Not The Smartest Idea
Just a few thoughts on Christopher Buckley’s decision to vote for Obama.
This is his reasoning.
1) John McCain has changed… so he’ll vote for the guy who’s mantra is change? Not to mention the “changes” we’ve seen from Barack Obama. Chris, have you seen Obama’s pandering and “change” on the 2nd Amendment issues?
2) Obama has a first class temperment. Yes, you have to be cool to sit in a pew for 20 years listening to the crap that Jeremiah Wright spewed without every standing up and calling out your pastor. Great temperment… horrific judgment.
3) He’s a Harvard man, and he writes good books. Good books are a matter of opinion, and frankly while I’ve only read The Audacity of Hope I found it to be well-written, but poorly thought out. BTW, McCain’s written a couple of books as well. Perhaps Mr. Buckley could have offered a bit of a book review?
4) Despite the fact that Buckley disagrees with Obama’s policies, Buckley says Obama “surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves.” Really? When do you expect him to begin to realize this? He hasn’t done so to date, and we’re less than a month to go before Election Day.
I’ve seen it said that Christopher Buckley’s decision is evidence of the intellectual class fleeing the GOP. After examining his reasoning, I’m not sure we have much of an intellectual class in this country. I don’t mean that to be overly snarky, but he’s hardly articulated an intellectual argument for voting for Obama. Instead, we get Buckley’s hopes and wishes tied to a guy he hopes will “see the light”.
Jim: For obvious reasons, I’m not eager to unleash a rhetorical shock and awe campaign against the son of the man who founded my employer. I’ll just note that the justification he offered asks us to ignore everything in Obama’s record, everything he is saying, everything he has promised, and the inevitable pressure that would be put upon him by various liberal interest groups and a House and Senate controlled by Democrats by a wide margin.
I’d like to think that if a presidential candidate with a thoroughly conservative record, rated one of the most conservative members of the Senate, who spent his meager career in heavily conservative professions, who campaigned as a conservative in the primaries, who won the endorsement of many conservative groups, who was adored by conservative blogs, and who had campaigned by promising to enact a conservative agenda, and who would be governing with a large Republican majority in Congress… if somebody had said, “hey, don’t worry, he’s really going to be a moderate” I would like to think I would have similar skepticism.