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I'm reading Mr. Buckley for the first time: just picked up a copy of The Jeweler's Eye. Ann Coulter so obviously found her 'voice' in William Buckley's; the tone and cadence between the two are so similar, and she comes as close as a mere mortal can to his vocabulary. Mr. Buckley was certainly a prophet in much that he wrote - on Reagan, for instance, before he was even governor of California, and in his projection that one day we all might cast our vote via telephone line (see The Twenty-fourth Amendment, February 18, 1964).

Buckley is so highly quotable! In his article What is Conservatism, October, 1963, he discusses the various branches of our sect by our singular desires and draws a highly rational and also humorous conclusion (his trademark, which Ann Coulter has by God's grace adopted):

Many right-wingers (and many liberals, and all Communists) believe in a deus ex machina. Only introduce the single tax, and our problems will wither away, say the followers of Henry George....Only expose the Jew, and the international conspiracy will be broken, say others....Only abolish the income tax, and all will be well....Forget everything else, but restore the gold standard....Abolish compulsory taxation, and we all shall be free....They are called nostrum peddlers by some; certainly they are obsessed. Because whatever virtue there is in what they call for - and some of their proposals strike me as highly desirable, others as mischievous - no one of them can begin to do the whole job, which continues to wait on the successful completion of the objectives of the Committee to Abolish Original Sin.