October 15, 2008
Jacob HeilbrunnPosted October 15, 2008 | 05:31 AM (EST)
Christopher Buckley's announcement that he's supporting Barack Obama for the presidency comes as no surprise to me. Years ago Buckley, who worked as a speechwriter for George H.W. Bush and reveres him, expressed his consternation to me about George W. Bush's dismal performance. He seemed to watch the self-destruction of the Bush presidency with a kind of fascinated horror. Now, in the wake of the Sarah Palin debacle, Buckley deserves a place on the conservative intellectual honor roll for breaking with John McCain.
He won't get it, of course. Instead, the National Review has apparently terminated Buckley's column -- high comedy when you consider that his father merely founded the magazine and fought to make conservatism intellectually respectable, banishing the anti-Semites and other riff-raff who tainted the movement. Now conservatism is regressing, turning into a Frankenstein. Other members of the old guard at National Review such as Jeffrey Hart have also denounced the mendacity of the Bush administration. Their voices were not heeded.
Today, as the McCain campaign lurches to its dolorous conclusion, conservatives are beginning to blame each other for the collapse of their movement. Instead of excommunicating Buckley and others, conservatives should be debating with them. But intolerance is winning out over intellectual inquisitiveness. As an intellectual movement, conservatism is suffering its death throes. And with the Buckley affair, the purge has begun.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-heilbrunn/the-conservative-purge-ha_b_134748.html
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 23
True, who would have ever thought that Georgia would have a Republican govenor named Sonny? 60 years ago he would have been a Democrat.
It's true, these slime-coated, unethical, eel-eating weasles have begun to feed on each other and turn on each other with more and more public histrionics than ever before. They've made mendacity a profit making philosophy and raped the middle-class to enrich themselves. They've used the national debt to pick the pockets of the next generation and have even managed to steal from children not yet born who will have to pay for the debt they ran up.
Conservatism isn't dead. It's fricken' embarassed because true conservatives have allowed this god-aweful Neo-Con hijacking of their party to run this nation headlong into a tree. And now, while they drive us screaming towards that tree, we have two candidates to look out. Obama, who wants to change the course...and McShame....who wants to change the velocity.
Regards,
Doyle I <~~~~~
I still like Powell more than McCain.
How come people don't know this man's history? He not only was involved in a cover-up conspiracy to hide the facts of the Mai Lay massacre, but he was up to his ass in the egregious lies and constitutional violations of Iran/Contra, and then proceeded to help lie the nation into an endless, pointless, enormously costly occupation of Iraq. He should be shot for treason, not revered as some sort of hero, for crying out loud.
As for republican ideology, it's a miserable failure, and the GOP is going down in flames as a result, thank God. It's really interesting to see the various rightwing pundit claims about this. I heard some putz this morning say that the upcoming democratic landslide in November wasn't a reflection that the nation is liberal, but rather that the GOP is getting their asses handed to them because of their ineptitude.
In other words, it wasn't the republican party's horrible ideas and overall miserably failed ideology that has finally brought people to toss the party out the door. It's the IMPLEMENTATION of those horrible ideas that the public is made about! Oh, ok then!
You folks just go ahead and run with that one! Just ignore the FACT that, on every single issue of the day, the nation is overwhelmingly progressive...national healthcare, environment, education, social security, national security, fiscal responsibility...etc., etc., etc. The conservative ideology has NOTHING TO OFFER, and FINALLY, the public has awakened to that fact.
Barry Goldwater probably would have stormed into bush's office and kicked his ass.
I know I'm tilting at windmills, just asking.
The leaders of the conservative party, for the last twenty years, have sought to "broaden the tent," giving us colorful phrases ideas like "a kinder gentler nation," and "compassionate conservatism."
Men calling themselves conservatives, were conservatives by self declaration, ONLY.
The "purge" you speak of, started long ago, and purge has successfully isolated the republican party into a caricature of what it once stood for, and unless real conservatives, unfettered by any form of christian activism stand up and act, the conservative movement that propelled Ronald Reagan to the White House will be lost for decades to come.