Banning the Birthers

Jon Henke thinks it's time for the Right to throw out the lunatics: In the 1960's, William F. Buckley denounced the John Birch Society leadership for being "so far removed from common sense" and later said "We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner." The Birthers are the Birchers of our time, and WorldNetDaily is their pamphlet.  ...

NRO Reshuffle

Kathryn Jean Lopez informs us that she's leaving New York and her post as editor of National Review Online and moving to DC to become editor-at-large.  Rich Lowry, who has run NR's print operation since William F. Buckley, Jr. stepped down in 1997, will be assuming her current duties. No word on what this means for NRO's editorial direction.  I'd like ...

Fox News Not Conservative

So says E.D. Kain: Fox News is simply not conservative.  The fact of the matter is, I find NPR and even News Hour more conservative than Fox - but in a different sense, I suppose, than the standard boiler plate conservatism that has so infested American politics.  What I mean to say is that the conservatism of Fox News tends to ...

George McGovern Now Conservative?

It's been occasionally remarked in recent years that George McGovern, who lost the 1972 election to Richard Nixon in a landslide because he was so ultra-liberal, became more conservative after leaving public life and starting his own business. A column in today's WSJ, "Freedom Means Responsibility," will certainly add another log to that fire. His thesis is ...

Bill Buckley and The Gays

Andrew Sullivan appreciated the late William F. Buckley, Jr.'s civil tone on matters of homosexuality, especially as contrasted with other conservatives of his era, but laments that "Buckley never challenged what he believed was a necessary moral and social injunction against gay love, marriage and sex." GayPatriot's B. Daniel Blatt is more charitable, noting that, "When I was friendly with ...

William F. Buckley, Jr., RIP

Kathryn Jean Lopez has the sad news that "William F. Buckley Jr., died overnight in his study in Stamford, Connecticut. After year of illness, he died while at work." Sad news, indeed. More from AP: Author and conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. has died at age 82. His assistant Linda Bridges says Buckley died Wednesday morning at his home in Stamford, Conn. ...

Obama in Muslim Garb

The Clinton campaign is circulating a 2006 photo of Barack Obama in Somali tribal clothes, playing to the "B. Hussein Obama is a secret Muslim" nonsense, and getting properly excoriated from the left and right alike. Indeed, even Robert Spencer[*] judges the "Obama-Is-Secretly-A-Muslim" rumors to be "a lot of hooey." The attack is backfiring on Clinton, feeding into the "she's ...

Ron Paul – Ralph Nader, Bill Buckley, or Howard Dean?

John Derbyshire and Andrew Sullivan see great similarity's between Ron Paul and a young William F. Buckley, Jr. John Podhoretz and Richard Fernandez, though, see more similarities between Paul and Ralph Nader. Ed Morrissey, meanwhile, thinks he's this years' Howard Dean. To the extent he's following any of those parallels, I'd go with Dean. As Derbyshire notes, Buckley's conservatism ...

Why Lefty Bloggers Are Owed a Living Redux

Susie Madrak, under the attention-grabbing headline "No More Dead Bloggers," laments "the utter injustice of a Democratic political system that is very, very happy to take the money and volunteers the blogosphere sends its way" and yet returns only "Bubkis" to the non-A-listers. There is not even a little doubt in my mind that, if Rittenhouse Review’s Jim Capozzola had remained ...

Patricia Taylor Buckley, RIP

Patricia Taylor Buckley, longtime wife of conservative intellectual leader William F. Buckley, Jr., has died. Patricia Taylor Buckley, who died Sunday at age 80, was a true original and a fixture of New York society for more than four decades. Buckley died at Stamford Hospital in Connecticut of an infection following a long illness, according to a statement from her ...

Media Research Center DisHonors Awards

Last evening, I attended the Media Research Center's 20th Anniversary Gala as a guest of Matt Sheffield of MRC's Newsbusters blog. While the festivities went late into the evening, thanks to not starting the presentation until after everyone had finished dessert and a rather rambling performance by substitute presenter Mary Matalin, it was quite fun. Cal Thomas, Neal Boortz, Herman ...

Buckley Debates Chomsky on American Interventionism

Below is video of a debate between Noam Chomsky and William F. Buckley, Jr. from 1969, presumably on the latter's long running "Firing Line" program about American interventionism, terrorism, and other issues which are still with us. Andrew Sullivan observes wistfully, "There used to be television like this; and people used to watch it." My inclination was to share his ...

Buckley on Webb Sex Scenes

William F. Buckley, Jr.: "The charge by assorted gentry that James Webb is not qualified to serve as a U.S. senator from Virginia because there are lewdnesses in his published fiction rattles one's faith in democracy." Indeed. Of course, anyone who has read any of Buckley's Blackford Oakes spy novels would expect this reaction given the number of explicit sex ...

Is Pat Buchanan Anti-Semitic?

I pose this question to you, dear readers, because John Podhoretz and Glenn Reynolds are charging that he is and site this column in which he calls Israel's action against Hezbollah and Lebanon "un-Christian" as proof. Here's the quotation in its context, plus a little more from the column that I think goes to the question: But what Israel is ...

Iraq War Progress Report: A Matter of Time

Thomas Ricks is embedded with the 101st Airborne in "the forwardmost American position in the so-called Triangle of Death southwest of Baghdad." He has a long page one piece in today's WaPo arguing that the war has gone through three distinct phases and remarkably different that three years ago, substantially better in some ways and worse in others. Several aspects make ...