First they came for Christopher Buckley, and I did not speak up, because I do not really like The National Review, and am not upset if they lose their good writers. Then they came for David Frum, and I did not speak up, because I do not really like The National Review, and am not upset if they lose their good writers. But still, it has to be a blow to them. Frum is certainly one of the right's sharpest minds, and it'll be interesting to see where he seeks harbor next. Indeed, I'm looking forward to the next few years of conservative punditry, as movements are always more interesting when they're engaged in the chaos of reconstruction than the defense of power. But my hunch is that those conversations aren't likely to find their home in a magazine this time. It used to be that you needed a single magazine so that various writers could be in dialogue with each other. But with the advent of the internet, and blogs, that's no longer true. David Brooks can speak to David Frum can speak to Ross Douthat can speak to Ramesh Ponnuru can speak to Todd Lindberg can speak to Yuval Levin to Jon Henke across a wide array of publications. And you can even isolate their voices (I have a Yahoo Tubes feed for Ponnuru, so I don't miss his writing amidst the clutter of The Corner). The question is whether the absence of a single focusing institution robs them of their reformist potency, or isolates them from traditional voices in a way that harms their project. It's really hard to say. But it should still make for good reading.
