Public Relations Review 36 (2010) 376–382

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Public Relations Review

The National Review “fires” Christopher Buckley: Image restoration andthe rhetoric of severance and restraint

Charles Marsh ∗

William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Kansas, 1435 Jayhawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS 66045, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 8 March 2010Received in revised form 7 June 2010Accepted 8 June 2010

Keywords:Crisis communicationImage restoration discourseReputationRhetoric

a b s t r a c t

Image Restoration Discourse, Situational Crisis Communication Theory, and related crisis-response models tend to involve charges leveled at entities: individuals or organizations.In The New Rhetoric, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca suggest an important mid-ground:stakeholder concerns regarding aberrant actions of a member of a larger public. Perelmanand Olbrechts-Tyteca’s “techniques of severance and restraint” comprise 11 strategies forcountering the possible effects of an aberrant member’s acts on the image and reputationof a larger public. This article will explore those techniques through an examination ofhow the National Review Online, the Web site complement of National Review magazine,responded to columnist Christopher Buckley’s endorsement of Barack Obama in the 2008U.S. presidential election.

© 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Image Restoration Discourse tends to focus, in the words of Benoit (1995), on addressing “complaints . . . routinely leveledat people in all walks of life for all sorts of alleged misbehavior” (p. vii).1 Of the related Situational Crisis CommunicationTheory, Coombs (2007) declares, “Crises are taken as a threat to [an] organizational reputation” (p. 163). Implicit in bothstatements is the understanding that allegations of wrongdoing generally apply to an entire entity, be it an individual (TigerWoods) or an organization (Toyota). In The New Rhetoric (1969), Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca delineate an importantmid-ground within Image Restoration Discourse and crisis communication: the communication responses attendant upon asituation in which a member’s aberrant actions have the power to alter stakeholder perceptions of a larger public.2 Perelmanand Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) label such communication responses the rhetoric of “severance and restraint” (p. 310). Withinthat category, they describe 11 “techniques” (p. 310) for minimizing the impact of aberrant behavior and protecting theimage and reputation of the larger public.

This article will explore the rhetoric of severance and restraint through an examination of how the NationalReview Online, the Web site complement of the National Review magazine, responded to the declaration of staffcolumnist Christopher Buckley, son of the magazine’s founder, William F. Buckley, Jr., that he intended to votefor Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Of the conservative bent of the National Review, themagazine’s advertising media kit says, “National Review and NRO [National Review Online] are America’s most

∗ Tel.: +1 785 864 7642; fax: +1 785 864 5318.E-mail address: marsh@ku.edu.

1 Benoit (1995) of course also extends the concept and application of Image Restoration Discourse to organizations.2 Use of aberrant in this article is not meant pejoratively. Rather, the article employs the primary definitions listed in The Oxford English Dictionary:

“Wandering away or straying from a defined path. . .. Deviating widely from the ordinary or natural type, exceptional, irregular, abnormal. . ..”

0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.06.003

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widely read and influential magazine and Web site for Republican/conservative news, commentary, and opinion”(National Review 2010 Media Kit).

A search of the National Review Online (http://nationalreview.com) for the term “Christopher Buckley” from October 10,2008 – the day of Buckley’s announcement – through October 10, 2009, generated a list of 39 postings: 10 articles and 29entries in the multi-authored “Corner” blog. Of that total, two articles – reprints of Washington Post columns – were removedfrom consideration, as were two blog entries: one that mentioned Buckley in a quotation from Slate magazine and one thatreprinted an earlier National Review Online posting. The National Review Online, rather than the National Review magazine,was selected for this study for three reasons: The Web site duplicates much of its paper counterpart’s content; Buckley’sendorsement (and subsequent defense of that endorsement) first appeared in online media; and the National Review Onlineoffered a more nimble and immediate means of response than its fortnightly paper counterpart.

2. “Sorry, Dad, I Was Fired”

On October 10, 2008, Christopher Buckley – novelist, columnist for the National Review, and blogger for the online DailyBeast – posted a Daily Beast entry titled “Sorry, Dad, I’m Voting for Obama.” The posting was subtitled “The son of WilliamF. Buckley has decided – shock! – to vote for a Democrat” (Buckley, 2008a). Describing his reasons for preferring Obama toRepublican John McCain, Buckley ended with these words: “[F]or the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic leverin November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America” (Buckley, 2008a).

Four days later, in a Daily Beast posting titled “Sorry, Dad, I Was Fired,”3 Buckley (2008b) noted that his endorsement ofObama had created a “serious problem” for the National Review:

One thoughtful correspondent, who feels that I have “betrayed”—the b-word has been much used in all this—my fatherand the conservative movement generally, said he plans to devote the rest of his life to getting people to cancel theirsubscriptions to National Review. . .. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer toresign my column there. This offer was accepted – rather briskly! – by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, thesuperb and able and fine Jack Fowler.

In the posting, Buckley noted that reader comments at the National Review Online were “running about, oh, 700-to-1against” and that the only point of contention seemed to be whether he should be “boiled in oil or just put up against thewall and shot” (2008b).

In the National Review, Senior Editor Ramesh Ponnuru (2009) openly acknowledged that Buckley’s support for Obamapossessed the power to affect perceptions not merely of the National Review but of conservatism in general:

When [William F.] Buckley’s son, the novelist Christopher Buckley, endorsed Barack Obama in the presidential election,many saw it as a dramatic illustration of the conservative soul-searching that has marked the last year. Republicanpoliticians are wondering whether it is any longer possible to appeal both to conservatives and to moderates, orwhether conservatism has become an isolated subculture. . . .. [T]oday’s conservatives can nonetheless learn from[William F.] Buckley’s career. Perseverance is not the least important of the lessons.

Given Christopher Buckley’s visibility and the jarring values clash that Ponnuru urged conservatives to withstand,the National Review, were it to follow Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s recommendations, would consider techniques ofseverance and restraint. This study shows that the National Review Online did indeed deploy such techniques.

3. Literature review

Modern image restoration scholarship finds its origins in Ware and Linkugel’s (1973) identification of the “subgenres” or“postures” of “apologia” (p. 274). Ware and Linkugel first specified four “factors” (p. 274) that shape the subgenres: denial,which directly challenges the facts of the accusation; bolstering, which evades the charge by identifying the accused withsomething of which the judging audience approves; differentiation, which separates an action or attribute from a largercontext in which a judging audience views it; and transcendence, which incorporates an action or attribute into a context inwhich a judging audience had not previously included it. Ware and Linkugel next identified four factor-influenced subgenresof apologia: absolutive, which uses denial and differentiation to seek acquittal; vindicative, which uses transcendence to “gobeyond the specifics of a given charge” (p. 283); explanative, which uses bolstering and differentiation in the belief that ifthe judges understand the surrounding circumstances, they will not condemn; and justificative, which uses bolstering andtranscendence to justify actions.

Throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century, Benoit has developed his seminal concept of Image Restoration Dis-course, a system of five overall strategies that comprise 14 options. Benoit’s precisely named general strategies (what Wareand Linkugel would term subgenres or postures) are denial; evasion of responsibility; reducing offensiveness of event; cor-rective action; and mortification (confessing and begging for forgiveness). Options within those strategies that are relevant

3 The posting later was retitled “Buckley Bows Out of National Review.” However, as of June 6, 2010, the posting’s full URL retained the original title,including the word fired.

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Table 1The rhetoric of severance and restraint.

I. Techniques of severance:“[T]he only technique permitting severance of the interaction between the group and the individual is the exclusion of the latter” (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, p. 324).

A. Initiated by the publicB. Initiated by the aberrant individualC. Initiated by a third party

II. Techniques of restraint:“[T]echniques of restraint . . . aim not to arrest but to curb the import of an act, its influence upon the image. . .” (Perelman, 1982, p. 96).

A. Noncondemnatory techniques:1. Prestige:

“Prestige . . . guarantees the influence of the person on the act. . .. The relation of the person to the act is similar to the relation of the group to the individual” (Perelman &Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, pp. 314, 324). Prestige can be nonresponsive, embracing the assumption that group ethos will overshadow aberrant behavior.

2. Bias:“The act is judged in terms of the [public], the latter providing the context which makes for better understanding of the act. . .. [B]ias may suffice to remove the threat of an

incompatibility” (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, pp. 314, 324)5. In other words, the aberrant act can be reinterpreted if viewed through the prism of “other values” (p. 314)held by the public.

B. Condemnatory techniques:“When, between the act and the image . . . there is a discordance of such flagrancy that bias cannot abolish it . . . various devices are still available” (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, p.

315).1. Spheres of activity:

“It is possible to make a separation between different spheres of activity in such a way that an act . . . will be deemed irrelevant. . .. The sphere of irrelevant acts will clearly vary withthe [public] involved” (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, p. 315).

2. Weak association:“Another technique of restraint, intended to show that the individual does not represent the group and does not identify himself with any fixed group, is to associate part of him with

some of them, and part of him with others” (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, p. 326).3. Developmental stages:

“Sometimes the influence an act on the [public] is counteracted by congealing the person at a certain stage of his existence” (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, p. 315). Anexculpatory explanation of “youthful indiscretion” would exemplify this technique.

4. Exceptionalism:“One pleads the exceptional character of the act [or individual] in order to lessen its repercussion on the image of the person [or public]. . .. [The] technique is more successful in the

degree that the individual is thought less representative of the group; if leaders, delegates, or official spokesmen are often taken as incarnating the group, this is because it is moredifficult to put their views or opinions aside as being exceptional” (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, pp. 316, 326).

5. Clumsiness:“Sometimes an act will be described as clumsy or ineffective in order to suggest that the person did not give himself wholly to it, with all his might, with the best part of himself”

(Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, p. 316).

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to this article are shifting of blame (attribution of acts to another); transcendence (acknowledging of more important consid-erations); defeasibility (description of extenuating circumstances that lessen guilt); bolstering (emphasizing good qualities);and minimization (downplaying the importance of the act).

Like Benoit, Coombs (often with Holladay) has worked over the past decade to group potential “crisis response strategies”(2007, p. 163) into the four postures of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory: denying; diminishing (reframing thecrisis situation); rebuilding (improving the organization’s reputation); and bolstering (supplementing the other strategiesby strengthening relationships with key stakeholders) (2007). Options within the Situational Crisis Communication Theorypostures that are relevant to this article are scapegoating (acknowledging a crisis but rejecting responsibility); excusing(minimizing responsibility for crisis); justification (minimizing the damage); reminding (reiterating previous good deeds);and victimization (portraying the organization as a victim).

Perhaps the image restoration strategy that most directly addresses the threat posed by an aberrant member is Hearit’sconcept of “differentiation” (2001, p. 506). Hearit (2001) has offered five “postures” (p. 504) of crisis response: denial;counterattack (which includes a denial of the original assertion); differentiation (in which organizations often blame andpunish supposedly aberrant associates); apology (not to be confused with apologia); and legal (involving denial and/orsilence for legal reasons). With a strategy of differentiation, “organizations are most likely to engage in some form of anindividual-group dissociation in which they find scapegoats and then argue that individuals acted on their own behalfwithout organizational sanction” (Hearit, 2001, p. 506).

4. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s techniques of severance and restraint

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s “Techniques of Severance and Restraint” (1969, p. 310) build on strategies, such asHearit’s differentiation, designed to remove or diminish the impact of an aberrant member’s behavior on a larger public:

Individuals influence our impression of the groups to which they belong. . .. The value of an individual reflects onthe group. Fault in an individual can in certain cases compromise the reputation of the whole group. . .. Although thereality of a group may depend on the attitude of its members, it depends as much and even more on the attitude ofoutsiders. . .. The interaction between the individual and the group can be used to raise or lower the value of either.(Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, pp. 322–323)

In his later The Realm of Rhetoric, Perelman (1982) adds, “Normally, the actions of each member will influence the opinionthat outsiders form of the group. To break this bond, the techniques of severance and restraint have been instituted” (p. 99).

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) assert that organizations should consider techniques of severance or restraintwhen a member’s behavior creates a visible and potentially damaging “contradiction” with the organization’s values (p.310). Of the two subcategories, severance comprises fewer options than restraint (see Table 1):

[T]he only technique permitting severance of the interaction between the group and the individual is the exclusionof the latter. The exclusion can be effected either by the individual himself or by the other members of the group orby third parties. (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, p. 324)

Perelman (1982) notes that severance becomes the optimum technique when the aberrant member “could be consideredmost representative” (p. 99). Additionally, severance may be the desired response when a member’s aberrant behaviorpowerfully contradicts a public’s values: “If anyone expresses an opinion violently opposed to that of other members ofthe group and there is refusal to allow this opinion to be considered as that of the group, a breach will be necessary. . .”(Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, p. 324).

Techniques of restraint are both more commonly deployed and more nuanced; they “aim not to arrest but to curb theimport of an act, its influence upon the image. . .” (Perelman, 1982, p. 96).4 Techniques of restraint do not directly severan organization’s relationship with the aberrant individual. Rather, the ability of a member’s aberrant behavior to damagestakeholder perceptions of a public is restrained. As noted in Table 1, techniques of restraint range from prestige (notacknowledging the aberrant behavior, believing that the public’s ethos will overshadow it) and exceptionalism (either theaberrant individual is not typical of the public or the aberrant behavior is not typical of the individual) to clumsiness (theaberrant behavior was so ineffective that the individual “did not give himself wholly to it” [p. 316]). As the analysis of theNational Review-Buckley contretemps will demonstrate, an act of severance does not preclude the deployment of restrainttechniques, nor does one restraint technique preclude the use of others.

4 Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) equate actor/act with public/actor: “The relation of the person to the act is similar to the relation of the groupto the individual” (p. 324).

5 The emendations here employ Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s equation of actor/act with public/actor (1969, p. 324). Similar emendations occur inSpheres of Activity, Developmental Stages, and Exceptionalism.

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5. The National Review Online’s deployment of severance and restraint

On October 14 – the day of Buckley’s “Sorry, Dad, I Was Fired” blog – the National Review Online posted its first responseto the situation, the initial salvo in an image restoration process involving the rhetoric of severance and restraint. Writtenby National Review Editor Rich Lowry, the posting in the site’s “Corner” blog employed the weak association technique –Buckley was a temporary columnist – and noted that the severance was initiated by the aberrant member:

Over the weekend, Chris wrote us a jaunty e-mail with the subject line “A Sincere Offer,” in which he offered to resignhis column. . .. We took the offer sincerely. Chris had done us the favor of writing the column beginning seven issuesago on a “trial basis” (his words), while our regular back-page columnist, Mark Steyn, was on hiatus. Now, Mark isback to writing again, and—I’m delighted to say— will be on NR’s back-page in the new issue. (Lowry, 2008a)

Although Buckley initiated the severance, his departure was readily endorsed not only by Lowry but also by columnistRobinson (2008), who wrote that losing Buckley but seeing McCain gain Democratic endorsements was “a trade we’ll take,”and by columnist Steyn (2008h), who wrote that “in the event of a McCain victory, we’ll be doing the same [sacrificing andgrilling over a fire] to Christopher Buckley.”

The 35 relevant National Review Online postings in the October 10, 2008–2009, span offered a wide range of restrainttechniques: 15 evocations of clumsiness; 11 evocations of weak association; six evocations of exceptionalism; five evocationsof developmental stages; and four evocations of prestige.6 Some 10 of the evocations of clumsiness – two-thirds of thatparticular technique – came from Mark Steyn. Typical of Steyn’s charges that Buckley’s logic lacked intellectual heft was thiscomment: “[Author Boris Johnson’s endorsement of Obama] is a less incoherent analysis of the problems with the Republicanbrand than those advanced by . . . Christopher Buckley” (Steyn, 2008e). After Obama’s election, Steyn continued to apply thetechnique of clumsiness with comments such as:

[Obama’s] thoughtful look suckered many of my more impressionable conservative comrades last fall, when DavidBrooks and Christopher Buckley were cranking out gushing paeans to Obama’s “first-class temperament” – tempera-ment being to the Obamacons what Nick Jonas’s hair is to a Tiger Beat reporter. (Steyn, 2009e)7

Among National Review writers, Steyn was not alone in leveling charges of clumsiness. Columnist Mark Levin wrote thatBuckley’s “arguments are barely coherent” (Levin, 2008b). Ramesh Ponnuru held that Buckley “is making a lame argumentfor Obama” (Ponnuru, 2008).

Following clumsiness in terms of frequency were allegations of weak association with the National Review. On October11, 2008, one day after Buckley’s endorsement of Obama, columnist Andy McCarthy wrote, “I don’t really know Christopher(I’ve met him once). . .” (McCarthy, 2008). In positing a weak association by linking Buckley with “others” (Perelman &Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, p. 315), Mark Levin wrote, “He is another flavor of the month for the MSNBC crowd” (Levin, 2008b).Similarly, White House correspondent Byron York, associating Buckley with the Daily Beast, quoted a jubilant Tina Brown,that Web site’s founder, on Buckley’s endorsement: “It was like Christmas, as far as I was concerned. I was so – it was just, youknow, a great party at the office” (York, 2008). In the 12 months covered by this study, the National Review Online seven timesassociated Buckley with David Brooks, a columnist that the magazine has criticized for insufficient adherence to conservativevalues8 (Geraghty, 2009; Levin, 2008a; Steyn, 2008b, 2009b, 2009c, 2009e, 2009f). As noted above, National Review EditorRich Lowry described a weak association with Buckley in acknowledging his departure from the magazine (Lowry, 2008a).

Next in terms of frequency were allegations of exceptionalism: Buckley’s endorsement of Obama was presented as beingatypical of his overall political beliefs and behavior. Jonah Goldberg, founding editor of the National Review Online, recalledthat Buckley is “someone who worked for – and greatly admires – George H.W. Bush” (Goldberg, 2008). Andy McCarthyasserted that “Obama is clearly a man of the Left, which Christopher is not” (2008). Mark Steyn quoted an earlier Buckleyencomium to John McCain (Steyn, 2008c) and speculated that it actually was a Buckley doppelganger who had endorsedObama (Steyn, 2008g). In a favorable review of Buckley’s novel Supreme Courtship, National Review Online Editor KathrynLopez concluded, “Obama-issues aside, Christopher Buckley is clever, period” (Lopez, 2008).

As Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) note, exceptionalism also can encompass portraying the aberrant individual’sbehavior as being atypical of the behavior of other members of the public. Mark Levin employed this technique in writingthat “[t]he vast majority of conservative intellectuals and grassroots activists comprehend what’s at stake in the election,even if David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, Doug Kmiec, and other eccentrics do not” (Levin, 2008a).

National Review Online postings included five charges of a lack of development on Buckley’s part – assertions that, sufferingfrom a form of political immaturity, he soon would know better. “Sooner or later, of course, Christopher Buckley will comeback,” wrote Robinson (2008). Lowry (2008b) also pondered reconciliation – but only after the wayward columnist “takesa deep breath.” Three of National Review Online’s developmental stages comments came after Obama assumed office; theysuggested that a sadder-but-wiser Buckley was experiencing “buyer’s remorse” (Steyn, 2009d). On March 3, 2009, MarkSteyn wrote, “Six weeks in, the Obamacon dominoes – David Brooks, Christopher Buckley – are stunned to discover that,

6 Some postings contained more than one technique.7 See also Steyn (2008a, 2008b, 2008d, 2008f, 2008i, 2008j, 2009a, 2009c).8 For example, see Steyn (2009g).

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in the words of Mr. Brooks, ‘Barack Obama is not who we thought he was”’ (Steyn, 2009b). On May 14, 2009, contributingwriter Jim Geraghty wrote, “Former supporters of Obama, including David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, Jim Cramer, andWarren Buffett, have expressed varying degrees of criticism of his early moves, surprised that he is more hostile to the freemarket than they had thought” (Geraghty, 2009).

The technique of prestige occurred only late in the timeline of the publication’s deployment of severance and restraint.In each instance, a National Review Online writer mentioned Buckley by name but offered no condemnatory techniques ofrestraint – suggesting, perhaps, that the publication no longer viewed Buckley’s endorsement of Obama as a threat to itsimage and reputation. On February 23, 2009, Kathryn Lopez simply quoted Buckley’s tribute to his father on the anniversaryof the National Review founder’s death (Lopez, 2009). On March 6, 2009, Senior Editor Jay Nordlinger recalled that Buckley’sendorsement had caused “pain” but added that “I’ve been a Chris Buckley fan since [his novel] Wet Work” (Nordlinger,2009a). Seven weeks later, on April 27, 2009, Nordlinger, in reminiscing about the Buckley family, ignored the pain andwrote, “There is no doubt – none – that Bill and Pat [Christopher Buckley’s parents] were very, very proud of Christopherand his accomplishments” (Nordlinger, 2009b). Finally, the online publication’s last mention of Christopher Buckley in theyearlong span occurred within columnist John Derbyshire’s July 2, 2009, favorable review of Buckley’s Losing Mum and Pup:A Memoir. That review does not mention Buckley’s endorsement of Barack Obama (Derbyshire, 2009).

6. Conclusions: elaborations and directions for further research

The totality of the image restoration techniques deployed by the National Review Online to address the Buckley endorse-ment fit easily within Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s techniques of severance and restraint. Further, the publication’sresponses suggest the possibility of refinements or elaborations within those techniques. For example, severance clearlydoes not preclude the consequent deployment of restraint techniques. In fact, a severance initiated by the aberrant individ-ual, as in this case, may even increase the need for such consequent techniques. Additionally, the National Review Online didnot settle on one particular form of restraint; instead, speaking with many voices, it deployed five. Its use of the clumsinesstechnique departed somewhat from Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s description: Rather than using clumsiness to suggestBuckley’s lack of commitment to the aberration, the technique simply alleged a lack of intellectual acuity, thus nudging clum-siness toward the developmental stages technique. Finally, concluding a long-running campaign of severance and restraintwith techniques of prestige may be a subtle move toward rapprochement.

Given this brief beginning, suggestions for future research directions are many. This study did not include the reprintedWashington Post columns, considering them to be third-party voices. However, perhaps such voices should be consideredpart of a campaign of severance and restraint if they support the larger public’s communications. In view of Ponnuru’s(2009) observation that, in the wake of Buckley’s endorsement, conservative organizations were “soul-searching,” perhapsthe techniques of severance and restraint should include some form of symmetrical consideration of internal change. Ofhigh importance is the complex issue of how the techniques of severance and restraint compare with related strategieswithin Image Restoration Discourse, Situational Crisis Communication Theory, and other crisis-response systems. Finally,additional studies of other severance-and-restraint situations surely would expand our understanding of the techniques;do particular situational variables, for example, tend to suggest particular techniques?

The rapidly increasing ability of media technologies to foster and highlight individual acts of aberrant behavior under-scores the need for publics to be familiar with techniques of severance and restraint. Blogs, cell-phone photographs, tweets,e-mail messages, viral videos: All, within recent memory, have strained relationships within the geometry that links a public,its members, and the stakeholders whose good opinion the public requires. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s techniques ofseverance and restraint merit additional study.

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