Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Andrew Sullivan caught this one. First, former National Review editor Wick Allison told the New York Times that the National Review had become "the intellectual defender of the Bush administration" and that it had "run out of ideas." Then National Review editor Jonah Goldberg did some damage control:
National Review is not, and has not been, an unalloyed intellectual defender of the Bush administration.
But Sullivan links to this article by one of the National Review's columnists talking about a recent cruise that featured most of the National Review bigwigs and their fans. And he pretty much admits that the magazine had to go easy on Bush time and time again:
I think almost everyone sensed there is something liberating about being in a position of opposition; you no longer have to hold your tongue or take it easy on a figure like Bush, McCain, or congressional leaders because they're "your guys." On every bill, issue, and event that comes down the pike, you can call them as you see them. Third, echoing the earlier point a bit, conservatives have been spared the inevitable pain of living with the bad decisions of a President McCain. No more holding of the nose, no more looking the other way, no more averting one's eyes from the embarrassing out of party or ideological loyalty.
I'd say that speaks volumes. The National Review has fallen a long way. They're losing the few intellectually honest conservatives they had, people like Christopher Buckley, over the treatment of their defections on Sarah Palin. Now they're left with third-rate Rush Limbaugh impersonators like Rich Lowry (assuming his erection has subsided after all those Palin-inspired starbursts when she winked at him on national TV).
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David Frum had already announced his departure, and the NRO Corner is now in a snit about Kathleen Parker's hilarious column about the right's problems with "the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP".
That they are having a difficult time understanding exactly who Parker is referring to, speaks volumes.
I suspect she will be the next one moving house sometime in the next few months.
Posted by: tacitus | November 20, 2008 10:10 AM
Volokh Conspiracy contributors Kerr and Somin fisk a NRO article on Obama's nominee for Attorney General Eric Holder: http://volokh.com/posts/1227121128.shtml
In either that link or one of the related Volokh links embedded within the above link I found an extremely delicious comment. NRO's Editors opine:
A commenter provides a great rebuttal by quoting the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution:
I would hope all AG's would serve as a primary and vocal advocate to the idea of establishing justice. In fact, one would hope they would consistently be one of the most trusted leaders we have in reporting on government efforts to establish justice.
Let us also not forget the NRO supported a Bush administration who had AG Alberto Gonzalez, who treated the President as his legal client and was completely overwhelmed by David Addington, Cheney's legal counsel who was the primary driver for insuring we tortured and illegally spied on people. Where was the NRO then when it came to defending the Constitution and "enforcing" the law?
While the NRO has been taking a lot of heat lately, I find the criticisms way too mild. My primary objection to the NRO is its intellectual dishonesty. I would argue that is because conservatism itself is incapable of properly governing and therefore no good premises exist to build a conservative argument unless the argument is purely abstract and without examples of successful conservative governance.
And of course Ed has published a number of articles fisking inaccurate assertions by NRO, in particular Stanley Kurtz on homosexuality and the legal debate about gay rights.
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 20, 2008 10:39 AM
This reminds me of Rush Limbaugh's 2006 comment: "I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried."
Oddly enough, Limbaugh continues to carry water for the same losers. What are the odds that the National Review people will continue on as before?
Posted by: xebecs | November 20, 2008 10:51 AM
Jonah Goldberg is the asshat who compared Obama's proposals for comunity-service gigs to "slavery," and then pretended to be amused at the "irony" of a black man supporting "slavery." Truly, madly, deeply beyond pathetic. The mere fact that anyone on the far right takes him seriously, speaks volumes about that segment of America's population.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 20, 2008 11:21 AM
Jonah Goldberg is also the chickenhawk who was "too busy" with his own career to join up and go fight the war in Iraq he had been agitating for behind the safety of his keyboard. Unlike some of the others, he was still young enough to sign up for a tour of duty, but proved unable to put his money where his mouth was.
Posted by: tacitus | November 20, 2008 12:28 PM
unalloyed intellectual defender
Correct; it's an alloy of emotional Bush defenders. I expect Jonah to show up with a tub of ice cream and running eyeliner and screaming "LEAVE POOR GEORGE ALONE!!!!" like Chris Crocker.
Posted by: Left_Wing_Fox | November 20, 2008 1:03 PM
Goldberg also seems to be the one who's largely responsible for the weirdly prevalent right-wing myth that fascism was a left-wing ideology, a myth that I've heard parrotted repeatedly by those who lack the mental stamina or muscle strength to pick up one of Ian Kershaw's biographies of Hitler. I'd tell them that the rest of the world refers to such parties as "far right", but they'd only take it as affirmation.
Posted by: Der Bruno Stroszek | November 20, 2008 3:34 PM
Michael Heath, as regards your comments on conservatism:
I wonder if you could define conservatism as you use it here.
M Duran
Posted by: Mark Duran | November 20, 2008 3:43 PM
On the next post down (The 1970s Global Cooling Myth), one of our conservative brethren here criticized (rightly enough) Chris Matthews for "getting a thrill" about Obama and wanting "to help him win."
Do we get the same critique of the National Review's clearly demonstrated bias, or is there some magical difference where the conservative media gets a "bias pass"?
Posted by: James Hanley | November 20, 2008 4:56 PM
Mark Duran queried:
Common characteristics, i.e., actual policy results, of American conservatives when in power. None of these characteristics are shared by those like me who espouse republican principles rather than conservative principles:
Favor certain business interests over economic growth and business in general. (We've seen this repeatedly in horrible stock market performance when they have power; they favor certain interests which overall harms the market except in the best of times, e.g., energy and food).
Favor the interests of the very well off v. policies that would increase median income.
Favor tax cuts over economic policies that would increase after-tax discretionary income even for those in the highest tax brackets (their politicians are not very smart). (This is also why so many people making over $200,000 are now voting for Democrats - the tax rate is one mere factor in the math equation to achieve maximum income.)
Favor progressive taxation over tax reform that promotes economic growth (2005? ('03 or '05, forgot which year) Bush Tax Advisory Council was not even allowed to consider taxation schemes that were not progressive, like the FairTax). I understand some conservatives argue for a flatter taxation rate or the FairTax, but again, I'm talking action vs. rhetoric, which is important to distinguish when referring to conservatives.
Care more about employing conservative-centric policies than optimal policies, e.g., Bush's social security proposal, immigration, and supply side economics being another - the latter having been proven wrong twice now, making it 0 for 2. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to understand how bad Bush's social security proposal was even for young people just starting out and there is no way business could have handled deporting 11 - 17 million people.
Apeallate Judges who will rule to reduce access of individuals and minority groups to the courts to seek redress, especially against businesses and the government itself.
Apeallate Judges who restrict/regulate/prohibit the powers of citizen juries and transfer that power to judges and legislators.
Complete disregard for the reservation of individual rights except a few they support (property rights, gun rights, religious freedom for certain Christians). They instead support forcing "the people" to prove a right in court rather than the government proving they have properly delegated powers to regulate/restrict/prohibit a right. How many times have conservatives in power stated, "the right to an abortion is not found in the Constitution", which is completely bassackwards logic.
The willingness to lie if it helps you win way worse then non-conservatives.
The willingness to characterize yourself as on the side of America's founding ideals when in fact you are the primary group oppossing those ideals and actively working to develop a revisionist history. Social conservatives have now started promoting the idea that they were the ideological group that freed the slaves.
An attack on science and its findings, especially when they threaten not economic growth, but instead their financial constituents (oil, coal) and/or voting constituents (social conservatives on gays, education).
The willingness to pander to their voting constituencies even when the ruling class doesn't share those prejudices (we constantly see this on display when it comes to both abortion and gay rights - in all fairness we see this with the Dems on gay rights as well). This was a primary reason no good Republican candidate was nominated for VP, all the good ones were squishy on abortion rights. Better to have no-nothing liar for VP.
The willingness to deficit spend even when it increases the debt/GDP ratio.
Incredible spendthrifts. Seem to think that you don't need to include defense spending when talking about spending cuts in general when in fact balancing a budget requires consideration of all investments and expenditures.
I could do this for hours, hopefully you get the point.
MarkD - I have a bug up my butt on this subject because after 29 years, I just left the GOP given it's shift to what I see as the extreme right, at least a proto-version of an extreme-right.
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 20, 2008 5:32 PM
Getting excited about a candidate/nominee who you think has the potential to do great things is a far cry from reflexively defending any and all policies someone has made -- no matter how insane, unconsitutional and anti-Conservative they may be -- just because he's got the right party affiliation. The problem isn't having a bias; the problem is being unable/unwilling to see past those biases.
And if a year from now every single policy initiative of Obama's has failed and made America a fundamentally worse place while betraying the core principles he claimed to stand for, and yet DailyKos maintains that Obama can do no wrong, then yes I'm confident Ed and many of the posters here will be equally critical.
Posted by: WScott | November 20, 2008 6:12 PM
Not sure how DailyKos snuck in there, we were talking about Chris Matthews. Sorry. Too much caffeine, or maybe not enough. ;)
Posted by: WScott | November 20, 2008 6:14 PM
Re Chris Mathews. I think Tweety is just a sell out (at best, remember him saying McCain deserves the presidency? Librul Media strikes again!) who has a hard time hiding his latent homosexual urges.
Bush, McCain, Giuliani, Thompson... Next, Obama?
Posted by: tincture | November 21, 2008 12:46 AM
Michael Heath- can I just say how much I LOVE your posts?
When are you going to start your own blog?
"Confessions of an ex-Republican"
Posted by: Rick R | November 21, 2008 3:19 AM