Another National Review Stalwart for Obama
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Well, given the fact that Christopher Buckley resigned his column at the Nat'l Review the day after announcing his support for Obama, and Wick Allison was an ex-Publisher when he made his announcement, they're not really NR stalwarts anymore, I'd suppose. But William F. Buckley, Christopher's father & founder of the National Review, was one of those Conservatives (and yes, I intended that to be "Conservative with a capital C") I always had immense—at times when I was younger, even worshipful—respect for.
His son, from the pile of Daily Beast columns I've read since getting the link to this one, is not only a Conservative in the same vein as his father, but as far as my respect goes, ranks right up there with him. Do I necessarily agree with their camp on all counts? Definitely not. But the differences we have are differences that have their roots in legitimate disagreements in regards to what we consider the appropriate role of government in society … a philosophical debate as old as the idea of government being comprised of elected officials rather than royalty.
At any rate, my point being that when the old-guard Conservative camp starts announcing publicly that they're out voting for the Democratic candidate, it should give anyone who calls themselves a "conservative republican" a bit of pause before they go punching their vote in for McCain…
I am—drum roll, please, cue trumpets—making this announcement in the cyberpages of The Daily Beast (what joy to be writing for a publication so named!) rather than in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column. For a reason: My colleague, the superb and very dishy Kathleen Parker, recently wrote in National Review Online a column stating what John Cleese as Basil Fawlty would call “the bleeding obvious”: namely, that Sarah Palin is an embarrassment, and a dangerous one at that. She’s not exactly alone. New York Times columnist David Brooks, who began his career at NR, just called Governor Palin “a cancer on the Republican Party.”
As for Kathleen, she has to date received 12,000 (quite literally) foam-at-the-mouth hate-emails. One correspondent, if that’s quite the right word, suggested that Kathleen’s mother should have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a Dumpster. There’s Socratic dialogue for you. Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.” […]
But that was—sigh—then. John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking? […]
I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.
But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.
Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for. […]
Christopher Buckley ~ former columnist, National Review
Read the entirety of this piece at The Daily Beast, and be sure not to miss the follow-up, in which Buckley explains his resignation from the National Review.
Lol I love the word "cunt" I have to be careful with it though because I go to a Christian university and people don't like that word lol.
So yes, it makes me laugh a lot lol, even though I disagree with your bumper stickers I like how opinionated you are and I'm jealous. I wish I could be more like that and just say what I believe and be like…'Yea, suck on that' lol.
16th October 2008 at 5:13 pm | permalink |@Nicole: I'm curious as to whether you disagree with all my bumperstickers, or just the religious ones? :-)
And, I've no idea how old you are, but back when I was going to University, I wasn't nearly as outspoken as I am now. ;-)
17th October 2008 at 4:21 am | permalink |Swearing at a visiting politician giving a talk to the whole year about how Iraq certainly has nukes and it's ok for the US to have them because they're responsible (yeaaaah) *while* he's giving the talk… does that count as outspoken? ::cough::
I may have got suspended, but it was so worth it. >.>
17th October 2008 at 5:38 am | permalink |I don't get the Pastafarai or whatever one so I couldn't disagree or agree with it lol, I'm a little slow. I'm also a McCain fan lol, but each to their own I say!!
I've always let people just walk on me, I have an issue speaking up for myself because I don't like knowing someone dislikes me. I'm insecure like that. I'm going to take an interpersonal relations class sometime soon on campus and they teach you how to be assertive. So…that should be good :)
And I say if you have the guts to swear and speak your mind towards someone you don't want in office or whatever then go for it!! I'm sure you felt better! I know I would if I could give a few choice people a piece of my mind!!!
17th October 2008 at 5:55 am | permalink |@grimbles: ROFL! I would have been SO proud of myself if I'd ever done something like that at my university. :-D
@Nicole: Pastafarianism :-) And yeah, the interpersonal relations class will probably be great for you. I wish I could put a finger on just what it was that made me stop worrying so much about what other people thought, but I will say that since I stopped worrying about it, I've not only been happier, but now have more friends. ;-)
17th October 2008 at 6:11 am | permalink |Somehow, I've got a feeling Nicole is going to do very ok :-)
17th October 2008 at 8:29 am | permalink |I think that moment cemented me in the school mythos for some time to come. Staff I'd never met suddenly knew who I was - and mostly seemed to approve, as much as they were professionally allowed to. The best thing about it though, and probably what triggered my outburst was that before then he'd been spewing his bollocks without challenge, and afterward (I got kicked to the back of the hall) the guy got crucified by my peers.
I found out this year that the politicians aunt, upon hearing about this, commented "It couldn't have happened to a nicer person."
17th October 2008 at 9:35 pm | permalink |For god's sake, never move to Alabama.
People worship the man unconditionally. They treat him like Christ-come, just like they did Bush. Both times.
Obama is a terrorist, a 'god-hating muslim', and a "damned nigger."
Shoot me for using 'the N word', but that's what you hear on the street. I can't count off how many half-minded idiots I saw jumping party elections just to vote for Hillary in the primaries, because DEAR WHITE AMERICA-LOVING GOD ABOVE HELP US, a BLACK MAN RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT!
You know your state is fucked up when you can still drive down the highway and call out Klan meeting sites. When you can divide your down's economic and racial makeup with the same straight line and barely lose a thing. When the only real culture left alive and breathing is in minority communities, because your own race is too busy locking itself away from the mess its grandfathers created, and you know they'll never be mature enough to face it and embrace it.
You know your state is fucked up when you can rant all you want about how "the towelheads at the terrorist school in VIRGINIA want to destroy America!" or about how "the chinks and gooks are trying to steal our schools" or "the wet-back beaner bastards keep stealing our jobs!" Why, it almost makes you forget that we took this land by genocide and built it up on the back of slavery.
If you value your own sanity, STAY the HELL away from Alabama.
21st October 2008 at 2:56 pm | permalink |God only knows why I want to stay here.