Sorry Dad, I’m voting for Obama. 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.– Christopher Buckley, The Daily Beast
Slave to the cocktail circuit. I notice James Joyner and, via him, David Frum complaining about a certain attack that gets leveled against conservatives who are insufficiently infatuated with Sarah Palin or John McCain these days: That they’re effectively selling out their principles to win the approval of elite Beltway media types, who will henceforth invite them to posh cocktail parties and Sunday morning political talk shows. I find this interesting in part because I got a bit of the same back when Dave Weigel and I wrote about the whole Ron Paul newsletter fooferaw. — Julian Sanchez
The liberal media’s conservatives. Even if Brooks and Noonan and Buckley and Dreher and Kathleen Parker and David Frum and Heather Mac Donald and Bruce Bartlett and George Will and on and on – note the ideological diversity in the ranks of conservatives who aren’t Helping The Team these days – are all just snobs and careerists who quit or cavil or cover their asses when the going gets tough and their “seat at the table” is threatened, an American conservative movement that consists entirely of those pundits with the rock-hard testicular fortitude required to never take sides against the family seems like a pretty small tent at this point. — Ross Douthat, The Atlantic
The Beat (It) goes on: : A conservative stampede. The rapid twists and turns in the campaign also make for the worst of times because they challenge the long-held and deeply-committed positions of the pundits, particularly among conservatives. The McCain-Palin ticket has had a severe impact on the writers of the right and sent them running for the hills. Witness the crescendo of the stampede. — Huffington Post
Buckley’s kid chortles about quitting conservatism. Christopher Buckley, the terrorist appeaser liberal betrayer and soiler of the legacy of the last conservative intellectual on earth, William F. Buckley, went on Chris Matthews’ show last night and chuckled about how a bunch of mouth-breathing rubes who read National Review hate him now. Includes video of Buckley being interviewed on MSNBC. — Wonkette
Look – I am sure Mr. McCain is a brave and courageous man, and the fact he survived 5-6 years in a Vietnamese POW camp and many years as a Washington politician makes him a worthy US citizen…but I simply cannot see how all this qualifies him as a President, or even a presidential candidate.
I fail to understand how being visionary and wanting a better society translates into a political agenda when John McCain obviously has no clear policies or ideologies on terrorism, international relations, economic activity, the environment, making the USA a more equitable society, providing health and education to the millions of poor in the USA. The only thing obvious to me about John McCain is that he would simply re-cycle all GW Bush’s advisors and follow their instructions for another 4-8 years.
I am not totally sure that Mr. Obama is any more adept in these areas but here is a man who, I think, realises that the last 8 years for the USA have been a disaster and that to pursue the same policies and actions will cost the people of the USA dearly, and make his country even more mistrusted around the world.
My main concern is that I think many US citizens simply do not care about that – they simply want fast food cars and petrol to be cheap and a job for them when they feel like working……….if so, its going to get a lot harder for them.