William F. Buckley, Jr

Everyone who is anyone on America’s political right is genuflecting in William F. Buckley, Jr’s direction today. And I will be no exception. The man was a titan of conservative thought and as erudite and sophisticated…in the true meaning of the words… as any man who ever walked the planet, and much more so than most. His accomplishments were legendary and he is often credited with being the Father of Modern Conservative Thought. I’ll probably be reading his obits for days, if not weeks. Blog-Buddy Barry has a good round-up of the obituaries that struck his fancy, and he has links to some of the very best. This particular obit (Radley Balko, writing at Reason Magazine’s blog) struck me as particularly fitting:

Buckley leaves an enormous legacy, but to the detriment [of] everyone, the right left Buckley years ago. Where Buckley stood athwart the tide of history and beat it back with wit, sophistication, and argument, we today get best-selling Regnery screeds from lowest-common-denominator clowns like Ann Coulter, Dinesh D'Souza, and Glenn Beck. Where Buckley mistrusted government and aimed to slow the world down, he's been usurped on the right by the likes of William Kristol and David Brooks, men who want to use government to remake the world in their own image. Where Buckley flourished in cosmopolitan Manhattan and took delight in life's finer things, modern conservatism has grown disdainful of the marketplace of culture, commerce, and ideas abundant in urban areas (witness the last election, where many on the right weirdly smeared John Kerry as a "latte-sipper"—real Americans apparently drink Maxwell House). In fact, today's Bush/neocon-right is often contemptuous of commerce itself, sometimes calling the voluntary, unchecked exchange of goods, labor, and services—a pure free market—"ugly" and "crude."

Clowns, indeed, for the most part. There are a couple of examples Balko cites that I don’t agree with, but his point is very well taken. WFB’s wry humor, articulation, and simple goodness will be sorely missed. I’m afraid WFB was a man of another age… a time when one could disagree with a person on any given subject…but most especially politics… yet still respect the person you disagreed with and extend your hand in friendship, which Mr. Buckley did, and often.

RIP, Mr. Buckley. And thank you.