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William F. Buckley Jr. dies at 82
I grew up on Firing Line. He made such an enormous contribution to educating the world about conservative thought and civil discourse. I often disagreed with him but he made me think. If only the GOP would stay closer to his views of restrained government, people could benefit from a higher-quality public debate on politics.
Addendum: I was just reading about the divisive tactics of the
Conservative talkshow host who introduced McCain yesterday. I occurs to me that I have far less resistance to conservatism than I do to the angry, scared, petty, belligerent spokesmen for it.
3 Responses to “William F. Buckley Jr. dies at 82”
Damn: I loved his style. Read his book, reviewed here: http://www.cosmoetica.com/B302-DES242.htm
Damn, now that pointy-headed twit George Will will claim to be the dean of the Right!
WFB, RIP.
I have not commented at TMV in a while…death in the family back home…but feel I should say something about Buckley.
Growing up in another country, he WAS American conservatism for me.
Way back when I was a kid, there were only 3 conservatives visible across the U.S. media landscape – the 2 tokens tolerated by liberals as signs of their openess…Safire at the NYT, and Will at the Post/ABC…and the heroic Buckley, who compelled the respect of liberals by sheer charm and force of intellect.
Week after week on “Firing Line” he would confound the smugness of a then preeminent liberal elitism…his mishiveous grin as he would leisurely lean back in his chair with legs crossed to make a point, and then…leaning forward…oh-so-politely eviscerate his unwitting victim.
In contrast to the “upper-class twit of the year” conservatives I despised at home, his was a conservatism to admire…iconocolastic, relentlessly searching and intellectually rigourous. Case in point, his support for the decriminalization of marijuana.
It is very sad that he has passed, as there seems to have passed with him an era of greatness in American political discourse.