Well stated. Why beat up on the old guy?
Why beat up on the old guy?I totally disagree with your comment here. If someone chooses to "put their comments out there", then those comments should be judged on the basis of their logic and meaning, not on the basis of the age of the person who put them out there.
If Buckley wants to retire and play fetch with his doggy, then it's only right to leave him be. But if he wants to continue to make contributions to the marketplace of ideas, especially given his past successes, we owe him the courtesy of critiquing his words at face value, and not giving him a pass just because he's an "old guy".
That's not fair to him, and it's not the right way to conduct a national discourse.
As for what he says about Bush and Iraq, he's so far off base that I question his own conservative credentials. But he's off base because he's wrong, not because he's old. There are plenty of young people who are just as wrong on Iraq as is the old man Buckley.