Christopher Buckley Endorses Obama

A number of moderate Republicans have been unhappy with the conduct of the McCain campaign and have been jumping ship. Now even conservatives are bailing but the rudest shock of all is Christopher Buckley endorsing Barack Obama. Yes, that Christopher Buckley, the one whose father founded the National Review and Young Americans for Freedom. William F. Buckley was called the father of the modern conservative movement.

But his off spring just resigned from the National Review. Here's how he describes it, in this Wall Street Journal report.

In a column today entitled “Sorry, Dad, I was Sacked”on http://www.thedailybeast.com/, Christopher Buckley, a well-known author who also who wrote the back page column for National Review magazine, writes that the uproar over his endorsement last week of Obama over Republican John McCain prompted so much backlash that he offered his resignation—and the magazine accepted.

“This offer was accepted—rather briskly! —by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal,” Buckley writes, although the title of the column suggesting he was “sacked” is a little misleading since he did offer his resignation.

Buckley endorsed Obama last Friday on www.TheDailyBeast.com–not in the National Review’s editorial pages–in a column called, “Sorry, Dad, I’m Voting for Obama” he praised the Illinois senator for “having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect” while opining that McCain has taken “a once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget ‘by the end of my first term.’ Who, really, believes that?”

Buckley remains a conservative and is criticizing McCain from the right. But it's not an ideological criticism. He's not saying that McCain isn't ideologically pure enough. Just the opposite. In his criticism, Buckley points out that his father endorsed liberals such as the late Allard Lowenstein, a liberal congressman from New York, and Joe Lieberman, when Buckley senior felt they were the better candidates.

Looks like the son is following in some pretty principled foot steps. He basically enumerates his unhappiness with John McCain and explains why he believes Barack Obama is the better man for the job.