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Entry: William F. Buckley Jr.--R.I.P. Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/william_fbuckley_rip#18268 Post contents: Grant and Dylan, Yes, yes, as I mentioned above, I should have wiki-ed Oliver before mentioning him, and I've now changed the passage -- a felicitous option in web publishing but one I only use rarely. My general point is that even if the Birchers were a "menace" of sorts, Buckley expelled a great many thinkers along with them who were talented but then didn't quite fit into the conservative-Republican mainstream. My mention of Oliver -- whose later views were truly loathsome -- simply obscures this point. Nonetheless, I would stress that at the time of his firing, Oliver had not descended to the pagan bogs -- he didn't even write any material for NR that was particularly "Birchy." He wrote literary criticism, and the passages Hart quote at length in his book are superior. There's certainly a pattern of former NR contributors "going over to the dark side" only after they were purged due to suspicion or some dubious associations. Joe Sobran's speaking at the Institute for Historical Review after getting sacked at NR seems to be an example of this -- "you calling me an anti-Semite; I'll show you a real anti-Semite!" None of this, however, excuses making nice with Nazi nostalgics. Sent at: 2008 09 08