Buckley On Why He Left

Echoing the sentiments those who champion small government and intellectual honestly, Christopher Buckley writes about leaving the National Review:

William F. Buckley held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much...

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Olbermann: Special Comment On McCain Campaign

Text:

And this is where the satire ends and the Special Comment begins. Because this is not even remotely funny.

1:25 p.m. Eastern Time, today, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. During the warm-up act by a red meat Congressional candidate aptly named Chris Hackett, Hackett mentions Obama and a Palin audience member shouts, “Kill Him.”
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And Gov. Palin, as usual, does nothing about it; says nothing to these thugs and psychos. She may not have heard this one. It is impossible to believe that by now she has not heard about the other ones. Her silence is deafening. Just as, Senator McCain, you have done nothing when violence has been asserted. Correction. You have done one thing.

Asked why, in real time, you do not repudiate this hatefulness, you act as if you are the victim. Speaking today to our NBC Station in Washington:

McCain: “Sure and I repudiated it as I have on several occasions. Unfortunately, Congressman John Lewis is an American hero who I admire who made the worst, most unacceptable statement a couple days ago that I have ever heard. He accused me and Sarah Palin of being involved in segregation, George Wallace and even made reference to a church bombing where children were killed. Senator Obama has not repudiated that statement. Senator Obama should do so immediately. Its the most outrageous thing that I have heard since in politics…it is disgraceful.”

Disgraceful?

Obviously, Senator, you haven’t heard your own speeches, and Gov. Palin’s, and what people shout during them. And you haven’t heard your state GOP Chair in Virginia, Jeffrey Frederick, giving talking points to 30 of your field-operatives heading out to canvass voters in Gainesville, Virginia, with a reporter present, telling them to try to forge a connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden to emphasize bombings and terrorism. And you haven’t heard those volunteers, your volunteers Sen. McCain, shout back, “And he won’t salute the flag” and “We don’t even know where Sen. Obama was really born.”

Sen. McCain, these people are speaking for you! And how dare you try to claim Congressman Lewis was linking you to Gov. George Wallace’s segregation? He was linking you, aptly, to Gov. George Wallace’s lynch-mob mentality.

“As public figures with the power to influence and persuade,” said Congressman Lewis, “Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all.”

Sen. McCain, your supporters, at your events, are calling Obama a terrorist and traitor and are calling for him to be killed. And yet you keep bringing back these same rabid Right Wing nuts to deliberately stir these crowds into frenzies. And then you take offense when somebody who remembers the violence in our political past, calls you on it. You, sir, are responsible for a phalanx of individuals who are shouting fire in a crowded theater.

There are some things to respect and honor about you, Sen. McCain, but on this you’re not only a fraud, Senator, but you are tacitly inciting lunatics to violence. If you want to again grand-stand and suspend your campaign here’s your big chance. Suspend your campaign now, until you, or somebody else, gets some control over it and it ceases to be a clear and present danger to the peace of this nation.

McCain Should Read A Newspaper

McCain in an interview yesterday with CNN:

This crisis, this conflagration, was ignited by the housing crisis. And it was Fannie and Freddie, and Wall Street, and corruption -- or certainly cronyism in Washington, D.C. that caused it.

But private sector loans that caused the crisis, with no evidence of corruption or cronyism to be found. These being facts they obviously get in the way of McCain's fictional narrative, but they ought not get in the way of journalists, who seem constitutionally unable to ask follow-up questions when politicians lie to their faces.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Lord's Work

The National Enquirer Washington Post has the skinny on Joe Biden's forehead. Consensus seems to be Botox.

Media Waking Up

When even David Broder thinks McCain is done in Pennsylvania, McCain is done in Pennsylvania.

Word

EJ Dionne on McCain and the raging right:

McCain has an obligation, to his own legacy and the country he has served, to separate himself and his campaign from the kooks. Extremism in defense of liberty may be no vice, but extremism in pursuit of the presidency is as dysfunctional as it is degrading.

Palin Keeps Lying, Media Takes Notice

Remember the first finding in the Troopergate report? Here it is just in case you forgot:

Governor Sarah Palin abused her power as Governor in that her conduct violated AS 39.52.110(a) of the Ethics Act, which provides "The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust."

So on MSNBC this afternoon, Andrea Mitchell asked Palin campaign spokeswoman Meg Stapleton if Palin was overstating her innocence when she said she did nothing unethical or unlawful. A fair question, given that the first finding of the report clearly states that Palin acted unethically and violated the Ethics Act (which is a law). Stapleton's response?

“This Governor did nothing wrong and did nothing unlawful.”

Monday, October 13, 2008