In the beginning, there was Buckley

SteynonLine ^ | November 24, 2025 | Mark Steyn

[Rummyfan]

Thank you. I could not find it on Steyn Online.

[Rummyfan]

Forty-nine years ago, he wrote, “We must bring down the thing called liberalism, which is powerful but decadent, and salvage a thing called conservatism, which is weak but viable.”

The appeal of liberalism continues.

[Verginius Rufus]

I heard Buckley speak to a small gathering on my campus when I was an undergraduate, but did not take the opportunity to shake his hand.

[Rummyfan]

Buckley once ran for a political office.. mayor or such.

Mayor of NYC I believe, against John Lindsey.

I think his most famous line is 'I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.'.

[PGR88]

I wonder what Buckley would have made of the USA in 2025 and MAGA?

[Steely Tom]

Was it Buckley that said, back when Sen. McCarthy was gunning for homosexuals in the Pentagon, that employees were so scared that they ate bananas corn-on-the-cob style.

That was in one of his novels.

"They're so scared over at State, that in the commissary they're eating hot dogs like they're corn on the cob!"

[x]

Buckley’s world is gone. He sort of realized that in his last years — or at least he realized that his father’s laissez-faire world was long gone and he missed the Cold War of his own youth and the clarity of those days.

[cymbeline]

“That was in one of his novels.”

Thanks for the clarification. A classic line. Pure Buckley.

[awelliott]

He introduced me to the marvelous insult "retromingent."

I remember that well and even used it a time or two. LoL

[arkfreepdom]

He became my hero when I was at MIT in the mid 70s. I figured out quickly that these eggheads weren’t near as smart as they thought they were. It made them pull into a cocoon. Pseudo-intellectuals.