It looks like books about Bill Buckley and National Review are going to be quite a cottage industry. Rick Brookhiser has just published Right Time, Right Place: Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement :

…[NR Editor] John [O'Sullivan's]’s other senior editor, Peter Brimelow, played an important role.  Born in England, Brimelow had worked for an array of magazines and newspapers in Canada and the United States.  When John brought him in, he already had a day job writing for Forbes. Peter was strikingly handsome, with light-brown hair and piercing blue eyes.  He was also one of the most polite journalists I have ever met (the profession pulls for bonhomie, not civility).  He had attractive graces and countenance bright.  His manner was at odds with his temperament (saturnine, hopeless) and his polemical style (unrelenting).

“Saturnine” apparently means

a. Melancholy or sullen.
b. Having or marked by a tendency to be bitter or sardonic

Hey, I don’t get that either, but who cares? Buy this insightful book!

Dave Kopel on a recent poll of political bloggers:

Question 2 was “Regarding the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, what will be the political impact on your party?” On the Left, 94% thought it would help their party, and on the Right, 67% thought it would hurt their party.

My answer was idiosyncratic. Although it’s listed under “minor harm,” I had voted for “minor help.” I explained: “As a Democrat, I think it will help the party by mollifying some of the Hispanics who will be upset by Obama’s inability to pass an amnesty program for illegal aliens. The nomination may also benefit Republicans, if Republican senators raise serious objections about some of Sotomayor’s unpopular and legally weak decisions, such as Ricci, Maloney and Village of Port Chester.”

One the one hand, I tend to react to the news that some good will come if the Republican leadership is willing to stand up and be counted by saying “Uh-oh!” On the other hand, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee is now Jeff Sessions, and he will stand up and be counted.