National Review is a publication referenced across several episodes of The Bob Zadek Show, generally as a marker of conservative opinion rather than as a topic examined on its own terms. The excerpts identify it as the magazine Bill Buckley started, as the publisher of a 1996 symposium on the War on Drugs, and as a place where guest Veronique de Rugy blogged. It also appears in the biography of guest Peter Suderman, who was described as a former writer and editor there.
Bill Buckley and the magazine’s founding
In the 2011 episode on prison costs, Veronique de Rugy invoked the magazine’s founder while arguing that opposition to the War on Drugs is not confined to libertarians. She said that Bill Buckley, who started National Review, had declared—and that the magazine’s position is—that the War on Drugs has failed Crime Down: Prison Costs Up (2011). Bob Zadek responded that Buckley had written a piece in National Review about twenty years earlier that he thought de Rugy had referenced. De Rugy placed the piece in 1996 and described it as a symposium on the War on Drugs in which the magazine said that while it did not approve of drug consumption, it had to say the War on Drugs has failed miserably Crime Down: Prison Costs Up (2011).
The exchange is notable for how the two speakers divide the claim. De Rugy supplies the attribution to Buckley and the characterization of the magazine’s position; Zadek supplies the recollection of an earlier piece and the rough date, which de Rugy then fixes at 1996. The excerpts do not state when the magazine was founded, where it is published, or who edited it at any point.
The Corner and the airline bailouts
National Review returns in the 2023 episode on airline bailouts, again through de Rugy. Arguing that even conservative opinion had turned against the drug war, she said she blogged at The Corner, which she described as a very conservative blog Crime Down: Prison Costs Up (2011). Later in the same conversation, discussing moral hazard, she recalled a press conference by the head of Delta at which he told investors that the pandemic had taught the airlines they were worth investing in because government will always bail them out; she said she had blogged about it at some point at National Review The True Cost of Airline Bailouts (2023).
Both references are incidental to the argument rather than about the publication. The Corner is named only to establish that de Rugy writes for a conservative outlet, and the Delta item is cited as something she had written up elsewhere. The excerpts do not describe The Corner’s relationship to National Review beyond de Rugy’s description of it as a blog, nor do they give the date of the Delta press conference or the name of the executive.
Peter Suderman’s background
The magazine also figures in Bob Zadek’s introduction of Peter Suderman in the 2011 episode on the S&P downgrade. Introducing Suderman as an associate editor of Reason magazine who writes on healthcare, tech policy and pop culture, Zadek said Suderman was a writer and editor at National Review, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and FreedomWorks Is the US the Next Enron? (2011). The mention is part of a list of prior positions and carries no further detail: the excerpts do not say when Suderman worked at the magazine, in what capacity beyond writer and editor, or what he wrote there.
Across episodes
Two episodes touch on National Review, both from 2011, and the excerpts show no development in how the publication is treated. In the prison-costs episode it is cited as evidence that a conservative magazine had declared the War on Drugs a failure; in the S&P episode it appears only in a guest’s résumé. A third episode, from 2023, adds de Rugy’s references to The Corner and to her blogging about Delta, but these are passing mentions rather than a changed treatment.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state when National Review was founded, where it is based, who its editors have been, or what its institutional positions are apart from the drug-war symposium de Rugy describes. They do not identify the author of the 1996 symposium, the title of Buckley’s piece, or the date and speaker of the Delta press conference de Rugy mentions. Nothing in the excerpts describes the magazine’s coverage of any subject other than the War on Drugs, and no guest other than de Rugy and Suderman is connected to it.