back to top5 Comments to “Buckley reviews and essays”

1. BY Sawgunner 02.27.08 AT 2:10 PM

   I was driving back to work when I heard the news of Buckley’s death.
   Rush was discussing his meeting Buckley for the first time. WFB was a fan of the show and not just Buckley but his wife Pat were cordial hosts for Limbaugh. Rush said they asked him all sorts of questions about prepping for his show etc etc.

   Admittedly Bill had a niche of loyal readers but never did he nor could he attain the status of Rush. If Buckley were Einstein then Limbaugh was his Carl Sagan: taking the truths of Buckley’s ideas and bringing them down to the understandable level of the un-initiated. Bill Buckley would have never convinced anyone that he was (in Rush’s words to describe himself) a “harmless little fuzz ball”. The politicians of Buckley’s prime years never cursed or praised him in the manner their legatees do Rush.
   Yet does anyone think we’d have Rush, Hannity, Laura Ingraham et all had we not first had the lone voice of Bill Buckley?

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2. BY Spinoza 02.27.08 AT 4:57 PM

   “If Buckley were Einstein then Limbaugh was his Carl Sagan:”

   Buckley was no Einstein and Limbaugh is no Carl.
   Both comparisons are completely ludicrous.

   “Yet does anyone think we’d have Rush, Hannity, Laura Ingraham et all had we not first had the lone voice of Bill Buckley?”

   What a horrible way to remember the dead!

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3. BY Kwerna 02.27.08 AT 5:52 PM

   I wrote Buckley a letter as a grad student praising his book “Airborne.” He wrote back and invited me sailing if I were ever on the East Coast.

   “He’s the anti-Rush Limbaugh, as quick with a literary reference as a factual proposition, a real rhetorician.” I’m confident Buckley would strenuously disagree with your assessment of Rush Limbaugh.

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4. BY Scroop Moth 02.28.08 AT 5:41 PM

   What I enjoyed about Buckley, apart from one or two of his alcohol-fixated spy stories, was the charming way he had in debate of turning himself into the figure of derision, rather than his opponent, unlike present-day conservatives. I saw him debate Ann Arbor’s local socialists on a winter’s night in 1975. He more or less disregarded his opponents on stage, addressing a sparse crowd that was entering and leaving the auditorium restlessly and mostly hooting him down as an arrogant bastard. Buckley argued, “If getting rich and driving a Cadillac and smoking cigars is my thing, what’s wrong with that.” He put sarcastic emphasis on “thing,” of course.

   I was also amused by the way his magazine sent subscribers renewal notices about every 8 months offering another 2 or 3 year subscription, as if you’d forgotten. Eventually I learned to disregard these notices and my subscription ran on for a decade or so. At least the magazine was honest enough to send the issues you paid for. Of course, Buckley contributed his own money to it.

   Anybody recall Buckley’s column about the Robert Mapplethorpe controversy? What he wrote was: psst!, the photography is magnificent –the nudes no less so than the orchids– and conservatives who are art connoisseurs can enjoy them quietly but should censure them publicly, out of regard for the sensibility of the hoi paloi. I liked that. He was an Unamuno who thought atheists was fine so long as they didn’t tell the villagers.

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5. BY Joel Mark 02.29.08 AT 2:56 PM

   Some good Buckley quotes:

   “We can no more collaborate with him to further the common understanding than Anne Frank could have collaborated with Goebbels in a dialogue on race relations.” William F. Buckley Jr. (1925 – 2008), while at Yale, referring to Gus Hall, of the head of the Communist Party U.S.A.

   “Without freedom, there is no true humanity.” William F. Buckley Jr. (1925 – 2008)

   “We need a rebirth of gratitude for those who have cared for us, living and, mostly, dead. The high moments of our way of life are their gifts to us. We must remember them in our thoughts and in our prayers; and in our deeds.” William F. Buckley Jr. (1925 – 2008)

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