This just in
"This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse."
Wow, who wrote that, Karl Marx? Sean Penn? Keith Olberman?
No, it’s Wick Allison, ex-publisher of the National Review. You may read the rest of his endorsement of Obama here. If there were more conservative voices like this I might actually have some respect for them.
That’s very interesting.
Will it take, though?
I hope it takes with my father. I told my mother she should give him that article to read. He’s fiscally conservative, which I’m okay with; what I’m not okay with is that he seems to believe the Republicans are, too.
If it gains traction, it may be very interesting (not to mention disturbing) to see how the current Republican establishment reacts to it.
Once I would have thought it would be a pretty devastating hit for a disciple of William F Buckley to defect to the other side this way; but I somehow doubt that many Palin (oh, sorry, McCain) supporters are big readers of National Review.
WFB was full of surprised, like when he came out for drug legalization in the 1980s (the height of Just Say No) and finally admitted the Iraq War was a mistake. But NR since he retired is only slightly more thoughtful than Bill Kristol’s neocon house organ, The Weekly Standard.
AND I learned a new word. profligacy
That’s a good essay and a good outline of the kind of conservatism I support, but I do have to wonder about one line:
“Conservatism to me is less a political philosophy than a stance, a recognition of the fallibility of man and of man’s institutions.”
Very true, but I don’t see Obama necessarily agreeing with that. Maybe that’s how he’d govern in practice, but his soaring rhetoric seems to imply more that Obama believes in the perfectibility of people and institutions.
As a panty-waisted liberal rasied by a liberal father, I approve of this news. Now I’ll go back to listening to old Midnight Oil albums.
“this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man”
Unfortunately, too many people see those qualities as “elitist” and the National Review writers (and readers) who extol them as “intellectuals” (read “faggots”). Instead, they’re prepared to vote for a pair of Yosemite Sams.
–Ed.