Sunday, January 18, 2009

Signing Off

And so it comes time to post this, my last contribution to NRO. I hope readers will follow this Diary to its new home at NewMajority.com.

The site goes live in the early morning hours of Inauguration Day, but we have some preview video already posted - and a really interesting clutch of posts, essays, and video interviews already in hand. I think the site will be worth your time! I'll be liveblogging Barack Obama's inaugural address on the site as well.

In the months ahead, conservatives and Republicans will face the most adverse political environment since the middle 1960s. At the same time, the current economic crisis raises some of the most searching intellectual problems conservatives have faced since their rise as a coherent intellectual movement. How did we get into this mess? How do we get out? And perhaps above all: Why did American incomes stagnate so dismally on our watch, even before the crisis struck?

The work ahead is difficult. As ever, it is difficulty that brings out the best in individuals and in political movements. I look forward eagerly to working through those difficulties together with you, our readers and (I hope) future commenters - and with the brilliant band of colleagues and associates who will be posting at NewMajority.com

Let me end with fond thanks to my colleagues here at NRO and NR. I published my first article at National Review in 1982. This magazine has been an intellectual home for me in all the quarter century since - and Bill Buckley was throughout my life been an inspiration and the most delightful of friends. Rich Lowry and Kathryn Lopez have admirably preserved the Buckley spirit in print and electrons. And even if our intellectual journeys lead me and my cherished one-time colleagues to different destinations - or possibly to similar destinations, but by different routes - I know that NR and NRO will remain valued and indispensable reading for me and every American conservative.

And now ... to work!

01/18 09:45 AM