So Christopher Buckley, the smart-ass novelist son of late conservative intellectual William F. Buckley, went and endorsed Barack Obama in the internet pages of Tina Brown's Daily Beast. He explained, in his endorsement, that he was writing for the Beast because he didn't want to read the hate mail he'd get if he wrote the endorsement at his usual venue, the back page of the National Review. Joke's on him, everyone who reads the National Review Online is even crazier, and the NRO linked everyone to the endorsement! Now it is time for Buckley to write a "wow look at my crazy hate mail" column. And also to quit the National Review! Like forever! Buckley's hate mail column, though, has the advantage of quoting an unnamed editor from the magazine his father founded! "One editor at National Review—a friend of 30 years—emailed me that he thought my opinions 'cretinous.'" Ha, ha, that is probably from Rich Lowry? Buckley continues:

Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.

Is it perhaps too cynical of us to assume that this was all orchestrated as a PR stunt for Tina Brown's crazy new Internet Thing?