Derb responds to my calling National Review a "“central pillar of theoconservatism:”
A magazine lives by its personality. The personality of National Review remains, to the best of my perception, as Bill Buckley established it: a broad-minded and literate conservative magazine with a strong line on national defense and a Catholic coloration. It was never, and so far as I can see still is not, the vehicle for an ideology, certainly not a religious ideology. Among the earliest contributors there was at least one atheist (Max Eastman) and one Jewish agnostic (Frank Chodorov).
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/12/the-magazine-that-buckley-built/207865/
