November 17, 2008 /

The National Review – A Sinking Ship?

Ironic that this comes just days after that National Review’s little cruise ended (I guess shit does float!). The NYTimes is reporting about the problems happening at the printed voice of neo-con thinking: In a span of 252 days, the National Review lost two Buckleys — one to death, another to resignation — and an […]

cptFrum

cptFrum Ironic that this comes just days after that National Review’s little cruise ended (I guess shit does float!). The NYTimes is reporting about the problems happening at the printed voice of neo-con thinking:

In a span of 252 days, the National Review lost two Buckleys — one to death, another to resignation — and an election.

Now, thanks to the coarsening effect of the Internet on political discourse, the magazine may have lost something else: its reputation as the cradle for conservative intellectuals and home for erudite and well-mannered debate prized by its founder, the late William F. Buckley Jr.

In the general conservative blogosphere and in The Corner, National Review’s popular blog, the tenor of debate — particularly as it related to the fitness of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska to be vice president — devolved into open nastiness during the campaign season, laying bare debates among conservatives that in a pre-Internet age may have been kept behind closed doors.

And not only that, but they are now losing another one of their big voices:

Now David Frum, a prominent conservative writer who enmeshed himself in a minor dustup during the campaign by turning negative on Governor Palin, is leaving, too. In an interview, he said he planned to leave the magazine, where he writes a popular blog, to strike out on his own on the Web.

I guess their little cruise wasn’t exactly the Love Boat.

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