Posted on 02/27/2008 3:25:28 PM PST by Syncro
Mr. Buckley in his office at the National Review in 1965. Mr. Buckley's winningly capricious personality, replete with ten-dollar words and a darting tongue writers loved to compare with an anteater's, hosted one of television's longest-running programs, "Firing Line," and founded and shepherded the National Review.
Photo: Sam Falk/The New York Times
Mr. Buckley at a press conference in 1965. His greatest achievement was making conservatism - not just electoral Republicanism, but conservatism as a system of ideas - respectable in liberal post-World War II America. He mobilized the young enthusiasts who helped nominate Barry Goldwater in 1964, and saw his dreams fulfilled when Reagan and the Bushes captured the Oval Office.
Photo: John Lindsay/Associated Press
Mr. Buckley at a benefit in 1972. His vocabulary, sparkling with phrases from distant eras and described in newspaper and magazine profiles as sesquipedalian (characterized by the use of long words) became the stuff of legend. Less kind commentators called him "pleonastic" (use of more words than necessary).
Photo: Michael Evans/The New York Times
William Francis Buckley Jr., seen at his National Review office in 2004, was born in Manhattan on Nov. 24, 1925, the sixth of the 10 children of Aloise Steiner Buckley and William Frank Buckley Jr. In 1955, Mr. Buckley started National Review as voice for "the disciples of truth, who defend the organic moral order" with a $100,000 gift from his father.
Photo: Vincent Laforet/The New York Times
In his last years, as honors like the Presidential Medal of Freedom came his way, Mr. Buckley - shown here in the office of his Stamford, Conn., home in 2005 - gradually loosened his grip on his intellectual empire. In 1998, he ended his frenetic schedule of public speeches. In 1999, he stopped "Firing Line," and in 2004, he relinquished his voting stock in National Review. Mr Buckley, 82, suffered from diabetes and emphysema, his son Christopher said, although the exact cause of death was not immediately known. He was found at his desk in the study of his home, his son said. "He might have been working on a column," Mr. Buckley said.
Photo: Suzy Allman for The New York Times
Thank goodness we have Ann Coulter, et al, to carry on the tradition!
Is that Obama coming out of the pool? :)
When I used to subscribe to National Review, I wrote him a few times. I loved his responses.
I must confess, the folks here who try an imitate his intellect by copying his response to letters (his famous: Cordially) irritate me.
I don't have a genius IQ - but I do not try an fake it either.
Rush said as much today on his radio show. Conservatives should realize what Buckley was - and be proud of that.
Yep...our side had William F. Buckley and their side had pathetic, self-absorbed, little pukes who thought, because they could string a series of multi-syllabic words together to form a sentence, were just so much smarter than the rest of us.
Norman Mailer died and nobody even farted. And that's as it should be.
Actually, that was the Hidden Imam.
(and no - that is not photoshopped).
This is what the folks at Time magazine did not think should be on their news cover:
But this is what the employees of Time magazine did think was a good cover?
No bias here. No sir ma'am.
OMG!
Amen WT. You captured his gift and power by that statement.
About what my friend Ann? WFB, or Gore "the queer" Vidal?
If the latter, you must remember that is who Vidal is/was.
If the former, man - could he write, or what?
I recall meeting Mr Buckley in 1963 while attending an ethics course at the University of Texas. He was sharp, witty, and highly entertaining. How and why he was invited to UT, the rotten heart of liberalism in Texas, I will never know. But I knew that I couldn’t be a “yellow dog” democrat like my Dad after I heard him speak.
Thanks Mr Buckley for all your contributions to enlighten the masses on the principles of conservatism! RIP
R.I.P. Mr. Buckley
Semper Fi,
Kelly
I know what you mean.
My "Irish Catholic Democrat" family could not believe I "betrayed" the Kennedy family (my not too distant relatives) by becoming a Republican.
I was raised poor. We were lower middle class - and still my family believed the Democrats were the Savior.
It's not an obituary, it's a tribute. And a damned fine one!
My mother bought me a subscription to NR as I shipped off to the mental wasteland of public university in the Liberal Arts (emphasis on “liberal”) department. It was a lifeline. I would always jump straightway to the letters to WFB and would guffaw aloud as I read his always perfectly poignant responses.
RIP, WFB. Godspeed.
RIP in the title? It’s a tribute and an obituary. And as I said, fitting.
BTW, my fave quote in the article from Buckley to the judge in that trial: "I decline to answer that question; it's too stupid."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.