Thursday, February 28, 2008

Prediction   [Jonah Goldberg]

In the next few days, there will be a wave of liberals — Frank Rich comes particularly to mind — who will use WFB's memory to beat up on today's conservatives. Ramesh and I wrote a piece about this tendency last year. Liberals today bemoan how wonderful the conservatives of yesteryear were solely to lament how terrible they are today. The recent bout of Goldwater nostalgia on the left was a perfect example. The  strange new respect liberals have for Ronald Reagan would be another. And you can be sure they will use Buckley to that effect too.

That said, I'm delighted to have conservative heroes become simply American heroes. But it's at least worth pointing out that Goldwater, Reagan and, of course William F. Buckley were subjected to vicious criticism from the left in their day. That they belong to all Americans now is no small testament to their success in the face of often unrelenting opposition.

02/28 08:59 AMShare