William F. Buckley, jr. dies at age 82

Calling Buckley a neocon suggests that the author may not know what a neoconservative is.

Buckley invested much of his personal fortune into NR, so charge him with having been paid to state his opinions is more mistaken than that sort of calumny usually is.

Buckley is also resented by the fringe he removed from the modern conservative movement. Most notable is his repudiation of Birchers, whose leader had developed a doctrine that any leader under whom the soviets advanced was per se a communist. On this basis, they accused Eisenhower of being a communist.

Removing the nutbags from the movement was a prerequisite to its popular affection.
 
I'm not superstitious, but the last year when a conservative giant died, a moderate Republican won a very close election (Reagan, 2004). On the other hand, there's not a great track record for GOP septagenarian war heroes and maverick Arizona senators.
 
For the record, I'm under 40, subscribe to National Review, support Ron Paul, and am a great admirer of Bill Buckley. Sorry if this makes it harder for you fit me into a subcategory.

RIP, one of the last true American intellectuals -a man with integrity and style. There'll never be another like him.
 
My head aways Turned when I heard him talking! I liked the way called a Spade a Spade. He held nothing back. Wish we had more people out there like that. Buckley Was a MAN!.

He would have made a good President!
 
"he did give Joseph Sobran a pretty raw deal "

If he'd quit chewing on it and taken his foot out of his mouth he might have saved his job. Wasn't he the guy who suggested that the NY Times change the name of Israel to Holocaust Update?

John
 
I have taken to rereading some old Buckley opinion pieces from the 70's and came across a story of how he purchased his house in Connecticut and it's subsequent remodels. It looks out over Long Island Sound. Anyway when his family first moved there they never locked their doors. Eventually, he was burglarized.
The final sentence of the article reads "She (his wife) has only made it (their house) more desirable, and anybody who tries to take it from me should be warned that, in addition to a mad wife, I have three mad dogs, and lots and lotsa ammunition." (emphasis added)
 
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