Christopher Buckley resigns from National Review in wake of Obama endorsement

Conservative columnist, Christopher Buckley, son of the late right wing icon, William F. Buckley, has resigned from his back page column at the National Review, the leading conservative journal founded by the elder Buckley. (The younger Buckley is a part owner in the publication and serves on its board.)

Why?

Because he endorsed Barack Obama for president -- and it's not sitting well with the National Review's readers.

According to the Washington Post:

"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."

The younger Buckley has known McCain since the 1980's:

In that piece, Buckley said that he has known McCain since 1982 and once wrote a speech for him but that the senator has changed, airing "mean-spirited and pointless" attack ads and -- "What on earth can he have been thinking?" -- picking Sarah Palin as his running mate. While the result was "genuinely saddening" and even "tragic" for the country, Buckley wrote, he had concluded that Obama has a "first-class temperament and a first-class intellect" and could be a great president. That is, "assuming anyone gives a fig" about his views.

Buckley noted that columnist Kathleen Parker, after a National Review Online piece declaring Palin unqualified to be vice president, had received 12,000 hostile e-mails. Parker, who is syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group, described the reaction in her next column: "I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn't, I should 'off' myself."

In his embrace of Obama, Buckley quoted his father as saying, "You know, I've spent my entire lifetime separating the Right from the kooks."