William F. Buckley Jr.
By Mitch Berg
If there was a person I was hoping to meet at this fall’s GOP convention (besides Angie Harmon), it would have been William F. Buckley, the godfather of the American conservative media.
Sadly, it’s not going to happen.
Author and conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. has died at age 82.
His assistant Linda Bridges says Buckley died Wednesday morning at his home in Stamford, Conn.
I remember watching the erudite, unflappable Buckley driving liberal commentators to near-aneurisms as I was just starting to question my own left-of-center assumptions as a college kid, and thinking – showing the prejudice that I still rail against in too many on the left – “wow – he’s pretty smart for a Republican”.
I’d so hoped he’d make it to the NARN reception…
February 27th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
What a great loss – but he left us plenty of himself to read (bring a damned good dictionary) and view. Hopefully soon someone will wake up and put all of the Firing Line episodes on DVD.
The first drink tonight will be a toast to this lion of language.
February 27th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I loved his sailing memoirs but couldn’t read him otherwise. His language was just too bulky.
One day I was reading a translation of Summa Theologica. The convoluted prose looked familiar. I found a Buckley column & compared it to the Aquinas: it looked like Buckley composed his thoughts in Medieval Church Latin & then wrote them in modern English.
Now that’s a conservative.
February 27th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
My very first conservative influence (as an adult) came from listening to this man. How I loved his use of the language! A giant among men-may God bless his memory.
February 27th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Apparently effete (played the harpsichord!), elitist Ivy Leaguers are OK with you wingnuts as long as they support war and oppose civil rights. Good riddance.
February 27th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
“Good riddance.”
The proper lefty is supposed to say “screw ’em”.
February 27th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I love the harpsichord!
The typical conservative couple is best exemplified by Gomez & Morticia Addams.
February 27th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Apparently effete (played the harpsichord!)
Effete? No – just into even more esoteric instruments than I am.
, elitist Ivy Leaguers are OK with you wingnuts as long as they support war
In the specific, rather than generic?
and oppose civil rights.
Where “civil rights” = “covering abortion under the First Amendment freedom of religion?” Perhaps.
Good riddance.
Don’t party too hard. Only Grey Buckley died.
When the Obamazoids are about to break down the final gate, he’ll come back as White Buckley.
February 27th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Clownie does illustrate the gracious nature of the Clintonian wing of the Democrat party nicely.
February 27th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Please. Buckley supported Joe McCarthy and opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Privileged upper-class twit spends a lifetime promoting the interests of same, dies. Yawn.
February 27th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Hey angryclown,
Buckley wasn’t effete; that would be poor Gore Vidal, who got bucked down by WFB in Chicago in ’68. Though that whole scene kinda sucked.
McCarthy – yawn. There actually were commies around who wanted to kick us running yellow dogs of capitalism, too. It wasn’t a completely frivolous hunt.
Now, mind your manners and pay humble, loving respect and tribute to the memory of one of your many, many betters.
February 27th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Please. Buckley supported Joe McCarthy
Heavens! Exposing the communists in the State Department that were actually there? What a crime.
February 27th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Buckley supported Joe McCarthy
He supported the goal of rooting out communism, not the paranoid excesses. He also drew a rational line between “rooting” and “paranoia”; as usual, it was different than the leftymediapopularculture perceives.
and opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
He opposed the specific legislation, not the goal of civil rights. Key bit of context, really.
Privileged upper-class twit spends a lifetime promoting the interests of same, dies.
John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton died, and nobody told me?
February 27th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
” . . . opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
An introspective liberal (never met any myself) would note that Buckley’s ‘states rights’ arguments against the school integration and the civil rights act are closely mirrored by the left’s arguments against the liberation of Iraq.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I heard John Edwards has set up a refugee camp in his bazillion square foot home.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Besides, the clown is driven by jealousy. Clown has the erudition, quick wit, and charming diction of an Andalusian gravedigger with a harelip.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Uh, Buckley’s stance on the War on Terror… or the War in Iraq? I believe Buckley was against the Iraq War.
If this is the case, Clown once again shows how he’s still managing to type with Stage III syph.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Andalusian gravedigger with a harelip
You’re really Dennis Miller, aren’t you?
February 27th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Effete? Is that supposed to be a slam? And if so, why is that any different than “porch monkey”? And a man who has just died besides. As usual, the love, understanding and “tolerance” just oozes…
February 27th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Rest in peace, WFB.
And, yup, ac, he supported McCarthy’s attempt — inept though it was and witchhunt which it became — to root out Soviet agents from the US government. Turns out that — as a matter of fact, not opinion; the Verona files proved it — that various agencies in the US government were compromised by Soviet agents, and not just Alger Hiss. I hardly think that rooting out spies of a hostile nation should be something that, in and of itself, should be condemned.
He also cut Buchanan and Sobran loose, among his other good deeds.
February 27th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I’m not certain but I believe that most of the ‘spies’ McCarthy ID’d had broken off contact with the USSR after the Hitler-Stalin pact.
Which means that they were more commie than the Russians, I guess.
February 28th, 2008 at 9:57 am
AssClown can be forgiven his uncharitable attitude. It can’t have been easy watching Buckley wipe his ass with the best the fever swamp could muster for all those years.
Buckley took looking down ones nose at a feckless lefty to an art form; no wonder they hated him.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Effete? Is that supposed to be a slam?
Don’t bother, Colleen.
Lefties barber about how the Ivies are the intellectual heart of this nation, and any education “less” than an Ivy League one is basically a prole time-waster – until the Ivy League hatches a conservative. Then, and only then, it’s a sign of upper-class foppery.
You should know this by now.
February 28th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Angie Harmon is going to be in town for the Republican convention??
When she finally decides to leave that ex-football player Jason Sehorn, she’ll be knocking on my door.
Maybe she needs a place to stay while in town. She could stay at my house, I don’t think my wife would care.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
While usually, esp. for a man of Buckley’s stature and achievement, it is in the natural order of things to more celebrate his life than to morn his death there is nevertheless a sad note to Buckley’s passing, and that is the conservative movement he started proceeded him to the grave. See:
http://libertydesirebelief.thechartersofdreams.com/2008/02/american-conservatism-proceede.html
February 28th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
[…] So, respect on the left for the Oxford-clothed, button-downed lion on the right as he leaves the field. Well, Buckley’s view of civil liberties took an unfortunate political turn early in his career (he recanted them 30 years later), leaving a stain that will always ruin his perfect preppy suit. One conservative blogger’s paean to ole WFB elicited this pithy alternative biography from a commenter named angryclown: Please. Buckley supported Joe McCarthy and opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Privileged upper-class twit spends a lifetime promoting the interests of same, dies. Yawn. […]