Another Conservative Expelled for Dissent
Lately many conservatives have been coming under fire ranging from grumpy press releases to downright threatening and obscene email for the cardinal crime of disagreeing with the McCain strategy (if you can call these past three weeks that), McCain’s VP pick, or even worse, if you decide McCain is not worth your vote.
Kathleen Parker got flooded with criticism and attacks (including a charming suggestion that her mother should have aborted her) for suggesting that Palin was unqualified and a terrible pick for McCain. Bill Kristol, for saying that McCain should fire his entire campaign staff, was said by the campaign to have “bought into Obama campaign party line”, which is a bit like saying Richard Dawkins has bought into the James Dobson party line.
The latest victim is Christopher Buckley, who for endorsing Obama on a blog has had to resign from the National Review, a magazine founded by his own father.
You can see Buckley explaining what happened, as well as his thoughts on the subject, here:
Notice that Buckley did NOT write his endorsement of Obama in the National Review itself, but on the blog “The Daily Beast”. When it was picked up and caused a firestorm, he decided to offer his resignation, but he was clearly surprised to see them accept it immediately.
We aren’t talking about the head of a party, but a private citizen, who has been called a traitor and worse for going against what others percieve as the right way.
In what is probably a vain attempt to pre-empt certain comments, I am aware that intolerance of dissent is not a crime committed by just one side. However conservative readers who have found it within themselves to criticise liberals (rightly so) when they are blatantly intolerant of dissent, should see that this is no different. I’m not suggesting such an assertion shouldn’t be challenged, by any means, but I think it’s a sad state of affairs when a magazine feels it should accept the departure of a columnist (who ironically by inheritance still owns a part of the company) because he gave an unpopular opinion outside the realm of the magazine itself.
NO — he did not HAVE to resign. He offered to. And thus he did.
Rob, no he wasn’t. But NRO’s staff should have used their considerable intelligence and should have replied “are you kidding, because of one column to which people responded angrily? Of course not. Go on writing, the more the better.”
I agree with that, Michael, but it is still sleazy of Buckley to misrepresent what happened, after he said that he would resign with no hard feelings (then promptly goes out airing his hard feelings all over the networks.)
I also honestly think it would have been different if Buckley had written a logical rationale for his decision to vote for Obama- as Ed Morrissey pointed out, what he wrote made no sense. He apparently sees that Obama is a liberal and has risen to his current position by siding with the far left, but somehow Buckley argues that Obama is likely to win this election and decide that he has to govern from the middle. That’s simply not logical, and those who believe thata Obama in his heart of hearts is a pragmatic centrist are free to believe that (and assuming he’s going to win, I hope they’re right) but those people are basing this on faith, not logic. That’s fine, but it’s not the kind of principled reasoning that should be supported- IOW, if Buckley was providing a rationale argument for why an Obama administration really is likely to be a better direction for the country, or even giving the “time out in the wilderness for the GOP” argument, then those would be arguments that a conservative magazine ought to support even if they’re not positive in the short run for the party. But wishful thinking that Obama might be the kind of guy that Buckley hopes he will be isn’t exactly the kind of intellectual capacity that his father demonstrated and instilled at National Review.