Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Buckley departs from The National Review: "The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me."

In the wake of his endorsement of Barack Obama, Christopher Buckley has resigned from The National Review, which was founded by his father, the late William F. Buckley.

Hmm.

So much for "laughing at the hypocrisy of all you left-leaning individuals always touting intellectual honesty, tolerance, and freedom of expression."

Looks like that particular malady is afflicting our friends on the right, too. Imagine that. Here's the Buckley piece in its entirety. Thanks to Bayerfan for the tip.

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Buckley Bows Out of National Review, by Christopher Buckley (The Daily Beast).

I seem to have picked an apt title for my Daily Beast column, or blog, or whatever it’s called: “What Fresh Hell.” My last posting (if that’s what it’s called) in which I endorsed Obama, has brought about a very heaping helping of fresh hell. In fact, I think it could accurately be called a tsunami.

The mail (as we used to call it in pre-cyber times) at the Beast has been running I’d say at about 7-to-1 in favor. This would seem to indicate that you (the Beast reader) are largely pro-Obama.

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.

I had gone out of my way in my Beast endorsement to say that I was not doing it in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column, because of the experience of my colleague, the lovely Kathleen Parker. Kathleen had written in NRO that she felt Sarah Palin was an embarrassment. (Hardly an alarmist view.) This brought 12,000 livid emails, among them a real charmer suggesting that Kathleen’s mother ought to have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a dumpster. I didn’t want to put NR in an awkward position.

Since my Obama endorsement, Kathleen and I have become BFFs and now trade incoming hate-mails. No one has yet suggested my dear old Mum should have aborted me, but it’s pretty darned angry out there in Right Wing Land. One editor at National Review—a friend of 30 years—emailed me that he thought my opinions “cretinous.” One thoughtful correspondent, who feels that I have “betrayed”—the b-word has been much used in all this—my father and the conservative movement generally, said he plans to devote the rest of his life to getting people to cancel their subscriptions to National Review. But there was one bright spot: To those who wrote me to demand, “Cancel my subscription,” I was able to quote the title of my father’s last book, a delicious compendium of his NR “Notes and Asides”: Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription.

Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. 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.

My father in his day endorsed a number of liberal Democrats for high office, including Allard K. Lowenstein and Joe Lieberman. One of his closest friends on earth was John Kenneth Galbraith. In 1969, Pup wrote a widely-remarked upon column saying that it was time America had a black president. (I hasten to aver here that I did not endorse Senator Obama because he is black. Surely voting for someone on that basis is as racist as not voting for him for the same reason.)

My point, simply, is that William F. Buckley held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much. My father was also unpredictable, which tends to keep things fresh and lively and on-their-feet. He came out for legalization of drugs once he decided that the war on drugs was largely counterproductive. Hardly a conservative position. Finally, and hardly least, he was fun. God, he was fun. He liked to mix it up.

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.

Thanks, anyway, for the memories, and here’s to happier days and with any luck, a bit less fresh hell.

Related: Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama

10 comments:

Jake said...

He did the right thing by resigning. It is unfortunate his article caused so much disdain from the readers, but his father would have expected him to resign as well. As far as I know, the NR is a for-profit company and his actions put the company at risk (wrongly) in a time where everyone is trying to minimize their economic risk. His continued presence there could have cost a significant number of subscribers and thus revenue.

A thing I don't understand is how a person who considers him or herself a conservative justifies supporting a candidate who is very obviously not conservative over one who is ambiguously conservative. I understand the conservative movement today is not what it was, but I don't understand what is conservative about supporting a non-conservative.

Bayernfan said...

I disagree with the notion that WFB would have expected him to resign. WFB was one of the first true conservatives to criticize Bush. Other conservatives have criticized McCain/Palin as well. We see the same thing on the Democratic side with some Hillary supporters deciding to support McCain. How can they support someone who is on another side of the ideological spectrum? They say it's about leadership and confidence in the candidate.

I would submit that it may be the same thing for some conservatives. Chris Buckley pointed out that Obama has the ability to become a great leader. That's what America needs right now and, according to all the polls, alot of people agree with that sentiment. McCain has hurt himself with his VP pick and campaign decisions. Now he seems desperate and bitter. Not exactly the qualities the public is looking for in a leader.

Jake said...

A fair assessment. I don't think the McCain-Hilary analogy fits as well because McCain was already a pretty liberal republican. If Buckley considers himself a true conservative, voting for McCain was already going to feel like a vote against conservatism, so maybe it's a marginal issue. Voting for Barack didn't seem THAT much worse. I feel like his article makes a vote for Obama seem conservative though and it certainly is not.
About WFB, again I didn't know the man or anything about him, but the NR is a business. While serving to promote conservative ideals, it's primary purpose is to make money. Your positions can be expressed in a multitude of ways, but the magazine's purpose is to make money. If WFB had as much business sense as he did political sense, I think he would have expected a resignation and he obviously would have gotten a resignation without even making his desires known.

The New Albanian said...

Jake, "about WFB, again," you really need to take some time (I know, it's scarce for med students) to study the life and times of WFB.

To be a "conservative" and not know any more about Buckley's career than you evidently do is not something that bolsters your arguments.

One example is the profitability of the magazine. Through most of Buckley's tenure at NR, it lost money. He found financing in various ways, but the point is that he almost surely would never have used profitability as the excuse to jettison a writer.

There's no understanding the conservative movement and its subsequent corruption without understanding Buckley. It may be permissable to break the rules, but not until you know what they are. Otherwise, one's beliefs have no relevance outside the individual's cranium.

B.W. Smith said...

There's that darn historical context again...always a minor detail.

Bayernfan said...

Jake, I guess I believe that standing your ground is more important than the dollar. That's why I would not be convinced that WFB would have "expected" a resignation from his son. Maybe he would be proud of his son for taking a stand, damn the readership. What a novel thought, huh?

Jake said...

I don't necessarily agree that I need to understand a single conservative in order to understand conservatism. If I'm wrong about WFB expecting a resignation, good for him. It is immaterial, the point I was making is his son did the right thing by resigning. He can minimize damage to his father's business while standing firm on his beliefs. His responsive readership is likely to increase, even if total readership decreases.
I pose the question again, what is conservative about voting for someone very obviously not so?

Also, I will at least read some of WFB's stuff so that I can be considered an expert by the people least likely to be good judges of expert conservatives. I'm only being half-sarcastic here.

The New Albanian said...

My point is simple. Intellectual curiosity, while shunned by the Palinites, is a good thing. Buckley's name has come up a couple of times, and you still haven't expended the time necessary to go to Wikipedia and see if what we're saying is true.

When you do, I believe you will find it stimulating and beneficial to your argumentation. Reading Buckley has always been interesting for me, even if I often disagree.

Jake said...

I only have so much time, and when I get around to researching, I will use something a little more rigorous than wikipedia.

The New Albanian said...

Excellent> You'll be rewarded.