8:16pm

More uniformed received wisdom from the board's favorite reactionary who is still recycling material from Wayne's World as an indicator of his cutting edge comedy references.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 9:52pm

Thank you for the compliment, but I am chagrin to admit that the sentence in question is not a sentence; it is, in fact, in structure, a non-sentence.

Sadly, if one finds such things sad, it lacks a predicate.

The reason for its gorgeousness (to which I will, immodestly, attest) is that the comma between "together" and "ripped" sits in place of a "was," the presence of which would make the non-sentence a sentence but render it infinitely more prosaic.

Nevertheless, the sentiment itself--the dissolution of the dream of a permanent Republican majority--is probably responsible for much of the gorgeousness. A Roxy or some such would undoubtedly disagree--and find the sentence's construction so unpleasant as, perhaps, to throw up from.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 10/15/08 at 12:11am

Mr PalJoey Youse got a real purty writin' style thar.

Real purty

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/15/08 at 12:16am

Everything I know I learned in the 3rd grade at the Wasilla Elementary and Reform School.

Shout out to my homos!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/15/08 at 12:18am

I knew that.