Roger Kimball has a thoughtful post about Christopher Buckley’s sprint off the reservation.
Don’t get me wrong. Let me repeat what long-time readers know: I have plenty of criticisms of John McCain. But, like Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest when asked whether she had any doubts that Jack came to London only to see her, although I “have the gravest doubts upon the subject,” “I intend to crush them”–at least until after the election. Why? Because whatever criticisms I have of McCain are dwarfed by my criticisms of Obama.
Because of his family, because of his continuing connection with the center of elite conservative opinion in this country, Christo’s endorsement is something special. I heard a rumor about it a week or so ago and wondered at first whether it might be one of those winking, tongue-in-cheek gambits satirists sometimes employ to get our attention. “Wow, Christopher Buckley, son of Wm. F. Buckley Jr., Republican speech writer, board member and regular contributor to National Review is supporting Obama! He’s not serious, is he?” And then it would turn out that, no, he wasn’t serious.
But inspecting his public declaration I conclude that he is very serious indeed.
It includes an interesting coda about plagiarism.
But here’s a question. Is Barack Obama the rara avis Christo supposes? Or is he that more familiar creature, the vulgaris avis who pawns off other people’s work as his own? Apparently, there is more than a little question about this. Does it matter? Politicians often sign their names to other people’s work. It is an open secret that Profiles in Courage was written not by John F. Kennedy, whose name is on the copyright page, but rather by Ted Sorensen. Most of us don’t think less of JFK for it. But since Christo singles out Obama’s literary intelligence, it is worth delving into the question. Obama had never distinguished himself as a writer. Indeed, in his tenure as editor of the Harvard Law Review he wrote–nothing. Not a single article.
RTWT.
Update:
Jonathan Adler’s not buying the plagiarism charge. It may well be outlandish, but just calling it that isn’t very convincing. But if Cashill tried to blame Enron for Ron Brown’s death then he probably is a conspiracy theorist.