You don't often find such a combination as Buckley's life in today's intellectuals.
Posted on 02/21/2014 9:08:20 PM PST by Sideshow Bob
Well, the elitist establishment (dare I say RINO) editors over at National Review and National Review Online (NRO) have sunk to another new low in their continued attacks on conservatives. It's been bad enough that the NRO stable of writers have been cranking out multiple hit pieces (including 3 in a row from the normally lucid Dr. Thomas Sowell) attacking Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and the House/Senate Tea Party caucus, but NRO is now moving towards silencing conservative criticism of NRO's writers, columns and seminar RINO and libertarian posters.
Don't get me wrong, I like posting and/or commenting on NRO articles here at FreeRepublic. In the past, it was because the NRO article had something new, interesting or important I wanted to share or discuss with other FReepers.
A few years ago NRO added a clunky commenting function to their website and offered a feature that FR didn't have - a like/dislike button (actually, positive/negative). The button allowed NRO readers to express their displeasure at the posting of another commenter. After a while, NRO changed their posting policy to require registration to post a comment or use the negative button.
OK, I wasn't thrilled with losing some of my web "anonymity", but figured NRO - as a conservative website -wouldn't abuse my privacy too badly. Besides, I still liked being able to use that speedy negative button to "shout down" the pinhead RINO's who sometimes trolled over at NRO.
Many people say that National Review has been in decline away from conservatism ever since founder William F. Buckley died. I am inclined to agree. To be sure, the NR/NRO staff is becoming increasingly filled with young elitist East Coast writers from elitist East Coast universities. They might still be Republicans - and Olympia Snowe Republicans at that - or even Libertarians, but their content and editorial slant are increasingly out of step with the conservative grassroots and Tea Partiers. And it's getting really obvious and obnoxious.
First it was NRO's easy acceptance of Juan McCain as the 2008 GOP nominee, then it was their shameless politicking for a Romney candidacy, their quick embrace of Chris Krispy Creme and finally their bizarre condemnation of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Tea Partiers and the government shutdown strategy.
With the clean debt ceiling bill recently passed by Congress you would think that NRO and the GOP Establishment writers would be happy with Ted Cruz and the House/Senate Tea Party Caucus. After all, Ted followed their advice and didn't shut down the federal government again to thwart Obama's continuing attempt to bankrupt the country.
Nope. Now the Establishment is ticked off that Ted & the TPers completely outmanuevered GOPe leadership, turned the tables on Boehner & McConnell and outed them as Obama surrender monkeys. It's taken a few days, but NRO has stepped into the breach and has launched a major offensive against Cruz and the conservative base. Each day for the past week NRO, their writers, their columnists and their editors have escalated their attacks. They want to embarrass Cruz and sway the conservative base back to the "reasonable" leadership of Boehner & McConnell.
The editors started by writing debt ceiling editorials that - just as in the government shutdown last fall - agreed with Cruz & TPers in the House on their conservative position, but criticized their tactics. NRO writers next move to writing puff pieces extolling Boehner's & McConnell's bravery in taking an adult position in passing a clean debt ceiling bill.
To NRO's shock and disbelief, their conservative readers are mixed in between seething anger and sneering, scoffing laughter at the positions and opinions of NRO, Mitch McTurtle, John Boehner, the rest of the GOPe circus and the Establishment RINO seminar posters on their website.
How can this be? Mitch & John are the GOP leaders, NR is the foremost opinion-leading conservative magazine (or so they think). They are confused why the conservative base isn't listening to them.
So the RINO Establishment media step up their game. Byron York (a former NR editor), Mona Charen, Ann Coulter and others sharpen their attacks on Cruz. As noted above, even Dr. Thomas Sowell writes 3 consecutive columns attacking Cruz. Their new storyline - Cruz is selfish and ego-driven. That's why Cruz forced poor Mitch & Assistant Senate Minority Leader John Cornyn to cloture vote in favor of raising America's insane amount of debt. Even worse, they argue, that self-serving Cruz is going to singlehandedly cause the GOP to blow their chance at regaining the Senate majority in November.
But this lie doesn't work either.
The NRO comments on these columns and editorials blow up from the normal handful of comments to HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of comments that are FURIOUS with the NRO, the GOPe, Charen, Coulter and especially Sowell. While it can't be proven, there appears to be an increase in the number of seminar Establishment posters (perhaps NRO staffers?) attempting to combat the reaction of NRO's conservative readership. But it doesn't help. These seminar NRO posters are getting crushed in thread debates and are being hammered with the speedy negative button.
Now perhaps it's just a coincidence, but in the midst of this conservative Tea Party commenting pushback NRO changed their policy regarding the negative button without fanfare. Readers even need to follow a hidden link to learn that NRO will no longer display the running count of users of the negative button. They claim that they will still maintain a negative count internally, but just won't display that to their readers. This gives their readers a false appearance that any debate within their story threads is balanced.
The good news for Free Republic is that more FReepers will abandon NRO's commenting feature and bring their discussion and debate of NRO materials to this website. It's hard not to interpret NRO's policy change as an attempt to diminish and control Tea Party conservative pushback against GOPe messaging. It's also very sad and ironic for NRO to be moving toward silencing conservatives during the same week that NRO pontificates against FCC's plans to censor news and media.
Still, here
HAHAHA
What’s this talk of homework? I don’t have any homework! I swear! ;d
I hate this change on discuss, I LOVE thumbs downing people’s replies. I wish I could do it here!
It sounds like my minutes are numbered here now/.
And yes it’s every website that uses disqus for comments so the “editors of NRO” are not doing it in a nefarious plot to “shield the establishment” or whatever nonsense the OP suggests.
Conservative comments attacking “Commentary” bloggers Jonathan Tobin and Peter Wehner became so numerous, and so vicious, that “Commentary” has completely blocked ALL comments.
maybe we can call them up twinkles and down twinkles
And trust me, they don’t care. You are baggage.
As you see with every form of print and most forms of TV/online media, readership is expendable. Government and wealthy libs will find the cash to replace advertizing. When that runs out, they will simply shuffle deck chairs and find new suckers to fund them Carlos Slim, Soros, Barack Obama...
Agenda is everything. The average non lib is an impediment. Most people hear that and might even believe it. But they don’t really “Believe it”. In the back of their sensical mind they thing that no, A media outlet needs readers and advertizers.
Wrong. If that was the case, Newsweek, sold for a dollar, would have been out of biz LONG before the dollar changed hands. But it went on for over a year...thanks to lib funding.
Personally I think the whole newsroom monitor plan is just another way to launder cash to failing media outlets. Among the obvious other things. I would bet the govt would pay for their placement before all was said and done in order to ‘ensure a smooth transition’.
Several of their writers - Jonathan Tobin and Peter Wehner specifically - are so far Left on so many political issues that Conservative readers attacked them relentlessly.
Their editor, John Podhoretz, is actually a refugee from National Review.
Podhoretz, who avidly supported the Bush-McCain Amnesty in 2005-2006, quit NRO in a rage when dozens of traditional Conservative readers (like me) attacked him.
Little did we know that NRO editor Rich Lowry would support Amnesty just a few years later and fire John Derbyshire for stating the obvious.
You don't often find such a combination as Buckley's life in today's intellectuals.
I agree with you, and think your post captures it.
He isn’t displaying anything flaky or strange, or any flaws that I have seen, he is playing his hand well and building strength, and expanding the base.
He seems to be a sincere man who knows what he is doing, and has the mind that can handle the challenges facing a “genetic” conservative, which is what I think of as a ‘natural born’ conservative, it is who they really are.
bookmark for later
This is an excellent, very well written article, Bob. Thanks. It demonstrates the difference between NRO and FR, and again highlights the wisdom of Jim Robinson in refusing to accept outside and/or advertising money to fund this site.
Whoever funds you influences you, and in some case, they own you.
I've always had somewhat mixed feelings about Buckley's Conservatism.
However, he discovered and employed some of the greatest unelected Conservatives in the world.
William Rusher, NR publisher for 30 years, is one of the greatest untold stories ever in Conservative history.
John O’Sullivan was unquestionably the best NR editor ever.
During O’Sullivan’s years in the 90’s, my heart rate would actually go up when I opened a new copy of NR.
But, O’Sullivan was purged in 1997, when Buckley decided to throw the dice with Rich Lowry.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page began falling apart, too, around ‘94-'95, when David Brooks and Paul Gigot got editorial positions.
In fact, they think you (readers) are a moron.
Who, What, Where, When and Why. Nothing more....just the news as it actually happened.
By the way, there are no 0’s (Opinions) in those W’s. However, their reporting only consists of O’s.
I pretty much agree with you and admire your memory and what I think is your accuracy.
I think I came from a different type childhood than you, yet William F Buckley reached many of us, as long as we could see him on Firing Line, or go to the library to find out who this guy was.
Even in the late 1960s, I could sit around with my hippie friends and we could express wonder at WMB and his knowledge and how he was always right, and of course Ayn Rand who’s books gave me much of the power of philosophy that I needed during that era.
They've been showing up on FR as well.
Thanks zeestephen!
I can understand that managing comments can be a pain. Heck, I’m a member (or whatever you call it) of a facebook page “Black Cats are Good Luck” (I think that’s it) which is dedicated to refuting the myth that black cats are bad luck.
Obviously it has a lot of cute pictures of black cats, but they are not “racists”, they have lots of cute pictures of other color cats too.
The page is set up so anyone can post to it. And several times the administrator has warned people not to post pictures of injured or suffering kitties. She says: we support all efforts to end animal suffering, but that is not the purpose of this page and our members find these pictures disturbing.
So, that is just a silly facebook page about cats and they have problems.
But I never have too much respect for a publication that won’t take, or reveal, criticism of itself.
There was a men’s mag hubby used to get (I can’t remember if it was Esquire or GQ) and every letter to the editor they printed was about how *wonderful* they were. It was pretty girly-girlish for a magazine aimed at men.
Thanks to Rush I discovered American Thinker. I haven’t looked back since.
In these trying days of seeming disintegration, patriots need to keep firmly in mind that in 1776 only ~25% of our fledgling nation were vocal supporters of the cause of Liberty.
Of the rest, ~25% were active collaborators in support of the King and his 'royal' hubris, while the remaining 50% were merely fence-sitters, hoping for a 'safe' indication of wind direction,
while being fully prepared, in their milquetoast souls, to remain subjects of an increasingly dictatorial regime should it seem to have the unbeatable hand.
The problem with fence-sitting, both instantly and historically, is that while one's carcass may in fact 'survive' the conflict, it's most often at the cost of the castration of one's integrity.
Yet 'life' as a eunuch seems to be what many of the right's squishy middle are choosing, to the eternal shame of any honor they may have once possessed.
On the eve of Trenton, Washington's command had been reduced to a mere 1,500 tattered and exhausted men, leaving bloody frostbitten footprints in the snow.
And yet, from the momentum change wrought by George's plan and his mens' courage, our nascent Republic had a fighting chance.
Appeasement of today's evil bøstards will win the collaborators nothing but chains and dishonor.
For our Founders' legacy to survive, only unyielding defiance and resolve will suffice.
This is our Trenton moment.
Free men don't kneel.
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