Christopher Buckley, Meet David Brock

It's not every day OffHisMeds gets to witness a scion of Conservatism throw his Party under a literary bus, much less his parents. I am referring of course to recent actions by Christopher Buckley, son of National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr. About six months ago he voted for Barack Obama, quit National Review, and read Republicans out of polite society, famously claiming that he had been "fatwahed by Conservatives". Now he has published a book about his parents, father William F. and mother Pat, that finishes the job, according to a review by Kyrie O'Connor of Buckley's book "Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir". And while the review is no doubt skewed by O'Connor's gleefully vengeful Liberalism, there's little doubt that her portrayal of Buckley is accurate.

In the review, she condenses Buckley's portrayal of his parents as petty, rude substance abusers, practicing Parenthood only two or three points this side of Child Abuse, denying him sufficient praise, being supremely indifferent to his well-being and essentially concerned only for themselves. Adjectives abound: vain, volatile, inattentive, caustic, as do the negative characterizations. O'Connor even manages to compare the Buckley’s to Ronald and Nancy Reagan, those other prototypical Bad Parents, at least by the orthodoxy of the Democrat Party.

And it's funny how O'Connor chose to compare the Buckley's to the Reagan’s in the Bad Parenthood department, when she went to the trouble of also describing the Buckley’s as "right-wing Kennedys". Say what you will about the Buckley’s, but neither young Christopher nor the Reagan kids' lives were one long sordid tale of drug addiction, child-abuse, rape, suicide, murder and the accidental death of themselves and others due to carelessness, as was the case with the Kennedys. It's curious that with that upbringing, none of the Kennedy kids have so narc'ed their parents, but such is the hold the Establishment has on those with ambitions to move up the social ladder - Buckley included - and their prospects are firmly in the hands of the Democrats who constitute that Establishment.

O'Connor describes the book as a laugh riot, including amongst other things "funny/creepy scenes of coffin purchases". Based on that description alone, I can accept that the portrayal of Buckley and his parents was skewed at least partially by her juvenile delight in disemboweling the reputation of the patriarch of Conservatism. That lack of perspective on O'Connor's part might cause you to question her interpretation of Buckley's book, but for a number of factual items in the review, and a long excerpt Buckley published in the New York Times. For example, in the realms of creepiness, isn't it genuinely creepy to observe a son putting out a book on his parents - good, bad or indifferent - with them both so recently deceased? A cynic might proclaim it base Opportunism, such as was practiced by Ron Reagan, Jr., who - once his old man had succumbed to Alzheimer’s - made a career of "Outing" his parents with insights that could not for the most part be disproven, given his mother's reticence and his father's infirmity. Both Buckley's and Reagan's opportunism leave their parents' advocates to sort out reality from their sons' skewed perspectives.

Another type of cynic - I'm thinking of Kyrie O'Connor, Barack Obama or any of the other Credentialed Liberals devoted to the criminalization of the Republican Party - might see Buckley's motives as Payback, and she might not be too far off the mark. With "Pup" (William F. Buckley, Jr.) in the grave barely a year, it's hard to fathom motives for writing this book other than Payback, Opportunism, or some combination of the two. I mean, what was the big hurry? Five years from now, Buckley would still be around; his parents would still be dead, and they would all be just as famous as they are now. Plus, he would have had the opportunity to exploit the beneficial leavening that time bestows on the reputations of all famous people after their death so as to lend his story some perspective. If Buckley had approached this project from the perspective of a loving and loyal son, he would have observed some "period of mourning", if you will, and numerous details he might have left out altogether.

He didn't do either. In fact, he cranked this book out with such lightning speed that one might be forgiven for thinking that he had it mostly written before his parents kicked. The lurid details are not lacking either. He goes on at length describing his mother as a pathological liar and his father as somebody who would rather be on safari than at his son's sickbed. In the latter instance, Buckley plays the part of Tiny Tim, and William F. is Scrooge. He blathers on about the dozens of “scolding — occasionally scalding — letters” he wrote to his mother for her “serial misbehavior over the years”, demanding apologies for one perceived slight or another, then feeling bad for having written them. He finishes the story by telling how his mother verbally abused her granddaughter’s girlfriend, and then congratulates himself for not writing her another letter to complain about it.

Given the pattern OffHisMeds sees evolving, might one also be forgiven for believing that the omission on Buckley's part was intentional since he intended to write a book about it? I might have given him props for feeling bad about those letters after he wrote them, but for the fact that the admission is so in keeping with his overall narrative as a Recovering Conservative only just now getting in touch with his feelings; the fact that the subject makes for juicy Best Seller reading material probably didn't hurt either, never mind the propriety of the revelations.

Buckley also takes a page out of Bob Woodward's book, describing how on his last visit to his comatose mother and mere minutes after he ordered her life-support disconnected, that he took her hand in his, and said "I forgive you". We must, of course, take Buckley's word for the fact that this conversation ever took place, just as we must take Woodward's word for having gotten a comatose Bill Casey to divulge his intimate knowledge of and involvement in the Iran-Contra affair to - of all people - Bob Woodward. From my perspective, the only difference between Woodward and Buckley is that Woodward at least had the decency not to harass an immediate family member on their deathbed, nor demand an apology, much less order the plug to be pulled before he'd had the conversation, real or fictional.

And while Buckley portrays this as a tender, almost spiritual moment, and one in which he contemplates the whole of his mother's life, what I can't get out of my head is Buckley instructing his doctor to kill his mother, then finding catharsis in forgiving her before the last heartbeat, as if it was terribly important to mouth those words after he’d cut off her oxygen, but before she actually died. Call me crazy, but I can paint a vengeance scenario out of that little bit of psychodrama as readily as I can a humanistic one. For the truly self-absorbed though, there's probably little difference.

What did it for me was the story O'Connor relates from the book wherein Buckley "refuses to honor Pup's carefully crafted burial plans, opting for something that, for once, pleases him alone and not them". While O'Connor didn't describe the exact manner in which Buckley does not honor his Father's wishes, it was hard to fathom any circumstances for not doing so that reflected well on him unless William F. had insisted on Pentagrams, Beatle's music played backwards and Piss Christ to replace the altar crucifix. Anything less would make Buckley a font of ingratitude. It would make him a coward. More than anything else, it would make him the passive-aggressive Hump we have seen come to the fore since the death of his father.

Curiosity having gotten the better of me, I then read Buckley's account of the event in the nine page excerpt from the book published in New York Times. From his own account, the "refusal" was to not inter WFB's ashes along with his mother Pat's in a large crucifix in the garden of Buckley's estate, on the grounds that any future owners of the house might not want a large crucifix in their garden. This is also a conversation he felt compelled to have with his father before he died, upsetting him in the process.

Classy.

One could drive oneself crazy contemplating all the options Buckley did not consider in handling the matter: a) moving the crucifix if he did sell the property; b) leaving the crucifix but reinterring the ashes elsewhere; c) shutting his yap and saying nothing to his father. I mean, this is the guy who doesn’t believe in God, so it’s not like WFB is going to catch him in a polite lie from the Afterlife.

If the Buckley's are to be credibly charged with being bad parents, it would no doubt be in raising a son of such questionable values that seems hell-bent on making them look as bad as possible, post mortem. That does beg another question, though: why would he write this book and play the selfish, conflicted twit, inexplicably dancing on his parents' graves at the height of his literary reputation? In explaining why this book even exists, one might charitably assume that the creative well had run dry, and that, in a panic, he grabbed for the closest material at hand. For me, a more plausible explanation is that Christopher Buckley had what I call "a David Brock moment". Brock, of course, was the investigative reporter for The American Spectator who did so many of the exposes' on the Clinton's various scandals in the 90s, right up until the moment that he repudiated it all, joined the other side, and then became a committed anti-Republican. He was lionized by the Establishment for his betrayal, and promptly became a fixture in the rabid left Blogosphere.

Ron Reagan, Jr., of course, did much the same thing, albeit that he had not a lick of writing talent, as Buckley and Brock do in abundance.

To rationalize going off the reservation, Brock concocted this fantasy that his arch-conservative publishers had exerted some kind of mysterious mind-control that caused him to write all of those pieces on Whitewater, Troopergate, and sundry other scandals-du-jour of the Clintons. After his repudiation, Brock also came out of the closet, making one suspect that his motivation for switching sides - in addition to not getting any literary props or invitations to the juiciest Beltway parties - was that he had done the math and concluded that his Conservative advocacy was seriously cutting into his romantic prospects. Ditto with Ron Reagan, Jr., I think, again minus the whole talent thing.

It only remains for Chris Buckley to complete a similar career arch. He's already trashed the Republican Party and alienated himself from Conservatism, not to mention many of its most prominent personalities. His every action has been pre-emptive, his claims to victimhood notwithstanding. Were Buckley to come out, he would at least have lent some consistency to his narrative, a consistency that - so far - just ain't there.

Based on a lifetime of observation, I've often maintained that there is nothing with a greater potential for worthlessness than the son of a rich man. Christopher Buckley has proven that in spades, and if God has a sense of humor, his son will be writing an expose' about him sometime in the hopefully distant future. Ironically, Buckley proclaimed at least three times in the short nine page excerpt that he didn't believe in God. So did Peter in the garden of Gethsemane.

I wonder if he'd appreciate the irony?