Christopher Buckley loses National Review column after Obama endorsement

The son of National Review founder William F. Buckley, Christopher, endorsed Barack Obama in a blog at the Daily Beast, not the NR, but the bible of conservative scribes has yanked his NR column. (WaPo):

Christopher Buckley knew he was venturing into treacherous territory when he endorsed Barack Obama: "It's a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They'd cut off my allowance," he wrote.

The penalty turned out to be more severe. William F. Buckley Jr.'s son said today he had lost his back-page column in the conservative bible founded by his father, National Review.

"Within hours, poor NR was being swamped with furious mail, 'Cancel my subscription, this is betrayal, Judas, Benedict Arnold,' " Buckley said in an interview. "I thought the decent thing to do would be to offer to resign the column. Well, they accepted it."

Buckley won't completely disappear; the Washington author owns one-seventh of National Review and serves on the magazine's board. But he is the latest right-leaning pundit to be slammed by his side for criticizing or breaking with John McCain.

The emails were running 700-1 against Buckley. I imagine that many of those angry with Christopher Buckley aren't even fans of McCain, but don't like the fact that the laundry in the movement is so dirty that hiding it isn't the problem, it's the fact it stinks so badly that everyone smells it -- the threads need to be incinerated.

Quite frankly, I think it's refreshing to see this chaos in conservative land. It's time for an "internal restructuring," because the Republican party and its brand are so tattered that you have conservatives, moderates and independents within that party ready to slice off the wingnut religious base and start anew. The question is, will the mainline conservatives be able to sever those ties.