[Pelham]

A critique of Bill Buckley by Paul Gottfried that praises Buckley's early role in creating the post WWII conservative movement but which also recognizes his later collaboration with neoconservatism.

[Reverend Wright]

Buckley was gatekeeping and containment on the genuinely conservative voices that described where we were going in the 1990s.

Buchanan, Sobran, Francis, Derbyshire all cancelled by the “conservatives” led by Buckley for being skeptical of the Iraq War, mass immigration, globalization, hedge fund economics, NeoCon wars, NATO expansion.

All positions turned out to be totally true, while conventional Regime “conservatism” led the West to disaster.

[DIRTYSECRET]

Libertarian. Died in 2008 when Bush lost the party. Then Tim Russet died in August that year. An honest liberal who would have at least held Obama’s feet to the fire. He was out of the way when November came. .

[sopo]

Part of his legacy must be the preponderantly Catholic right side of the Supreme Court.

[Rockingham]

To Buckley's credit, he embraced Rush Limbaugh and his brand of conservative populism when he began national syndication out of New York. Limbaugh once described getting his first invite to drinks and dinner with Buckley and his wife. The guests that evening included Henry Kissinger and a clutch of luminaries, with harpsicord music.

National Review later featured a cover that had Limbaugh as the "leader of the opposition," addressing his fellow Senators in early 19th Century dress.

[x]

Buckley was a man of his time and place. For much of his life he thought he was, or felt he was, or wanted a be a man of his father’s time and place. But in some part of his being, he understood that he wasn’t a rugged, self-made wildcat oilman, but a Manhattan/Fairfield county media guy with inherited wealth.

So he had more in common with his political enemies than with his allies and admirers. I’m not saying he betrayed his followers, but they weren’t as likely to get invited to his shindigs as rich Manhattanites were.

Still, Buckley was skeptical about Bush’s wars, and he made John Sullivan — who was skeptical about mass immigration — his successor (Sullivan went on to other ventures, so Buckley went with Rich Lowry as his replacement).

[pierrem15]

These statements strike me as simply absurd:

Further, when National Review’s editorial board went after the Birchers in the mid-1960s, it was mostly for their opposition to the Vietnam War. Like many other American journalists in the second half of the last century, Buckley moved periodically to the left to remain “relevant.”

By conversion, he is implying that the 1960s left supported the Vietnam War. This is just nonsense.

The Birchers and leftover pre-WWII isolationists were just like the New Left, firmly believing that if the US just imposed morality internally, left foreigners alone and manifested our good intentions, then this kung-fu virtue signaling would cause foreigners to slap their foreheads with the sudden realization that we were the good guys and "whirled peas" would break out.

[DeplorablePaul]

I once shook Bill Buckley’s hand. It was an honor meeting him. I was a NR subscriber for 25 years.

The NR no Trumpers committed suicide this day:

https://www.cnn.com/2016/01/21/politics/national-review-magazine-opposes-donald-trump/index.html

The publisher of NR and I often met for breakfast on Saturday. After this issue I told him he was an a-hole. NR hated the idea of populism.

[LongWayHome]

WFB had a great start to his career, and NR wrote honest and important material in those early years, but in the late 60s, the rot was starting to set in. In the end...WFB was indeed controlled opposition.

The “purges” WFB ran on many of the people who wrote for him and were employed by him were disgraceful.