“National Review” on The Daily Caller

In an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday, National Review editor Rich Lowry elaborated on a column he had written that day taking aim at the “fringe” elements of Texas Rep. Ron Paul. (more)

Scrapping with Glenn Beck and the Club for Growth back to back isn’t the smartest way to bolster one’s conservative credentials during primary season, but that’s exactly what Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee did this week. (more)

Dedicated readers of National Review Online’s ‘Jolt’ newsletter received some unexpected content this morning in the form of direct links to pornographic websites. (more)

This week, two of my favorite events are taking place. Their synchronicity has caused me to reflect, once again, on one of the major problems, indeed perhaps the premier problem, facing the right. Conservatives just don’t do popular culture. (more)

While Jeb Bush continues to insist that he will not be a candidate for president in 2012, several National Review writers seem to be encouraging the former Florida Governor to take the plunge. John J. Miller, Kathryn Jean Lopez, and Rich Lowry have all come forward in recent days to sing Jeb’s praises and speculate on another Bush candidacy. (more)

— “It is unlikely that House Republicans will take the vote to repeal the health care law, shrug their shoulders when it doesn’t reach the Senate, and move on,” writes The Daily Caller’s Chris Moody. “We aren’t going to just check the box off and say that we had one vote and we’re going to move on to other topics,” Rep. Michele Bachmann said Tuesday. Rep. Steve King echoed Bachmann’s sentiments, saying, “This is going to be a debate that goes on not just today and tomorrow and next week. It’s going to go on for the next year or two. It’s probably going to go on until we elect a president that will sign a final repeal of Obamacare. So this is an ongoing debate.” The GOP will fight, just like the Spartans fought at Thermopylae, until they are all dead of old age/exasperation, or until Americans return both the legislative branch and the executive branch to the second worst party in the country. In the meantime, House Republicans will build their own health care bill, starting with the key accomplishment of Obamacare: “A measure to restrict insurance companies from discriminating based on pre-existing conditions.” (more)

NPR recently ran a two-part series on media bias. The reports, by David Folkenflik, were quite good, with a couple major flaws. Folkenflik ignored the question of who gets hired by the major media and why. Isn’t it time to do a nuts-and-bolts investigation of who gets brought on to the Washington Post, New York Times, CBS, et al, and who does not? Answering that question may answer why the media has lost its capacity to report fairly, not to mention delight, compel, and surprise — characteristics that, idiotic pronouncements about “objectivity” aside, are part of what makes good journalism. (more)

Though the John Birch Society is making a comeback through the Tea Party movement, at least some conservatives question whether the group really belongs apart of the movement. (more)

The John Birch Society, a group denounced by the late conservative icon William F. Buckley, has been making the rounds at several Tea Party events and will host a table at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February for the second consecutive year after having not attended for two decades, save one year in the 1990s. Though marginalized by Buckley in the 1960s and 1970s, the society has started to make a resurgence of sorts by tying itself to the Tea Party movement. (more)

When the Simpson-Bowles Obama Commission “chairman’s mark” came out last week, there were far too many conservatives who were too quick to say nice things about it. Blinded by lower marginal tax rates and some entitlement reforms, they chose to ignore the fact that the plan is a ten-year tax hike of over $1 trillion, and would saddle taxpayers with a taxes-to-GDP ratio of 21 percent, the highest in American history. A week later, the Rivlin-Domenici commission released their report with a $500 billion tax hike. Americans for Tax Reform actually produced our own (balanced) budget plan that cuts spending and cuts taxes in a reasonable way. But it’s worth reflecting on what too many on the Right said about the “higher taxes” plans for almost-balanced budgets. (more)

A review of The Idiocy of Assent by Reid Buckley, P.E.N. Press, 257 pages, $32.95. (more)

In the last months of his life, William F. Buckley, Jr., the founder of the iconic National Review magazine and leader of the conservative movement for nearly half a century, saw his life’s work in shatters, writes Buckley’s brother Reid in his new book, “The Idiocy of Assent.” (more)

Richard M. Reinsch II is the author of “Whittaker Chambers: The Spirit of a Counterrevolutionary.” (more)

For the greater part of the early conservative movement, all conservatives, whether they were libertarians, individualists, or the later social, paleo and fiscal conservatives, had one overarching issue, one common threat that united them despite their differences: the threat of communism.  That threat served as a focal point, an issue that everyone in the movement could agree on.  This was the common cause responsible for the intellectualism of William F. Buckley, Jr. and the founding of the National Review, the founding of conservative youth groups like Young Americans for Freedom and the Goldwater and Reagan Revolutions of 1964 and 1980. (more)

When National Review last week offered its warm embrace of the GOP’s “Pledge to America,” it wasn’t the first time some conservatives had felt the magazine was backing the Republican Party over conservative principles. (more)

The name Buckley is revered in the conservative world and especially in the universe of correspondents and employees of National Review, the flagship conservative magazine founded by the late William F. Buckley, Jr. 55 years ago. WFB, as he was often referred to in print, is considered by many the founder of the modern conservative movement. (more)

On Friday, our Jon Ward reported a piece that described how House Republican leaders went about selling their “Pledge to America” to the rest of the Republican caucus. In the story, Ward explained how, at a meeting last Wednesday night of Republican lawmakers, leadership aides passed out an editorial from National Review that strongly endorsed the “Pledge.” Notably, the editorial said nothing about the elements of the “Pledge” that have proved unpopular among conservatives, including its now-famous failure to call for a ban on earmarks. Instead, the editorial showered praise on the effort, calling it, among many other flowery things, a “shrewd political document.” (more)

House Republicans have been relatively successful this week at presenting a united front around their “Pledge to America,” but only through a strategic outreach campaign to lawmakers, media and outside groups, that has managed to keep deep dissatisfaction over several key issues largely under wraps. (more)

House Republicans have been relatively successful this week at presenting a united front around their “Pledge to America,” but only through a strategic outreach campaign to lawmakers, media and outside groups, that has managed to keep deep dissatisfaction over several key issues largely under wraps. (more)

Christine O’Donnell’s stunning victory in Delaware over the liberal — but, as some have argued, much more electable — Republican Rep. Mike Castle for the GOP Senate nomination was the culmination of several days of heated back-and-forth among conservatives. Here’s a sampling:
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