..WFB Jr. RIP
Posted on 02/27/2008 3:25:28 PM PST by Syncro
WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY: R.I.P., ENFANT TERRIBLE
February 27, 2008
William F. Buckley was the original enfant terrible.
As with Ronald Reagan, everyone prefers to remember great men when they weren't being great, but later, when they were being admired. Having changed the world, there came a point when Buckley no longer needed to shock it.
But to call Buckley an "enfant terrible" and then to recall only his days as a grandee is like calling a liberal actress "courageous." Back in the day, Buckley truly was courageous. I prefer to remember the Buckley who scandalized to the bien-pensant.
Other tributes will contain the obvious quotes about demanding a recount if he won the New York mayoral election and trusting the first 100 names in the Boston telephone book more than the Harvard faculty. I shall revel in the "terrible" aspects of the enfant terrible.
Buckley's first book, "God and Man at Yale," was met with the usual thoughtful critiques of anyone who challenges the liberal establishment. Frank Ashburn wrote in the Saturday Review: "The book is one which has the glow and appeal of a fiery cross on a hillside at night. There will undoubtedly be robed figures who gather to it, but the hoods will not be academic. They will cover the face."
The president of Yale sent alumni thousands of copies of McGeorge Bundy's review of the book from the Atlantic Monthly calling Buckley a "twisted and ignorant young man." Other reviews bordered on the hyperbolic. One critic simply burst into tears, then transcribed his entire crying jag word for word.
Buckley's next book, "McCarthy and His Enemies," written with L. Brent Bozell, proved that normal people didn't have to wait for the Venona Papers to be declassified to see that the Democratic Party was collaborating with fascists. The book -- and the left's reaction thereto -- demonstrated that liberals could tolerate a communist sympathizer, but never a Joe McCarthy sympathizer.
Relevant to Republicans' predicament today, National Review did not endorse a candidate for president in 1956, correctly concluding that Dwight Eisenhower was not a conservative, however great a military leader he had been. In his defense, Ike never demanded that camps housing enemy detainees be closed down.
Nor would National Review endorse liberal Republican Richard Nixon, waiting until 1964 to enthusiastically support a candidate for president who had no hope of winning. Barry Goldwater, though given the right things to say -- often by Buckley or Bozell, who wrote Goldwater's "Conscience of a Conservative" -- was not particularly bright.
But the Goldwater candidacy, Buckley believed, would provide "the well-planted seeds of hope," eventually fulfilled by Ronald Reagan. Goldwater was sort of the army ant on whose body Reagan walked to greatness. Thanks, Barry. When later challenged on Reagan's intellectual stature, Buckley said: "Of course, he will always tend to reach first for an anecdote. But then, so does the New Testament."
With liberal Republicans still bothering everyone even after Reagan, Buckley went all out against liberal Republican Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. When Democrat Joe Lieberman challenged Weicker for the Senate in 1988, National Review ran an article subtly titled: "Does Lowell Weicker Make You Sick?"
Buckley started a political action committee to support Lieberman, explaining, "We want to pass the word that it's OK to vote for the other guy or stay at home." The good thing about Lieberman, Buckley said, was that he "doesn't have the tendency of appalling you every time he opens his mouth."
That same year, when the radical chic composer Leonard Bernstein complained about the smearing of the word "liberal," Buckley replied: "Lenny does not realize that one of the reasons the 'L' word is discredited is that it was handled by such as Leonard Bernstein." The composer was so unnerved by this remark that, just to cheer himself up, he invited several extra Black Panthers to his next cocktail party.
When Arthur Schlesinger Jr. objected to his words being used as a jacket-flap endorsement on one of Buckley's books in 1963, Buckley replied by telegram:
"MY OFFICE HAS COPY OF ORIGINAL TAPE. TELL ARTHUR THAT'LL TEACH HIM TO USE UNCTION IN POLITICAL DEBATE BUT NOT TO TAKE IT SO HARD: NO ONE BELIEVES ANYTHING HE SAYS ANYWAY."
In a famous exchange with Gore Vidal in 1968, Vidal said to Buckley: "As far as I am concerned, the only crypto Nazi I can think of is yourself."
Buckley replied: "Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto Nazi, or I'll sock you in your goddamn face and you'll stay plastered."
Years later, in 1985, Buckley said of the incident: "We both acted irresponsibly. I'm not a Nazi, but he is, I suppose, a fag."
Read more at AnnCoulter.com
I doubt whether Ann uses these words in "ordinary conversation". She did, quite properly, use these words in a tribute to a great American wordsmith.
“ I wish I was witty like that.
He was on Tim Russert's show several years ago when a question on global warming came up.
Russert: "Do you believe GW is a threat?"
WFB: "No"
Russert: "But a recent poll says that 80% of the public belives it is a threat."
WFB: "Then you've got your work cut out for you."
How about Bon Vivant as well.
..WFB Jr. RIP
A real classic —thanks!!
Rest in peace, Conservative Warrior. God bless you.
Maybe. More like a gigantic porcine creature. At the end of "Animal Farm" the pigs were walking around on two feet. How did Orwell know that Ted Kennedy would become a senator?
Ditto for my parents too. There are millions of elderly Catholic parents who share virtually the exact same social sentiments as WFB but still hate Republicans. I've often told my parents they must still believe FDR is the president. Their views of Democrats and Republicans haven't changed since I was a child in the fifties and sixties: Democrats are blessed by God, and Republicans are greedy, nasty spawns of Satan.
He didn’t just debate idiot libs. He also used his program as an educational vehicle. On his program in the seventies I first saw Thomas Sowell who sounded as intelligent then as he does now.
I remember this incident as reported in one of WFB's books. He had engaged Schlesinger somewhere in a public debate. Schlesinger opened by blowing a bit of insincere puffery Buckley's way. (I have forgotten the words.)
When Buckley quoted those words on the jacket of his next book, Schlesinger got all huffy and complained that he had never said them.
In response, along with the passage quoted in his telegram, WFB promised to engrave Schlesinger's artificial bouqet of words on his tombstone.
Well, it's time to see if it will come true.
<}B^)
“Ann Coulter, occuping the Mies van der Rohe Barcelona Chair of Conservative Punditry.”
So long Mr. Buckley.
I enjoyed your work.
Truer words were ne'er spoken, Mr. Buckley... and ones all genuine conservatives will be bearing in mind, come this November.
RIP, good sir.
Yes, she is a terrible human being.
I read somewhere that nationally over 50% of Catholics vote consistently Democrat, and those that vote Republican are in the low 30%. Among older (as you say elderly Catholics), that number is upward of 80% who vote Democrat.
I had a dinner table conversation with my aunt and uncle (she Irish immigrant daughter and Catholic, he Italian immigrant son and Catholic).
I put very basic social questions before them, such as "Well, how do you feel about homosexual marriage and partial birth abortion?"
They were appalled I would even ask them these things, and told me how terrible each were. When I said the Democrats were the champions of both, they got very, very, very, very angry with me.
There is no reasoning with people who don't want to discuss truth and logic - especially if your opponent doesn't have the facts on his or her side.
Me who push an old women from being hit by a bus and men who push old women in front of a bus, should not be grouped together as men who push old women. Or words to that effect.
Thinking about Mr. Buckley's death on my way home last night, it struck me that now the three pillars of modern day conservatism are now dead - Buckley, Goldwater, and Reagan. It also struck me that at this time, while conservative Republicans and Rockefeller Republicans are squabbling, while we lament someone like McCain representing the Republican party, that the passing of Mr. Buckley somewhat shakes the morale of conservatives.
There are some people who may disagree but I believe people like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, for all their bombast, are deep thinkers. While they make a comfortable living doing what they do, they do what they do for more than the money. The fact that they make money promoting conservative principles, indicates to me that the nation is hungry for these principle.
Rest in peace, Mr. Buckley. There are good men on this planet picking up your flag right now, marching forward and advancing the principles of liberty, freedom, and conservatism.
That was a great line. It reminds me of the time when FNC one Sunday a few years back had Jesses Jackson on along with Charles Krauthammer and a retired general - forget the name now. Both made mincement of Jackson. The general did so in a way that senior officers do with military slackers and Charles with his wit and style.
That last picture - to me - sums up the man. Wouldn’t you like to see the titles of those books?
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