Buckley Calls Iraq War A “Failure”
Longtime conservative icon William F. Buckley has declared the Iraq war a “failure” and said the blame should be placed on President George Bush:
William F. Buckley Jr., the longtime conservative writer and leader, said George W. Bush’s presidency will be judged entirely by the outcome of a war in Iraq that is now a failure.“Mr. Bush is in the hands of a fortune that will be unremitting on the point of Iraq,” Buckley said in an interview that will air on Bloomberg Television this weekend. “If he’d invented the Bill of Rights it wouldn’t get him out of his jam.”
Buckley said he doesn’t have a formula for getting out of Iraq, though he said “it’s important that we acknowledge in the inner councils of state that it (the war) has failed, so that we should look for opportunities to cope with that failure.”
The 80-year-old Buckley is among a handful of prominent conservatives who are criticizing the war. Asked who is to blame for what he deems a failure, Buckley said, “the president,” adding that “he doesn’t hesitate to accept responsibility.”
Buckley called Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a longtime friend, “a failed executor” of the war. And Vice President Dick Cheney “was flatly misled,” Buckley said. “He believed the business about the weapons of mass destruction.”
“He must be a RINO.”
4 Responses to “Buckley Calls Iraq War A “Failure””
I used to watch Buckley on Firing Line. He was so smart and witty. What has replaced Buckley? The likes of Hannity and Tucker Carlson. Both liberals and conservatives should be saddened by the lack of intelligent and civil conversation on television. In fact, Buckley and Reagan represent a dying era. Both men had friends whose views often differed from theirs. Buckley and Reagan rarely questioned the motives of their opponents. They simply thought their opponents were in error. Now we constantly hear people like Ann Coulter questioning the motives of her opponents. Were Reagan and Buckley simply raised better and in a different time? It seems to me a matter of character rather than ideology in the way people behave. Our society has simply gotten meaner. Whether it’s Simon from American Idol or Judge Judy or Howard Stern or Ann Coulter, America seems to love brutish behavior. There are many things you can say about Buckley when trying to describe him. Being brutish is not one of them.
Cordially,
Moderate Democrat
One of the reasons I NEVER watched Firing Line was because of his opposition to the Civil Rights Movement. At the time Most blacks were Republicans and I could not understand why Buckley would be against it. Some of the articles in the National Review were just insulting to read. So I really appreciate the last line of that article where he admitted it was wrong to appose it.
It’s the reason we I stoppped reading the National review.
And yes the decline in political debate is really sad. Where are today’s great thinkers?
This is old news, Joe. Buckley came out and declared the war a failure a couple months ago. Don’t tell me the MSM missed that? He joins Paul Craig Roberts and John McLaughlin, among a list of other sane cons who are against this fiasco.
You’re right, cosmoetica – this is old news. As part of the old-line con thinking that has never liked nation-building and only grudgingly went along with the invasion for WMD reasons, Buckley isn’t turning a page or suddenly shifting his views. He’s just continuing to marginalize himself from the evolution of conservative thought, for better or worse.