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March 08, 2009
Buckley Tries, Fails to Explain His Vote for Obama
I've got to say, I almost feel sorry for Christopher Buckley at this point. Almost.
So much for my secular prayers. Maybe I should have tried the old-fashioned kind instead. For now, he is raising taxes and proposing Brobdingnagian government spending and expansion. It would thus seem that I was wrong about him.A sudden attack of intellectual honesty? A sincere mea culpa?
No.
Our choice, last fall, was between an angry 73 year old with a legislative record far from consistently conservative, who nominated as his running mate a know-nothing religious extremist; on the other side was an appealing, thoughtful man who--for a brief shining moment--seemed to be more than the sum of his ideological parts.Take a moment to ponder what Buckley is saying. He thinks Obama is ruining the economy, but so thorough is his disdain for McCain and Palin (well, mostly Palin) that he would vote for the president again. Hermit Dave, commenting at doubleplusundead (where I found the link to this article), I think has the right take - in the end, Buckley seemed to trust Obama more because the president was 'his kind of people.'If I had to vote all over again, I'd pull the same lever.
In the post-election and inauguration foodfight that's broken out among Republicans, the conservative base has been accused of being 'anti-intellectual' for rejecting the Buckleys and David Frums. The question I have yet to see the critics answer, though, is why should the so-called intellectuals who were wrong about Obama lead those who saw right through his facade?
I like Buckley's books quite a bit, and if he keeps writing at the level of "Thank You for Smoking" and "Little Green Men," I'll keep reading them. But then again, I don't need to respect those whom I look to for entertainment.
Posted by slublog at March 8, 2009 11:37 PM
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Comments
"But then again, I don't need to respect those whom I look to for entertainment."
amen, I continue to re-watch the Bourne Trilogy even though I think Matt Damon is an blowhard idiot who should just shut his face and do what he does best, act.
Posted by: coldmexican at March 9, 2009 09:55 PM
I'm afraid a lot of people in this election crossed their fingers on one hand while they pulled the lever with the other. The significant difference being that Obama voters effectively put our nation in peril of becoming a socialist society, by electing a teleprompter-dependent, jug-eared, empty suit whose only talent was being a good campaigner. Yeah, I know McCain was no Prince Charming. But he wouldn't have been the incompetent whack-job Obama has turned out to be, either.
Posted by: bustoff at March 10, 2009 02:33 AM
The Iraq War led to Socialism.
"The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.
"The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said.
That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-2703,00.html
Posted by: Jay at March 16, 2009 11:50 PM