Comments on: They don’t call him the father of the conservative movement for nothing!

By: George Johnston

George Johnston — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 13:45:06 +0000

This could be quite a debate. For example, unruly children are still more cooperative than cats so while different the experience of making them mind is alike. Likewise, Nixon speech writers are like cockroaches.

By: four legs good

four legs good — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 13:22:10 +0000

I dunno… my cat is almost 18 and it is a lot like having a small child. I have to freaking cook for him all the time and deal with his digestive problems… and forget about getting him up in time to go to school.

By: parsec

parsec — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 07:58:21 +0000

Bill Buckley: from reds-under-the-beds, to defending McCarthy, to the 10-feet tall Soviets, to riding the Christian fundamentalist tiger, his whole career and magazine were founded on error.
Would that we all could prosper from our dark fantasies.

By: QuickSauce

QuickSauce — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 02:09:47 +0000

Perhaps Buckley doesn’t quite understand the concept of “like.” Anything can be described as being “like” anything, but you have to give the reasons for being alike. Somehow Buckley’s Either/Or switch couldn’t comprehend that having three cats is like having children in the regard that they depend on you for food.

They are also not alike, because nursing of kittens from a human breast doesn’t quite work, or at least leaves scars.

By: Gail

Gail — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 00:34:54 +0000

I only have two cats, but I’d like to say its a lot like having children. Children who puke on the floor and poop in inappropriate places, bite the doctor.

On top of it, people keep telling me that they are “weird”. Dammit. I adopted them as adults, so its not my fault that htey have emotional issues that require them to try and sit on your face. Or bite you.

And now I find out that my marriage to my Box Turle, Harry, isn’t even legal. I swear to god, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

By: Frederick

Frederick — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 00:32:33 +0000

The June-July 2004 issue of the newspaper Freethought Today, put out by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (www.ffrf.org), quotes Ron Jr. as saying on the Larry King Show on June 23, 2004 (I assume in response to a question about whether he intends to ever run for elective office), “I’m an atheist. So there you go right there. I can’t be elected to anything because polls all say that people won’t elect an atheist.”

By: Clif Burns

Clif Burns — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 21:10:36 +0000

As a dog owner, this was the only point on which I agreed with Buckley. And, of course, I felt deeply cheapened by agreeing with that pretentious twit on anything.

By: s.z.

s.z. — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 20:23:37 +0000

RR Jr.: Having three cats while being childless ”is like having children.”
Buckley: ”No, it’s not like having children.”

I am crushed to learn having 3 cats really isn’t like having children. Man, if only somebody had told this before, I could have saved all that time I spent trying to homeschool them, and getting them to dress modestly. But thank God Buckley had the guts to finally tell Ron and me the truth about this difficule issue — he truly is the Godfather of Soul.

By: Sadly, No!

Sadly, No! — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 17:38:10 +0000

So we agree Oxblog is basically The Corner only with better writers?

By: RETARDO

RETARDO — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 17:25:21 +0000

http://www.pitt.edu/~kloman/debates.html

I wish that Vidal had just punched him in the gut or hit him on the head with a tumbler glass, like he did to the less-deserving Norman Mailer (IIRC).

Also, Sully would do well to consider the first thing Buckley thought of to call Vidal in that fight.

clifburns is right to mention Buckley’s segregationist credentials — it cant be overstated that NR was opposed to Dr. King, Brown vs BOEOTK, etc. That considered, I have little doubt what Buckley, in his little fit, would have called Vidal had GV been black. I DO have some doubt that that if Vidal had been black and gay, Buckley’s sneer would have been as witty as the Kennedy brothers’ name for James Baldwin : “Martin Luther Queen”.

Blah, I could go on and on — I really hate Buckley — but I’m glad this little story gets a larger audience not just to further cheapen Buckley’s “legacy”, but to show what supposedly evenhanded, chilly, smug, “reasonable”, “thoughtful” conservatives actually have boiling beneath their veneer.

I suggest we become more shrill (of course!) and sarcastic and annoying so that we may similarly blow the fuses of neo-Buckleys like, say, Tacitus or the Oxblog dorks.