[Leonard210]

I am certain that I did not combine the two but rather used one to modify the other. An intellectual snob is quite different from an intellectual. And I did not mean to imply that Buckley WAS an intellectual snob, only that he came off as such to the general populace. I read him as well as watched him for many years. I both loved and loathed him. I loved him for his wit, his intellectual prowess and his superior (to liberalism) sense of purpose. I loathed his persona in the public square. In an Ivy League debate hall he was unmatched in modern America. As the go to guy for all things conservative? Not so much.

[1rudeboy]

I guess that's where some of the reactions to this article surprise me. The author doesn't ask Buckley, or anyone else, to be the "go to guy for all things conservative." He's simply looking for more leaders on the intellectual side of things. That does not imply he's looking for fewer leaders on what he calls the "populist" side. (Although, now that I think about it, that's what the populists must think he's implying).

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"An intellectual snob is quite different from an intellectual. And I did not mean to imply that Buckley WAS an intellectual snob, only that he came off as such to the general populace."
157 posted on Sunday, October 04, 2009 9:38:34 PM by Leonard210

That's an interesting distinction.
Some elaboration of this thesis might help clarify the elitist vs. populist debate
going on.

Similarly, when Obama said that conservative Democrats in small towns get
"bitter" and "cling to guns and religion" excessively perhaps he did not mean
that they really were bitter while clinging to firearms and theology but merely
"came off as such" to Alinskyite Fabian Socialists from Harvard who read
Richard Hofstadter in between arugula servings. It could be an important
distinction (that perceptions matter, etc.). Even with Obama's equivocations.
And the class antagonisms.