Kathryn Jean Lopez, who has in the past year led the National Review Online to ecstatic heights of tribal ululation free of reason and unhinged from political reality, is leaving. Going to picket abortion clinics full-time, we presume.

Lopez, who thought An American Carol was a "revolutionary" film, lashed out against Obama for using the word "folks" to describe terrorists, thinks George W. Bush would make an excellent high school civics teacher, and generally perfected the art of outraged persecution, is moving to Washington, D.C., according to an announcement on the Corner. She doesn't say what her new job is, so it's not clear that her decision was entirely voluntary.

Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review's print edition, will take over Lopez's duties, which is sad, because he's generally less bonkers than Lopez and more beholden to the WASP-y lineage of William F. Buckley, and will probably therefore attempt to impose some sort of intellectual coherence on the magazine's web site.

The fact that Lowry doesn't appear to be hiring a replacement—it seems pretty clear from Lopez' post that his new duties will not be temporary—is a further indication that the National Review is hurting for cash in the wake of Buckley's death. They won't stop begging for money. It makes sense that they'd be hurting because (a) Buckley, the magazine's chief fundraising personality, is gone, and (b) absent a Daddy figure, the kids at the Corner have essentially been smearing their own shit all over the walls for the past year.

We called Lopez to find out where she will be applying her considerable talents next, but she hasn't called back. Which is just as well, because it would have been awkward.