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In defense of Buckley; in disgust of today's GOP.
The Buckley Son Rises
And runs.
By Kathleen Parker
Christopher
Buckley?s endorsement of Barack Obama ? followed by his abrupt
departure from the back page of the magazine his father founded, National Review ? has caused a ripple of contempt from the conservative Right.
Nay, make that a tsunami of hostility. An avalanche of venom. A
cataclysm of ... well, you get the idea. People are mad. Good riddance,
they say, and don?t let the door hit you on the way out.
Let us proceed, gingerly.
I am not a passive bystander to these events. Buckley is a friend, as
are other members of his family, especially Uncle Reid, with whom I
have worked for several years. National Review is home to
many friends, and its online editor, Kathryn Jean Lopez, kindly
subscribes to my column. Like Buckley, I have enjoyed a decent fragging
for suggesting that Sarah Palin excuse herself from the Republican
ticket.
What gives here?
What does it mean that the
right cannot politely entertain dissenting opinions within its ranks?
What, if anything, does it portend that Buckley The Younger has bolted
from the Right, even resigning from the family flagship?
Some have opined, ridiculously, that Buckley ? son of the famous
William F. Buckley (WFB) ? was merely seeking attention. Christo, as
family and friends call him, has written more than a dozen acclaimed
books, one of which, Thank You for Smoking, became a movie. In 2004, he won the Thurber Prize for American Humor for No Way to Treat a First Lady. For 18 years he edited a magazine, Forbes Life, and otherwise seems to be doing all right.
Other critics have surmised that Buckley?s ?betrayal? was a publicity stunt for his newest novel, Supreme Courtship (which I reviewed for National Review). When you?re as funny and write as well as Buckley, you don?t have to resort to stunts. You are the stunt.
So why did he do it?
Because he had to. It?s in his genes.
True believers of whatever stripe too often forget that the men and
women who create movements are first and foremost radicals. Great
movements are not the result of relaxing afternoons musing along the
Seine but emerge from flames of passion ignited by injustice.
When WFB created the modern conservative movement, he didn?t call a
neighborhood meeting and whisper, ?Come along now.? He stood athwart
history and yelled, ?Stop!?
His son, though he
customarily takes the more circuitous route to the revolution via
satire, is now merely answering WFB?s original call to political
activism. Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, the younger Buckley said: ?I
haven?t left the Republican Party. It left me.?
In 1955,
when WFB announced his new magazine and explained the reasons for it,
he described conservatives as ?non-licensed nonconformists?: ?Radical
conservatives in this country have an interesting time of it, for when
they are not being suppressed or mutilated by Liberals, they are being
ignored or humiliated by a great many of those of the well-fed Right,
whose ignorance and amorality have never been exaggerated for the same
reason that one cannot exaggerate infinity.?
Fast-forward half a century, and the old is the new.
Radical conservatives are still having an interesting time of it,
though these days they are being mutilated by fellow ?conservatives.?
The well-fed Right now cultivates ignorance as a political strategy and
humiliates itself when its brightest sons seek sanctuary in the
solitude of personal honor.
The truth few wish to utter is
that the GOP has abandoned many conservatives, who mostly nurse their
angst in private. Those chickens we keep hearing about have indeed come
home to roost. Years of pandering to the extreme wing ? the ?kooks? the
senior Buckley tried to separate from the right ? have created a party
no longer attentive to its principles.
Instead, as Christopher Buckley pointed out in a blog post on thedailybeast.com explaining his departure from National Review,
eight years of ?conservatism? have 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.?
Republicans are not
short on brainpower ? or pride ? but they have strayed off course. They
do not, in fact, deserve to win this time, and someone had to remind
them why.
Christopher Buckley, ever the swashbuckling heir
to his father?s defiant spirit, walked the plank so that the sinking
mother ship might right itself.
No doubt his seafaring father is cheering from heaven: ?Ahoy there, Christo! Well done, my son.?
? 2008, Washington Post Writers Group
***
Sorry for so many posts on this topic; I am obsessed with the possible/probable impending conclusion of Bush's/Palin's/McCain's GOP.
Re: In defense of Buckley; in disgust of today's GOP.
The truth few wish to utter is that the GOP has abandoned many conservatives, who mostly nurse their angst in private. Those chickens we keep hearing about have indeed come home to roost. Years of pandering to the extreme wing ? the ?kooks? the senior Buckley tried to separate from the right ? have created a party no longer attentive to its principles.
I fear that she is wrong. If this were true, the Libertarian Party would have at least as much of a shot as Perot in 1992. If polls and debates are any indication (and no one's saying they are), there is no way they'll win >10% of the vote. So nursing your angst in private is only true if you turn your private angst into your vote. Otherwise, how much angst was there, really?
I do think the Republican Party left him (conservatives) but I certainly don't see the logic in then voting for Obama. It doesn't make sense to me how people call McCain a moderate or a liberal, say they want a real conservative but then vote for someone on the far left like Obama.
Michael Smerconish (talk radio in Philly) interviewed Buckley on Thursday. He said about voting for Obama that "as they say in poker" he's "putting it all on black". That was a bit strange...
Out of pure curiosity TeamC (since you're the only libertarian I "know", are you voting Libertarian? If not, for whom are you voting?
I struggle with this---I feel that the parties do cater to the wings of their base and, for the Republicans, it is a group that holds social issues to a higher importance than fiscal ones. If they were to come back to these, and make social issues secondary/state issues (depending on what they are), I think the Dems would disintegrate and have to revamp themselves as well.
Of course, there is the other side of the coin. If the Repubs win the White House in November---what will come of the Dem Party? I can only imagine it would have to have a huge "come to Jesus" meeting to completely revamp as well.
If the Reps re-tool and cut out the evangelical right and other fringe elements, yes, dems will have to reassess b/c this new non-sex/womb/marriage/Jesus obsessed party will be very appealing to many independents and moderate leaning Democrats. However If the reps continue to force a sort of Republican evangelicalism on America, Dems need only to sit back and watch the implosion.
BTW, the Reps are not winning this year. We don't need to worry about Dems having a come to Jesus moment. Even if we don't capture the WH (which, all signs say we will) we will most definitely maintain our lead and most likely strengthen our hold on Congress. At this time in our nation's history, it's not the Democrats that are out of touch with the needs of this country. There are no signs to suggest that Dems have done anything wrong in terms of ideology. Even if McCain wins, he has intimated that he probably won't win the popular vote.
Maybe, but I highly doubt a retooling would not occur. That is the biggest "prize" for both parties and 12 years of not winning when most signs point to an easy win (for the 2 most current) show there is something wrong. If they were not doing something wrong and their ideology were more in touch, it would be a cake-walk, imo. They are winning this year due to distate for the current President (as was the case in 2006), not because of some big awakening of voters that the Dems have it right. Personally, if it was the Dems that focused more on fiscal conservatism, they would have my vote and would gain the support of more moderates and more middle-Repubs--basically, it works both ways. But, I am sure you will disagree with me and that is fine.
I agree. I think the Dems had a come to jesus moment after Kerry lost in 2004 and they lost more house and senate seats. And in two years, they turned it around. I think Howard Dean is to be commended for that, he whipped the party into shape. The 2006 midterms were amazing. They won 6 out of 7 contested senate seats, and only lost Tennessee because of the one of the most disgustingly racist campaigns ever. (I'm not talking crazy here. Most rational people would agree that Harold Ford lost because of a racist smear campaign.)
I find it just so bizarre that MPC is running a platform that someone who supports abortion to protect the health of a woman is a fringe radical, but someone who thinks that abortion should be banned even for rape victims is mainstream. Honestly, if the Dems have to compromise on something like that, I don't want them to have a come to Jesus moment. I want them to stay the party of the "fringe" and continue to stand up for what's right. I don't want to live in a country where all leaders refer to "health of the woman" in air quotes and believe in the further victimization of rape victims. Even if they are perpetually in the minority, I'd rather that than nothing at all.
I'd vote for you for president any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
As for the OP, all I have to say about that is it is straight up bizarre to see the other party have this kind of crisis of confidence. This is what Democrats do, as long as I've been alive, and certainly as long as I've been paying attention. The twilight zone continues...
ITA. So long as I can remember, the Democrats have been the party of disarray, trying to appeal to too many people, and angering many in the process. Even my die-hard Dem father says that Dems excel at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
As for the OP, I'll repeat what I've said many times on this board. I'm much more of a Buckley, Sr., Repub than the insanity I think the party has spiraled into today. I agree with nearly every word of Parker's essay. It used to be that the discipline required to keep people on message with the Repub party was a plus. Somehow it became a form of totalitarianism.
I particularly agree that the Republicans have made ignorance a primary compenent of their appeal to the masses. This has been a long time coming (at least since Nixon), but the brazeness with which it is done now is disturbing and inexcusable.
Michael Smerconish has gotten quite a bit of flak for announcing that he'll vote for Obama. Another example of dissent being punished. Smerconish is no idiot but he gets zero respect for a not-uninformed decision.
That wasn't really responding to the quote. Buckley said he's putting it all on black, not Smerconish.
Smerconish is being "punished" by his audience because they are conservatives, they don't like Obama. They don't want his show to become MSNBC. We've seen Smerc go from criticizing Obama and McCain based on conservative principles to sucking up to Obama and defending him based on one issue (getting Bin Laden). He said he's not going to go Obama crazy on his show but we'll see. I'm a big fan, I respect him for being honest, but I disagree with him.
I actually wasn't trying to respond directly to the quote, which I agree is a strange one. I was making a side observation about Smerconish and his dissent being punished since that was one of the issues raised in the OP and you happened to mention Smerconish.
I like him, although I disagree with him about a fair number of things.