Albion, this is not vanity. This should be posted as a Freeper editorial.
Another example of why Free Republic Commentary of The Day should be a sub website, devoted to getting written pieces such as this out into the public.
We daily link to website articles far inferior to this, and it’s a shame. We have such fine minds and talent here!
Excellent work!
Awesome and well written.
This sums up the Cruz supporters:
needed to be robustly defended by intellectual Constitutionalism
There's a time for heady debates about the Constitution. A Presidential campaign isn't one. Not bashing Cruz, I love the guy, but he won't win.
NR got it exactly right.
bookmark
Well done!
BTTT
This is the biggest pile of bullshit ever to appear on Free Republic.
On the other hand, given where WFB Jr. was in the last years of his life, I wouldn't necessarily assume he'd be that enthusiastic about Ted Cruz either.
So I'm not sure that the current crew betrayed Buckley's legacy. Where they are now has something to do with the malaise that he was in in his last years. Buckley was pretty disillusioned in his last years. For one thing, he wasn't as confident about the Iraq War as his associates at the magazine were.
He also didn't have the fight in him that he once did. It seemed like the good fight and the hard work of getting a movement started were in the past. It was clear that he couldn't go on forever, but just what to do and where conservatism should go in the future were unclear.
Buckley would probably have rejected Trump, as he did in his 2000 article, but for outsiders -- people who aren't movement conservatives or Buckley's ideological associates -- Trump 2016 looks a lot like Buckley for mayor 1965, an eccentric millionaire with controversial ideas making a big splash in the political pond.
You could see a tension in Buckley between the thinker who valued intellectual depth and consistency, and the provocateur who wanted to shake things up and bring about change, and that conflict is still alive today, even after WFB Jr. has passed from the scene.
Masterful expedition Albion Wilde!
All this baloney about “the establishment supports Trump” is completely debunked and the opposite confirmed by National Review. They are RINO, GOPe, elite establishment. And they HATE Trump. Now, that’s logical and true, and CONSISTENT (I like consistency) despite the cognitive dissonance of those who want to say Trump is supported by the GOPe or they prefer him over Cruz. That’s a smoke screen and a false meme that’s been sown and spread about online.
.
Time to pass out Preparation H.
You hit the nail on the head. I’ve not been a fan of the National Review for a while and after this latest screed against Trump I really doubt I ever will be again. Its like some of the crap coming out of Glenn Beck comparing Trump to Hitler as if conservatism is incompatible with populism and nationalism (loving ones country and wanting it to win).
Sure Trump has held various positions but that didn’t bother these folks when it was Romney coming late to the prolife cause or when he supported Cap and Trade and then didn’t. They weren’t even concerned that choosing someone who laid the foundations of state run healthcare in Romneycare would be a problem after 2010 and the Democrat rout over Obamacare. That I suppose was different. The only difference I see is one of demeanor and desire to win.
Romney didn’t always win when he worked at Bain Capital many of the businesses Bain tried to rescue ultimately failed yet these same people who attack Trump who has built a worldwide business empire with wealth rivaling Romney many times over is derided as a mere celebrity. I suppose to be respected by the national review and Glenn Beck pukes you have to look like a Mormon super man and just take a beating from Democrats.
I remember how many of them made excuses for Romney saying that he had to take certain policy positions to be elected in a Blue state and that it was understandable that he shifted his positions. I suppose Trump shifting from being a business man with a business based in a blue state doesn’t deserve the same consideration given how leftists like to target and shut down those they see as politically incompatible? I think that Trump surely deserves the same respect.
The part I think really offends those at the National Review is that Trump in the months since launching his campaign has totally taken over the direction of the party.
He immediately killed out the gate any ideas of comprehensive immigration reform and all anyone talks about now is a wall. He destroyed any hope of the goals of the Chamber of Commerce who for a while behaved as if it were in control of the United States Congress not the people who voted Republicans into power. Trump also has did what no conservative since Reagan has done. He took on the media and he has repeatedly won.
Trump’s campaign is the only campaign solely focused on issues that put the interests of the American citizen first economically and culturally. If making sure that Americans aren’t replaced by foreign labor, that manufacturing and other business stay in America, isn’t invaded by illegals, and isn’t culturally over run by those who embrace sharia law isn’t conservative then what exactly is conservatism?
I’m personally tired of a conservatism that behaves as if it has something to be ashamed of and these failures and hypocrites at the National Review and Glenn Beck are really pathetic. The one thing I’m certain of is that they are more the problem than anything Trump is doing. Trump is packing crowds of thousands excited to Make America Great again for Americans. Those who can not see the good in this I am torn between feeling bad for them and see them as absolute traitors to this nation who really have never intended to win. Hell they don’t even know what it means. I suppose they just intended to live out their lives get paid like leeches feeding off a dying nation.
"Robust poll numbers?? Overwhelming Viability???"
What are you smoking?
In poll after poll, Trump does WORSE, much WORSE against Hillary and Sanders than Cruz, Rubio, or Carson!! Don't be lazy, look it up!
The Trump people seem to want a fire-breathing candidate so they can vent during the election year, the rest of us want A CONSERVATIVE IN THE WHITE HOUSE and it is why we're deeply worried about Donald's FEEBLENESS in the polls (in which Trump's people have so much faith) against the Democrats.
“Few of today’s regular contributors except perhaps for Dennis Prager”
Well there’s part of the problem. Dennis knows that he is a 1960s Cold War liberal and for years he used to correct his listeners who insisted that he is a conservative.
He’s not, never was. He’s a liberal who is friendly with conservatives. The problem with National Review is that it is loaded with old style liberals masquerading as conservatives. It laughingly publishes Charles Krauthammer, who was helping Walter Mondale try to defeat Ronald Reagan’s second term.
Didn’t his liberal son take over? Hook a turbine up to Williams’s grave. He can power the Eastern seaboard for a couple of generations.
The National Review could have put out a manefesto against communism, crony capitalism, globalism, the new world order or against the attack on the 2nd Amendment.
Oh no they put out one against Trump. Just think they are on the side of Karl a Rove, Bill Chrystal and Glenn Beck.
You write better than most of the stuff out there. Bravo. And, Go TRUMP!
National Review isn’t aimed at populists nor the Establishment. They upheld Buckley’s legacy; they have the same POV Brent Bozell III, nephew of WFB.
The National Review wants Jeb.
If you looked at the Drudge Poll. The bottom two were Jeb and Hillary.
That’s a 100% rejection of the Establishment top 2 Primary candidates.