National Review and Prop 19

Here’s an odd statement from Andrew Sullivan:

A search for a single mention of Prop 19 in today’s National Review found only this measured piece by Reihan, one of our most illustrious Dish alums. Buckley’s days truly are over at his magazine, aren’t they?

I know for a fact that Andrew linked to Kevin Williamson’s post the other day at The Corner that I linked to challenging opponents of Prop 19 on their use of wild propaganda. And I also linked to this excellent anti-prohibition piece at National Review by Conrad Black, which went into great detail on the disaster that is the war on marijuana.

A quick search of The American Prospect for Prop 19 revealed absolutely zero mentions of the marijuana initiative. I could have missed something, but after a couple of minutes, National Review at least seemed to have more discussion of marijuana prohibition than The American Prospect. (Mother Jones, largely thanks to Kevin Drum’s blog, does much better on this score.)

Meanwhile, Weekly Standard has a long piece by Matt Labash on medical marijuana in Michigan. It’s a critical piece, but at least gives the issue an in-depth treatment. In other words, I think conservatives and conservative publications are taking the issue seriously.

And, as Thoreau noted earlier this week, the best resources on drug prohibition still come out of Cato – not liberal think tanks or publications.

So I guess I’m just not sure what Sullivan’s point is. I’m well aware that outside of publications such as National Review, the war on drugs/marijuana is still fairly important for many conservatives – though that is certainly changing. But as far as I can tell, the magazine is still publishing mostly anti-prohibition material. Buckley’s days at the magazine may be over for other reasons, but on the issue of marijuana I think he would be perfectly content.

Update. Andrew has stumbled across the Black piece.