Wednesday, February 27th, 2008...1:01 pm
William F. Buckley Jr.
The father of modern American conservatism has died.
Believe it or not, growing up I was a fan of Firing Line. The guy seemed to love nothing more than the exchange of ideas. His show wasn’t a Bill O’Reilly style “let’s interview the worst lefty whack job I can find and scream at him” that seems to be everywhere on cable television these days. It was great to watch, even if he could be a blowhard. I didn’t agree with a darned thing he said, but I could never say it wasn’t interesting.
I was also a fan of the Blackford Oakes novels. If you don’t know much about them, imagine a more ideological James Bond without the gadgets. Oh, and of course, he was a Yalie.
The best words I’ve read so far on Buckley’s death are from Andrew Sullivan:
He lived long enough to see this precious inheritance grotesquely squandered by the conservative establishment he helped build. Like many of us, he came to see the administration of George W. Bush as in some ways the deepest, darkest betrayal of conservative values, and the hideous hateful movement that sustained it unthinkingly as part of the problem rather than the solution. But he was surely not surprised. A skeptical, thinking conservative knows that in time, great, abiding ideas can ossify into ideology and ideology can become propaganda and propaganda can degenerate into toxic factionalism. It is part of human nature and human history. There is no reason why conservatism as a political movement should be immune from its own critique of all such movements. He was polite about this, of course - much politer than many of us. But he had enough intellectual integrity not to disguise it either.
NB - I’m going to poke around to see if anywhere on the internets there is the video of Buckley and Gore Vidal having a shouting match on Agronsky and Company back in 1968. Someone has got to have that.
PNB - Okay, it was not Agronsky and Company, which didn’t air until 1969. It was from ABC’s coverage of the Republican and Democratic conventions. A hearty thank you to Exurban John for providing the link. Unfortunately, the video is a bit shaky.
4 Comments
February 27th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
This might be the video to which you are referring:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRjZR8j4-z4
February 28th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Buckley’s own words:
“The central question that emerges — and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal — is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes — the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. …”
I’ll let his own words speak for what kind of man he was since I have no kind words to describe him.
February 28th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
woops… Forgot to close the italics.
February 29th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Sorry for the lousy video quality. Like you, I know I had seen that footage somewhere before, but that was the best I could locate on YouTube.
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