Big Conservative backs Obama

[WandyWiolentFan]

Christopher Buckley[columnist for the conservative National Review], the son of the late conservative icon William F. Buckley, said Friday he's decided to back Barack Obama's White House bid, the first time in his life he will vote Democrat.

Buckley, who praised McCain in a New York Times Op-Ed earlier this year and defended the Arizona senator's conservative credentials against wary talk-radio hosts, said McCain is no longer the “real” and “unconventional” man he once admired.

"This campaign has changed John McCain," Buckley wrote. "It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget 'by the end of my first term.' Who, really, believes that?

"Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis," Buckley added. "His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?"

But Buckley made clear he's not just voting against McCain, praising Obama for his "first-class temperament and first-class intellect."

"Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy 'We are the people we have been waiting for' silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for," Buckley wrote.

...

"So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America."

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - A Buckley endorses Obama « - Blogs from CNN.com

[InternetHero]

Interesting, but there is some irony here.

A few months ago he was telling the more right-wing members of the Republican establishment to cease fire over their criticism of McCain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/op...19buckley.html

"It may strike some conservatives today as odd, if not absurd, to see John McCain being subjected to an auto-da-fé conducted by such Torquemadas of the right as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity."

"In response, let me offer a thoughtful, considered, carefully worded comment: Would you all please just...shut...up?"

Of course in politics you can change your mind, but for him to do a complete 180 in a few months time and endorse Obama, and really equally ironic that the Limbaugh's of the world have jumped behind McCain.

[WandyWiolentFan]

Originally Posted by InternetHero

Interesting, but there is some irony here.

A few months ago he was telling the more right-wing members of the Republican establishment to cease fire over their criticism of McCain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/op...19buckley.html

"It may strike some conservatives today as odd, if not absurd, to see John McCain being subjected to an auto-da-fé conducted by such Torquemadas of the right as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity."

"In response, let me offer a thoughtful, considered, carefully worded comment: Would you all please just...shut...up?"

Of course in politics you can change your mind, but for him to do a complete 180 in a few months time and endorse Obama, and really equally ironic that the Limbaugh's of the world have jumped behind McCain.

here is a snippet from his article

“As I warned the world in my last column...”—a highly favorable Op-Ed about McCain, taking Rush Limbaugh and the others in the Right Wing Sanhedrin to task for going after McCain for being insufficiently conservative. I don’t—still—doubt that McCain’s instincts remain fundamentally conservative. But the problem is otherwise.

Here is the full article
Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama - The Daily Beast

Originally Posted by InternetHero

Of course in politics you can change your mind, but for him to do a complete 180 in a few months time and endorse Obama, and really equally ironic that the Limbaugh's of the world have jumped behind McCain.

It is.

[DrSatanDracula]

I hope that his father's ghost steals his soul and eats it.

What a traitor.

[InternetHero]

Originally Posted by WandyWiolentFan

here is a snippet from his article

“As I warned the world in my last column...”—a highly favorable Op-Ed about McCain, taking Rush Limbaugh and the others in the Right Wing Sanhedrin to task for going after McCain for being insufficiently conservative. I don’t—still—doubt that McCain’s instincts remain fundamentally conservative. But the problem is otherwise.

Here is the full article
Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama - The Daily Beast



It is.

My personal opinion is that Buckley Super Junior (TM) is misreading McCain's needed appeal to the base as a political switch for notoriety, but, he may well be legit, especially considering the Palin debacle.

[WandyWiolentFan]

Originally Posted by DrSatanDracula

I hope that his father's ghost steals his soul and eats it.

What a traitor.

“It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup [sic] are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance," - Christopher Buckley

But just remember DSD, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America.

[Hutchy]

I believe the Palin nomination in all its cynical vote-grubbing glory probably sealed the deal on this one.

[pittelp]

Impressive.

[sodapopinski]

I've leaned toward voting for McCain a few times, but then John will go and say something incredibly stupid. So although I'm not sure who I'm going to vote for, I understand Christopher's reasoning.

[Tom Kazanski]

I'll most likely be voting Libertarian, but I've thought about the idea of voting for Obama to show the Republicans that they have indeeed lost my conservative vote.