Tag Archives: William F. Buckley

national news

Et, tu … National Review?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

William F. Buckley, the late, great iconic conservative thinker, surely would be proud of the publication he founded.

It has called on Donald Trump, the nation’s lame-duck president, to cease his “petulant refusal” to accept Joe Biden’s election as president. The magazine wants Trump to exit the White House quietly and leave the task of governing to the man who thumped him in the Nov. 3 presidential election.

The National Review — which Buckley founded in 1955 — published an editorial calling on Trump to throw in the towel.

“There are legitimate issues to consider after the 2020 vote about the security of mail-in ballots and the process of counting votes (some jurisdictions, bizarrely, take weeks to complete their initial count), but make no mistake: The chief driver of the post-election contention of the past several weeks is the petulant refusal of one man to accept the verdict of the American people,” the editorial said. “The Trump team (and much of the GOP) is working backwards, desperately trying to find something, anything to support the president’s aggrieved feelings, rather than objectively considering the evidence and reacting as warranted.”

There you have it. A legitimate, conservative publication founded on legitimate conservative principles has called on a phony conservative — the 45th president of the United States — to pack it in.

William Buckley would be a happy man.

media news, national news, political news

When did National Review become a GOP pariah?

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I’m puzzled.

I’ve always thought that the National Review was seen as the “bible” of conservative thought. The magazine founded by the late, great William F. Buckley was the go-to publication for conservatives to get their view distributed among the masses.

The National Review was the magazine to read.

What in the name of all that is holy is happening?

The Republican National Committee has cut the National Review out of its debate participation. GOP presidential frontrunner calls the magazine a “failing” publication.

Times are changing, yes?

William Buckley might not recognize what’s happening these days to the conservative movement.

Or that his once-revered publication has been shoved aside. There once was a time when thoughtful conservative leaders would occupy the platform that the National Review provided. They would offer their policy views on this or that issue.

Conservatives would embrace them; liberals might not join in the group hug, but they would at least consider the argument made, if only to shore up their own bias.

We have not entered a new age of wisdom when we toss aside thoughtfulness in favor of anger and shoot-from-the-hip talk-show rhetoric.

Mr. Buckley, wherever you are, I wish you were around to talk some sense into these guys who have redefined the conservative movement you once led.

 

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Can’t get past this Beatles glow

For the life of me I think I need someone to intervene.

I cannot get past this Beatles glow in the wake of the Sunday night tribute that celebrated the 50th anniversary since The Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

The link attached here contains some scathing reviews written just as The Beatles began taking the world by storm.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-beatles-quotes-20140209,0,1146431.story?page=1&utm_medium=social#axzz2syCGq3FX

I take one thing away from these blistering comments: The elders should have listened to their children, rather than the other way around.

Consider this gem from the late great William F. Buckley, published on Sept. 13, 1964 in the Boston Globe:

“The Beatles are not merely awful; I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are god awful. They are so unbelievably horribly, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music, even as the imposter popes went down in history as ‘anti-popes.'”

Oops, sorry Mr. Buckley, wherever you are.

There are moments in our lives when we remember where we were and what we were doing at historically significant moments: The Apollo 11 moon landing, JFK’s assassination, RFK’s murder, the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, 9/11? I recall vividly where I when all those events occurred. The moment I first laid eyes on the girl I would marry, my wedding day, the birth of my sons or the birth of my granddaughter? I can recount those moments in equally vivid detail.

I also remember the first time I heard what I consider The Beatles’ greatest song, “Hey Jude.” I was in U.S. Army basic training at Fort Lewis, Wash. in the late summer of 1968. I placed my transistor radio on my bunk, turned it on and listened to that legendary ending of a song I never before had heard. You know, the “nah, nah, nah” riff. I turned to someone and asked, “Is that The Beatles?”

It was.

That describes the impact these guys’ music had on me.

The old folks way back in 1964 had it wrong. We young people had it right.