Son of a Buckley

I'm just making a quick post on something I read today. For those new to the political scene, there was this guy named William F. Buckley, who was the very definition of conservative. I am sure there are statues of this guy somewhere, even if they probably deserve to the be spray-painted over. But he was in favor of legalizing all drugs (how about that from a conservative?) because he thought the War on Drugs was a complete joke (ummm, no kidding).

Anyway, he also founded the National Review, a super-conservative magazine, in 1955. His son, Christopher, is a columnist for them and a new figurehead for the conservative movement.

Well, he's updating his resume.

You see, he decided that McCain is running a moron's campaign and that Palin is the biggest joke of a VP nom in history. Not modern history, mind you. But history in its entirety. So making a well-informed and logical judgment, he decided to write a column for The Daily Beast explaining that he's voting for Obama.

You can imagine what happened next.

After receiving the full brunt of hellfire and brimstone from the right, he resigned his column from the magazine his frickin dad founded. Luckily for us curious folk, he wrote a follow-up explaining the whole thing, which is really quite sad that he had to abandon a job all because of an opinion that didn't meet the status quo of his party. I even checked out the comments section of the original posts, and there is some scary stuff out there, and some beyond-stupid people who i am ashamed to see can functionally use a computer and type out this stuff.

I can easily imagine liberals doing the same to their own, which is sad, and just another reminder to me how fractured this country has become, and how impossible it seems for progress to ever move in this city and this nation. When a mainstay of the conservative movement can't even share an open opinion without being threatened with his own life, what do you do?