American Thinker: The Media Research Center has withdrawn its choice of Sean Hannity to receive the prestigious William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence at a gala on September 21.
The explanation given was “scheduling conflicts” that would prevent Hannity from attending. But according to this report by CNN Money, the family of the late conservative intellectual strenuously objected to the choice of Hannity and requested that his name be withdrawn.
Buckley, the founder of the National Review, who died in 2008, was hailed in his day as “arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States.” Giving an award in his name to Hannity – a pugnacious talk radio host who has shared conspiracy theories on his popular cable news show – had caused hand wringing among some conservatives.
It also caused distress among Buckley’s family – in particular his only child, best-selling author Christopher Buckley.
A source familiar with the situation tells CNN that Christopher Buckley “expressed great dismay” at the announcement that the award would go to Hannity, who has spent a great deal of time insulting conservative intellectuals on Twitter, particularly since he became a strong supporter of Donald Trump. read more
There may come a time in the not too distant future where an insult of this type coming from those types of people would be a badge of honor. Perhaps not soon enough though as those types of people (with the exception of WFB himself) have shown themselves to be remarkably flexible in their moral stances.
Buckley was a snobbish cuck.
Am I correct in saying that Christopher Buckley endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and shortly thereafter left National Review?
Buckley, by no means, was interested in personal liberty. You can go online and watch a debate he had – with Arianna Huffington on his side – arguing that the government should be in complete and total control of the internet.
The only thing that distinguished Buckley from the left was that he was anti-communist. It is beyond the point that we stop looking to this man as an icon.
Chris Buckley is a pusillanimous socialist hack – which is why he was asked to leave National Review, as I recall. Of course, National Review morphed into some Menshevik-hack-bullshit shortly after WFB Jr.’s demise, so I’m guessing that there isn’t much hand-wringing at MRC or anywhere else over this attempted insult.
I hope Hannity is man enough to do his job without expectation of superfluous awards.
izlamo delenda est …
His legacy NR is a tool of the establishment pundit class. They rejected the true Tea Party candidate DJT.
“The MRC’s founder, Brent Bozell, is William F. Buckley’s nephew.”
That explains some things.
Bucket, meet crabs
I always thought of W.F. Buckley as a Kennedy cousin. He had all of the Kennedy traits sans the drinking an rape proclivity.
@ Joe Btf… Sorry but WFB Jr. had no Kennedy traits, not a smidgen.
I met WFB Jr. in his Congressional office around 1965. I was 7 so I didn’t understand what the heck he was saying. But he was all smiles and very polite.
I learned a lot from WFB’s writing and arguments, but he and Mr. Kirk were wrong to set up conservatism for certain failure. The alt right is beginning to correct that problem; stand by for more winning than you have ever dared to imagine. As for the cucks at NR, and WFB’s cuck family, enjoy “the ash heap of history.”
Hannity is worth 100 WFB’s.
“Snobbish cuck” is being kind.
Trust fund buffoon who dithered and piddled with sophomoric word games while the Left wrapped its bloody tentacles around America.
I wonder how many stars there are on Hannity’s Red Badge of Courage?
WFB was important for his time, as he caused people to stop and think. I used to watch him regularly when I was in high school (early 60s).
Christopher, however, is much too liberal for my tastes–but Sean Hannity is fantastic!!!
Have you ever heard the saying “Money doesn’t change a person, it unmasks them”?
Well Trump has lots of money, and Trump is like money.
Trump, without doing anything other than being Trump, has a way of revealing people for who they really are.
Mentou- a very astute observation!
Stay focused, this is not about William F. Buckley but the RINOs sponging off of his legacy – his son Chris and the never Trumper Brent Bozell. They need the cash.
I doubt Hannity will have Brent on his show again, but we’ll see.
If the award’s purpose is to celebrate the conservative intellectual then it’s for someone else. Hannity is far from intellectual. He has trouble just putting a sentence together.
Hannity turned down the award because he couldn’t make the date of the awarding of it.
Goddamn fake news.