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.
