Friday, October 10, 2008

Buckley for 'Bama!


Spiderweb
Originally uploaded by paynehollow
No, not the late William F. Buckley, but his son, Christopher Buckley, is the latest conservative to not only reject McCain/Palin but gone on so far as to endorse Obama!...

I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets.

On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.

But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.

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.

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.

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Wow. How about that?

3 comments:

Kellie said...

"President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves."

So if Obama doesnt do what he has been doing all along then we are fine. Yeah I will agree with that.

The people pulling the strings in Chicago and Fanny/Freddie might have different ideas.

Geoffrey Kruse-Safford said...

Christopher Buckley is prophetic enough to note, in his own words, that his endorsement is of interest because of his name and family connections. Yet the strength of the argument he makes is profound. I read it yesterday and was more than surprised; a serious conservative, with libertarian leanings on some issues, sees clearly through the murk and mire of recent conservative rhetoric and discovers, lo and behold, that the standard bearer for contemporary conservatism is bereft of any serious argument for his own ascension to the highest office in the land.

As to Kellie's comment, I'm not even sure what to make of it.

Dan Trabue said...

Yeah, me either.

But welcome to Payne Hollow, Kellie.