Time Writer Sneers at William F. Buckley Jr.

NewsBusters ^ | February 28, 2008 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

It looks like Time magazine has dispensed with the quaint custom of showing at least a little respect for the recently deceased. This story by Richard Corliss begins a long sneer in the direction of William F. Buckley, Jr. starting with its very title, "William F. Buckley: Mandarin of Right-Wing TV." From that low point, Corliss continues his descent into his ill-mannered septic tank as he blames Buckley for inspiring what Corliss describes as "partisan political harangue as infotainment" following an appearance on the Jack Paar show in 1962:

Few viewers realized that those two evenings 46 years ago would birth a durable TV genre: the partisan political harangue as infotainment. The Left, in Vidal's image, never took hold, but Buckley soon set up shop at PBS, of all places, hosting the primordial political chat show Firing Line. From that, and from Buckley's blithe, castrating wit, a horde of right-wing radio spielers and Fox News ideologues, not to mention the Manichean shouters on The McLaughlin Report and many a Sunday panel show.

Corliss continues his attack on Buckley by suggesting that he was a trickster whose goal was to win a debate at all costs:

His manner suggested that he was 100% right — right as in correct — and all who opposed him were fools or brigands. It's an old debater's trick, and he was the master debater. Like another '60s icon, Vince Lombardi, he believed that winning was the only thing. Your rival is not to be charmed so much as crushed.

How about the trick of attacking an opponent when he is no longer alive to answer back, Corliss? The poison pen Time writer continues his attack upon the recently deceased by suggesting that Buckley inspired the right to win in the battle of ideas with mere showmanship:

For a while, the tactic didn't win Buckley many adherents. But it worked in the long run. As the conservative movement took hold, thanks in large part to his biweekly magazine National Review, conservatives began to speak out more forcefully, belligerently, confidently. By the '80s they had most of the smarties, while liberals still wallowed in position-paper platitudes. What had the right learned from Buckley? The importance of showmanship.

Corliss, when not kicking dirt into Buckley's grave, takes a few potshots at other conservatives such as by mischaracterizing Rush Limbaugh as some mere loudmouthed redneck:

None, though, had Buckley's strangely seductive, amusingly upper-class persona. In tone and aplomb, he was Leslie Howard to Rush Limbaugh's Larry the Cable Guy, a caviar-and-truffles type to Sean Hannity's Lunchpail Joe. In that sense, Buckley was a throwback even before the 1960s, to a breed of would-be royalists stranded in the tight-lipped New World. The anglophilia of this well-off son of Irish immigrants made him an anachronistic figure of fun when he ran for Mayor of New York City — the voters preferred earthy sorts like Ed Koch to Buckley's Edward VIII airs — and a pleasant anachronism in his later career as conservative elder statesman, his orotundity drowned out by the noise of the Limbaughs.

Corliss concludes with a parting "right-wing" shot at Buckley:

But that only proved Buckley's importance as a political and cultural innovator. His ear-catching right-wing eloquence would never have gone out of style if he hadn't been successful in creating it.

One can't help but wonder if William F. Buckley is somewhere out there, reading the Corliss hit piece with bemusement. An impish grin on his face and a twinkle in his eyes as he prepares to deliver a devasting Buckleyan riposte with his "ear-catching right-wing eloquence."

[PJ-Comix]

Talk about bad taste. Corliss just could wait to take a potshot at Buckley the moment he died.

[wretchard]

The fact the Left hates him is the greatest tribute to his effectiveness.

[mkjessup]

Corliss doesn’t even rise to the level of the last and final handful of toilet paper that Bill Buckley used to wipe his butt.

Rest in Peace WFB!

[Rumplemeyer]

A good measure of your caricature is, who are your enemies.

[Hans]

Poor Time magazine. I last subscribed 20 years ago, last
bought a copy two years ago.

[padre35]

Ahh, so the author managed to open his Thesaurus program and take potshots at his betters behind the mask of some MSM rag that is just as likely to display the scribbles of a bitter man next to an advertisement for Rogaine or Viagra.

How appropriate that the two afflictions that infest this sort have their treatment displayed next to such low brow venom.

[saganite]

Pretty much the same type of vitriol was written when Ayn Rand died. The left has zero class.

[watsonfellow]

It gets worse.

Corlis wrote for National Review.

Go figure.

[WrightOnTarget]

Yes, Buckley is probably up there grinning at this tripe. If Buckley managed to laugh off the following review by Frank Ashburn of "God and Man at Yale"... "The book is one which has the glow and appeal of a fiery cross on a hillside at night. There will undoubtedly be robed figures who gather to it, but the hoods will not be academic. They will cover the face." ... then he can laugh off that classless Time dweeb.

[Hans]

It has become a thin husk of its former self. A little
leftwing rag.

[y6162]

“Your rival is not to be charmed so much as crushed.”

Sounds about right to me. Wish more Republican candidates had the instinct to go for the jugular.

Interesting this guy is neither charming or crushing. Must be jealous.

[rbmillerjr]

Yeah, I’ll bet if somebody does a google on this writer you can find tribute articles singing the high praises of Alger Hiss though lmao.

I’d do it but I’m working.

[Mr. Lucky]

You would find Charmin so much more satisfying.

[Jane Austen]

Worse than bad taste.

[andy58-in-nh]

A life well lived, richly shared, and deeply enjoyed is an affront to other men poor of spirit and shallow of soul. It is evident that Corliss resents Mr. Buckley for the success and adulation he craves for himself, but will never achieve.

[SE Mom]

Fascinating. Richard Corliss is apparently incapable of attacking WFB on the merit of his arguments over the years..so instead attacks him on his style..

I’ll speculate the reason is -Corliss cannot grasp the principles Buckley so ardently defended.

[JeanLM]

Two comments: 1. Corliss takes issue with Buckley’s style; not the substance of his principles, as is typical of the left. 2. Buckley’s passing will probably not be as noteworthy to the MSM as Heath Ledger’s, in terms of length and breadth of coverage. To me this is how far we’ve moved significant events out and entertainment values into the popular news media.

[Republic of Texas]

“Hi Mr. Corliss, this is William F. Buckley’s jock. Oh, you can’t carry it, I just wanted you to see it”.

[Rummyfan]

His ear-catching right-wing eloquence would never have gone out of style if he hadn't been successful in creating it.

What the heck is Corliss even trying to say here?

[Mac from Cleveland]

Corliss isn’t fit to shine Buckley’s shoes.

In the article, Corliss called Buckley a “master debater”- Get it? har de har har-I’d expect that type of double-entendre from the National Lampoon, not Time Magazine.

Even if he disagreed with Buckley, surely he could have been civil under the circumstances. There was an old journalist who was a fearsome opponent of those he disagreed with, but who never unfairly smeared any old enemy after their death, saying, when people asked why he showed such restraint: “When the Good Lord lays His hand upon a man, I take mine off”.

[Greg F]

Last worthwhile article in Time was in 1992:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,974931,00.html?promoid=googlep

[astounded]

I dropped Time about 20 years ago, too. It is a hate-filled, anti-American leftwing rag, similar to Newsweek, and the NYT, for that matter.

[blam]

The founder of Time Magazine, Henry Luce, must be spinning in his grave. WFB and Whittaker Chambers were good friends and Luce paid all Chambers’ legal bills in the battle against traitor and spy Alger Hiss. Chambers was an editor at Time Magazine for years.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"None, though, had Buckley's strangely seductive, amusingly upper-class persona. In tone and aplomb, he was Leslie Howard to Rush Limbaugh's Larry the Cable Guy, a caviar-and-truffles type to Sean Hannity's Lunchpail Joe. In that sense, Buckley was a throwback even before the 1960s, to a breed of would-be royalists stranded in the tight-lipped New World. The anglophilia of this well-off son of Irish immigrants made him an anachronistic figure of fun when he ran for Mayor of New York City — the voters preferred earthy sorts like Ed Koch to Buckley's Edward VIII airs — and a pleasant anachronism in his later career as conservative elder statesman, his orotundity drowned out by the noise of the Limbaughs."

A xenophobic hatchet job. And a very superficial one. Obviously he did not read National Review very carefully or watch Firing Line with any attention span.

There was more going on than the Jack Parr show. He might as well be blaming Cicero, Edmund Burke, and Winston Churchill for political talk radio.

The writer of the hit piece could use a good prep school and college education to discover that rhetoric serves a function in intelligent debate and discussion.

He could also learn, were he a penitent and informed Catholic, that it is both rude and bad luck to speak ill of the dead.

Once upon a time educated and civilized people rose above petty differences in death, to bury the sword. That's a conservative tradition worth remembering.

[Impeach the Boy]

“His manner suggested that he was 100% right — right as in correct — and all who opposed him were fools or brigands. It’s an old debater’s trick, and he was the master debater. Like another ‘60s icon, Vince Lombardi, he believed that winning was the only thing. Your rival is not to be charmed so much as crushed.”

Without understanding it, this liberal idiot has just proven what is a benchmark of liberalism; the inability to admit or accept that they are just wrong. He complains that Buckley assumed himself to be right...let’s not look to history or experience to examine if, in fact, he was correct...let’s just whine about conservatives presenting their aurgments “as if they are right”.

Facts mean NOTHING to a liberal...and this guy just proved it ONCE again....along with proving that they have no sense of decency.

[SuziQ]

It’s the ultimate example of ‘sour grapes’. The leftist talk shows that tried mightily to emulate “Firing Line” all fell by the wayside. Buckley was always entertaining, as well as inspiring. The leftists could never reach, much less bypass, that standard.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I quit TIME when they published their guns = suicide issue more than 20 years ago. I’ll never again have a Time/Life publication in my home, ever.

[KC Burke]

The guy is a piddling film critic and Hollywood jock sniffer. He writes about the Oscars and American Idol.

Time should be ashamed of giving a minor leftist film critic a spot for this the day of his obituary.

[RetSignman]

Talk about cowardice...the writer could never compete with Buckley on a intellectual level so he waits until he died.

[RoadTest]

“partisan political harangue” is what Libs call a serious discussion of the real issues.

[martin_fierro]

Time Magazine: BY dumb broads, FOR dumb broads.

[Noumenon]

“Your rival is not to be charmed so much as crushed.”

What is best in life?

Crush liberals.
See them fleeing before you.
Hear the lamentations of their metrosexuals.

[Pistolshot]

Corliss just shows that the Libs will always have a deep seated hatred of conservatives, and especially the one who pointed us in the direction we needed to go. William F Buckley, Jr.

[rbmillerjr]

To pay Buckley a tribute, go to youtube and search William F Buckley,,,there are long clips with Firing Line interview/debates with Noam Chomsky CountGoreVidal.

I stayed up late last night, enthralled with the debates.

[mware]

William F Buckley has more intelligence in his dead body then Mr, Corliss has in the most lucid moment of his life.

[Rum Tum Tugger]

What is a “Time magazine”?

[Rennes Templar]

Interesting how Corliss and the left view Buckley, and ascribe to him the rise of modern TV dialogue shows and radio talk, a veritable industry in itself.
For shame, to leave such a legacy!

Now when their icon, Ted Kenndedy, passes, will they give him his due as the progenitor of the philandering, smarmy, felony-dodging career politician?

[Ditto]

Corliss just could wait to take a potshot at Buckley the moment he died.

Well the punk didn't have the guts to say it when he was alive. Buckley would have cut this pompous little faux intellectual into tiny pieces in just one paragraph.

[Pharmboy]

Well, now that you've read Corliss' column, you've just about doubled his usual audience.

This was just another argument from the left on why having any opinion other than theirs is out of bounds. Corliss and the rest of like-minded "thinkers" are just ignorant fascists.

[bvw]

It’s like one of those old pre-blog mimeographed newsleters sent by crackpots to a small following, I’d bet.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"Without understanding it, this liberal idiot has just proven what is a benchmark of liberalism; the inability to admit or accept that they are just wrong. He complains that Buckley assumed himself to be right...let’s not look to history or experience to examine if, in fact, he was correct...let’s just whine about conservatives presenting their aurgments “as if they are right”.

25 posted on 02/28/2008 10:15:03 AM EST by Impeach the Boy

He also appears to have employed a few classic fallacies of sophistry: the ad hominem, Straw Man, Post hoc ergo, propter hoc, and Reductio ad absurdum.

Quite an accomplishment for one obituary, even by liberal standards.

"The anglophilia of this well-off son of Irish immigrants made him an anachronistic figure of fun when he ran for Mayor of New York City — the voters preferred earthy sorts like Ed Koch to Buckley's Edward VIII airs..."

Leaving the not so veiled "immigrants" slur aside for a moment, wasn't Buckley more of a Charles Stuart or James II type than Edward VIII, at least in terms of atavistic reactionary "airs"? Did they do a hit piece on George Plimpton, making fun of him when he died?

You would think that even seasoned TIME magazine liberals would have some knowledge of Ciceronian eloquentia perfecta beyond just Scarlet Pimpernel movies.

[Calvin Locke]

My all time favorite was the two part debate at Harvard, during Reagan's first term.

Seeing, actually, wondering what caused JKG to melt down in the closing remarks was probably the earliest example of "Conservative Derangement Syndrome". His last remarks had nothing to do with debate topic.

Also, WFB remarking on Timothy Leary: "...arrives in a suit and tie, puts on his [hippie] outfit, goes on camera, and changes back into his suit after the show. He was a complete and utter fraud."

[Wallace T.]

The anglophilia of this well-off son of Irish immigrants made him an anachronistic figure of fun when he ran for Mayor of New York City — the voters preferred earthy sorts like Ed Koch to Buckley's Edward VIII airs

This poor excuse for a writer is too lazy even to do some research on his own magazine's web site. Both of William Buckley's parents were native born, and his mother was of German-Swiss descent. Both Buckley's father and paternal grandfather were native born. Additionally, Buckley did not run against Ed Koch in the 1965 New York mayoral race. Koch was elected 12 years later, in 1977. Most of these facts are readily available, even on a casual search on Yahoo or Google.

Nowadays, Time magazine is as bereft of advertisements as the old ideological magazines like The New Republic or (ironically) National Review were. The same holds true for Newsweek. It looks like their standards have sunk to the level of The New York Times in their recent McCain hit piece or CBS over Bush's National Guard career. All of them have sunk to the level of supermarket tabloids, or even lower.

[Lancey Howard]

I never heard of “Richard Corliss” but I suspect that, like most of the staff at TIME, that assclown was smoking something in the bathroom at the Daily Collegian last year.

[databoss]

corliss wishes he had one tenth of WFB’s word power and intellect...

[KosmicKitty]

And when Corliss passes to the great beyond, people will say “Who??”

Jealousy is never pretty.

[figetyfiggs]

sigh... again this notion as parroted by Clueless, eh, I mean, Corliss, is that conservatives are just these stupid people who don’t think for themselves, they just sit around wating to be led by people like Limbaugh or Buckley.

I do not read Time magazine. Occasionally I’ll browse an issue of Time sitting at a dentist or doctor’s office but upon reading an issue have to toss it down in disgust. Most of the articles are devoid of wisdom and lay steeped in a filthy stew of materialism and Government-is-God socialism.

Time Rag? No thanks. I wouldn’t take even a free subscription. Each issue should come with a barf bag.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"and ascribe to him the rise of modern TV dialogue shows and radio talk, a veritable industry in itself. For shame, to leave such a legacy!"

37 posted on 02/28/2008 10:39:16 AM EST by Rennes Templar

There may have been some liberal envy here. Who did they have - Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Sam Donaldson? Buckley was not the only pioneer of political television although he was more courteous to guests than Dan Rather or Jack Parr. It was Parr who ambushed Buckley. And Gore Vidal who initiated the name-calling attack.

"not to mention the Manichean shouters on The McLaughlin Report and many a Sunday panel show."

Did he forget to mention Boss Tweed? I hope he didn't leave George Stephanopoulos and Dan Rather out of the list of Manicheans or the hard-core fellow-traveling gnostics like Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow.

[7thson]

Years ago, Princess Di and Mother Theresa died in the same week. Guess who got more coverage?

[Impeach the Boy]

Well said.

Thanks.