Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Parting of WFB's "Offspring."
So, there were ramifications from Chris Buckley's decision to endorse Barack Obama.
He apparently is no longer writing for the magazine his father founded:
And so it goes.
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He apparently is no longer writing for the magazine his father founded:
Tuesday in a phone interview with the Austin American-Statesman he revealed another surprise: After NR readers raised holy heck over his perceived betrayal of the right, he offered to resign his column - and it was accepted.
“It upset a great number of people - a huge number of canceled subscriptions, apostasy, the whole thing,” he said from Washington.
When he offered his resignation to the magazine’s editors, “I was sort of hoping for, ‘Well, let’s hink about it,’ ” Buckley said. “But to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me.”
And so it goes.
Labels: Christopher Buckley, National Review, William F. Buckley
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Mitt Hits The Fan
Romney For President says National Review.
UPDATE: While John Derbyshire happily dissents in an a-Paul-ing manner!
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UPDATE: While John Derbyshire happily dissents in an a-Paul-ing manner!
Labels: GOP 2008 President, Mitt Romney, National Review
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Rudy & the Discontents of the Right
National Review shares its disappointment on Rudy Giuliani's abortion views. On this major issue for social conservatives, Rudy doesn't get "bonus points" for standing by his previously stated "principles":
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The mayor’s rationale for abortion funding is bizarre. Putting his statements together and reading them as charitably as possible, his argument is that so long as the Supreme Court says abortion is a constitutional right state governments have an obligation to help poor women afford it.That last line "Many conservatives...hope that their disappointment is not going to grow..." is the real kicker. The New York Sun's Ryan Sager (more libertarian than the editors of National Review) has been a Giuliani supporter for a long time, yet he is becoming increasingly frustrated by the combination of Giuliani's intellectual incoherence and his campaign's disorganization when it comes to helping elucidate their boss's actual position's. This week, it was a rambling response to a question about Terri Schiavo, asked in St. Petersburg, Florida:
Note that governments have no such legal obligation: The Supreme Court, in a series of cases from 1977, ruled that they do not. So Giuliani must (we again assume charitably) be positing some kind of moral obligation to carry out the Supreme Court’s work beyond its writ. Combine this view with Giuliani’s other constitutional musings, and the results get stranger still. Giuliani has said in the past that people should have to show good character and get federal licenses before buying guns. Now he says, without repudiating those past statements, that the courts should read the Second Amendment to protect an individual right to own guns. So should states spend money to let poor people pack heat? Or will women need to show good character
and get federal licenses before they have abortions?
Mayor Giuliani has tied himself in knots. His position makes neither logical, moral, nor political sense. Many conservatives are disappointed, and hope that their disappointment is not going to grow as the campaign wears on.
Responding to Mr. Giuliani's comments yesterday, political observers appeared both surprised by his position and confused by his lack of preparation.
"My first thought was, he didn't seem ready for the question," the president of American Values and a former Republican presidential candidate, Gary Bauer, said. "It sounded like he was thinking about his answer as the question was asked.
"I'm happy any time a competitor for the nomination tilts toward the pro-life side," Mr. Bauer said. But he added: "When you put all of it together with his other opinions on life, to be charitable, it seems confused at best."
"That's amateur hour 101," A Republican pollster, Tony Fabrizio, said. "How do you send a guy to the state, and the county, where this took place and expect you're not going to get a question?"
As for the candidate himself, Mr. Fabrizio asked: "How do you, on something like this, on something that was important to the rank and file, not know what your position was? And then how do you try to straddle it?"
Labels: abortion, GOP 2008 President, National Review, Rudy Giuliani
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Fear And Self-Examination On The Right
The American Spectator's James Antle III reports from this weekend's National Review Institute Conservative Summit:
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[T]he right's domestic policy project isn't looking that much more vibrant. Perennial Republican issues like crime control and opposition to higher taxes failed to deliver as they once did not only in reddish states like Virginia but also such Democratic bastions as Maryland and Massachusetts. Here it is the success of conservative policies rather than perceived failures that have brought the GOP to the point of diminishing returns. Once you have cut taxes and lowered crime rates, there isn't as much mileage in campaigning on promises to do so once again.Hmmmm...connecting ideology to how people actually live in society. What a thought.
A more promising strategy might be to shape right-of-center policies that offer creative solutions to problems that vex large numbers of voters. The Reagan tax cuts and welfare reform, to cite just two examples, weren't popular just because they conformed to conservative ideology. They were popular because they were seen as addressing pressing national problems. The failure to think along these lines, Ramesh Ponnuru argues in the current National Review, has caused the conservative program to become "oddly detached from American life."
It isn't easy for a divided movement to react to sudden shifts in the political terrain, especially when conservatives were allowing themselves to dream of a near-permanent Republican majority just three years ago. But the prospect of another Clinton presidency is a pretty good reason for the right to give it a try.
Labels: conservatives, National Review
