Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, "You know, I've spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks." Well, the dear man did his best. At any rate, I don't have the kidney at the moment for 12,000 emails saying how good it is he's no longer alive to see his Judas of a son endorse for the presidency a covert Muslim who pals around with the Weather Underground. So, you're reading it here first.

Fulfilling the prophecy, Buckley resigned from the National Review yesterday amidst a Republican issued "Fatwah." As Buckley puts it:

My last posting (if that's what it's called) in which I endorsed Obama, has brought about a very heaping helping of fresh hell. In fact, I think it could accurately be called a tsunami.

The mail (as we used to call it in pre-cyber times) at the Beast has been running I'd say at about 7-to-1 in favor. This would seem to indicate that you (the Beast reader) are largely pro-Obama.

As for the mail flooding into National Review Online--that's been running about, oh, 700-to-1 against. In fact, the only thing the Right can't quite decide is whether I should be boiled in oil or just put up against the wall and shot. Lethal injection would be too painless.

According to Buckley, the National Review's Rich Lowry-types were eager to accept his resignation.

I have to admit that I'm a little proud of myself for spotting the first thoughtful, reasonable conservative sighted outside of captivity since 2000. And I'm pleasantly taken aback by his objectively unflattering assessment of the conservative movement I know and loathe:

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it's a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

Wow. Buckley's kid. Formerly of National Review fame. Calling 'em like he sees 'em. But the best part of his Dear John letter to the National Review is this well-rounded skewering of all things Republican:

While I regret this development (his resignation), I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of "conservative" government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven't left the Republican Party. It left me.

This guy is an Ariana Huffington in the making. I give him three months before he's running his own librul blog.

Here's video of Buckley on Harball last night (thanks Lauren S!):