Obama support means Buckley loses column

WASHINGTON, Mo., Oct. 15 (UPI) -- The conservative National Review booted Christopher Buckley, son of the late William Buckley, for backing Democratic U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

Buckley said he lost his back-page column in the magazine his father founded after a flurry of e-mails he said denounced his position, The Washington Post reported.

"Within hours, poor NR was being swamped with furious mail, 'Cancel my subscription, this is betrayal, Judas, Benedict Arnold,'" Buckley, 56, told the Post. "I thought the decent thing to do would be to offer to resign the column. Well, they accepted it."

Editor Rich Lowry has a different version, saying Buckley was writing the column on a trial basis.

"Chris says that his Obama endorsement has generated a 'tsunami,' that e-mail at (National Review Online) has been running 'oh, 700-to-1' against him," Lowry wrote, "and that there's a debate about whether to boil him in oil or shoot him. Chris is either misinformed or exercising poetic license."

While the column is out, Buckley still is in at the National Review: He owns a seventh of the National Review and serves on the magazine's board.