Blowing a common cliche is a damn strange error to come out of a professional writer in a major venue like National Review. It runs twice, so it's not a simple typo. Either the editor didn't catch it, or the editor is the one that changed it. Or there is no editor and the writer muffed it.
When somebody substitutes a word in an otherwise common phrase, there's no point defining the word. If I took someone to task for saying "here, here" would you read the definition of "here" to me?
I keep re-reading it to see if there's some ultra clever pun going on, but I'm not seeing it.
I sort of agree. But my earlier point is that it is not etymologically weird.
The cliche began as "feignt heart," as you can see from these Oxford English Dictionay Quotes:
3. Wanting in courage, spiritless, cowardly. Obs. or arch. exc. in faint heart (now associated with sense 4 b).
a1300 Cursor M. 18081 (Cott.) A faint fighter me thinc er Þou.
c1300 K. Alis. 7597 Haveth now non heorte feynte!
c1320 Sir Beues 1575 Ase he was mad & feint To Iesu Crist he made is pleint.
1414 Brampton Penit. Ps. cxvi (Percy Soc.) 44 Myn herte is fals[e], feynt, and drye.
c1489 Caxton Sonnes of Aymon viii. 184 Thoughe ye shold abyde behynde as weke men and feynte.
a1533 Ld. Berners Huon lii. 177 Thou arte of a faynte corage.
a1593 H. Smith Wks. (1867) II. 219 The faint spies that went to the land of Canaan.
1627 May Lucan iii. (1635) 103 To send thee civill wars Having so faint a chiefe.
1702 Rowe Tamerl. i. i, His Party..soon grew faint.
1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 689 Faint heart never yet raised a trophy.
absol.
1814 Byron Lara ii. x, The fierce that vanquish, and the faint that yield.
1870 Bryant Iliad I. iv. 120 He made the faint of spirit take their place.
b.
Proverb.
1569 W. Elderton Ballad, Brittains Ida v. i, Faint heart ne’er won fair lady.
1624 Massinger Parl. Love ii. iii, All hell’s plagues light on the proverb That says ‘Faint heart’–! But it is stale.
"If I took someone to task for saying "here, here" would you read the definition of "here" to me?"
I think you don't understand how dictionaries work. I was citing the OED who claims that faint has various forms, including feint. And understandly so, since it is borrowed from the Old French "feint."
But this is clearly a blow to your world. I suggest you write a strong letter.