Subtleties
OK, so I haven't been updating my blog a whole lot lately. You should already know I went to NYU to have a life, and now I've got one.
Nonetheless, some things are still worth mentioning. E.J. Dionne wrote in the Washington Post last week on National Review founder William F. Buckley, generally considered the primary intellectual basis of the modern conservative movement. It's a fascinating column on a fascinating man: there's a New York Times Magazine article on him (already TimesSelect!) from a couple weeks ago, and there's a mini-scandal going on in Team Democratic Blogosphere about whether Joe Lieberman's appearance at Buckley's recent big birthday bash constitutes an endorsement of racism. (National Review has never repudiated its own anti-civil rights position in the 1960s.)
It's the Joe Lieberman issue I'm going to focus on here. Dionne's article is complicated, since he starts off admitting it's unusual for a liberal like Dionne to spend so much time complimenting such a passionate conservative. So that takes up most of the column, but he also says this:
And it's not easy for any liberal to agree with Buckley's support long ago for Joe McCarthy. (His novel about McCarthy was better). It's hard to credit his views in the civil rights era or to identify with his many knocks on that courageous liberal Republican, former senator Lowell Weicker.
Doesn't that sound out of place? Who's Lowell Weicker? Why is he relevant here? The answer is that Buckley, Lieberman and Weicker have been connected for some time. When Joe Lieberman first ran for Senate in 1988, his challenge to the liberal Republican incumbent Weicker was largely from the right, and strongly supported by the National Review and William F. Buckley.
Why does any of this matter? Well, 18 years later, we may have a rematch. That's right, the now-Independent Weicker is considering a run against Joe Lieberman in 2006. I'm not sure who I would support in that race (Weicker would almost certainly caucus with the Democrats, like Jim Jeffords does now and Bernie Sanders does in the House) but it would certainly be a hell of a race, not least from the rampant irony.
Now, I really have no point here, mostly because I'm not sure what's going on. I can't believe Dionne would bring up Weicker for one of a list of only two crappy things William F. Buckley has ever done (and there are hundreds) if he weren't thinking of the 2006 Connecticut Senate race as much as the one in 1988. But what's his point? Weicker's such a great guy that we should get rid of a conservative Democrat like Lieberman? If so, then why in a column that's basically an ode to a conservative Republican? I don't get it. Maybe Dionne just hates Lieberman? I may not understand subtleties, but I know 'em when I see 'em.
Anyway, my last conspiracy theory got me written up (almost as if I had a point) in the National Journal's Hotline, so apparently this one is true too. I always knew I was the next Drudge.
Also, I just discovered the Flying Spaghetti Monster today. This is both hilarious and completely apt in the context of an issue that really shouldn't be an issue. Anyway, this link reaches "you owe it to yourself" status, so give it a look.