RIP William F Buckley Jr

he was fun to watch in debates

Surprised the NRO site isn't all black.

RIP weezy f baby

PARTY! A polished turd.

The first thing I thought of was a Robin Williams/Eddie Murphy sketch on early eighties SNL where Williams played Buckley.

The sacrificial fires will burn in Boho Grove tonight.

The first thing I thought was: "oh no, Cigarette Smoking Man from the X-Files!" but that's someone else :-/

I went to school with a dude whose family used to go boating with the Buckleys; he had a picture of himself and WFBJr standing at the bow looking surprisingly fly. Said dude died several years ago in a hot-air balloon accident.

RIP awesome quirky conservative dude who knew WFBJr.

as with Mailer, Gore Vidal wins again.

do I even have to say it

rip dude.

with buckley gone and the bush presidency in tatters, is it safe to say neoconservatism is dead?

is it also safe to say we will see 29823058798 "insightful" opinion columns/editorials/blog entries suggesting same within the next month?

didn't someone quote the old fuck saying McCain was soft on torture about 3 days ago? Running, if on fumes, to the last patrician breath...

Dude I knew used to buy crates of oranges and peanut butter and pass them out to everyone in the entryway. He also became infamous for wandering around in Harvard Square in a bathrobe attempting to test the range of his new cordless phone and for trying to throw away all of his clothes the first time he washed them because they were "ruined" (ie, "wrinkled, and he didn't know how to iron them").

when i was little i was impressed by his accent and demeanor on firing line and also thought he was british :x

anyway rip duder

in the wake of Robin Williams and SCTV's Joe Flaherty, you know who should do a sketch-comedy Buckley? Owen Wilson.

My dad voted for Reagan 2x, and found WFB an amusing pretentious ass.

thats a pretty fair assessment i think!

I read the transcripts of old "Firing Line" episodes a few months ago. For all his batshit hysteria about the wrong things, he was a writer of uncommon intelligence and impish wit (he never took himself too seriously). It's quite safe to say that no one in modern conservatism – least of all at The Corner – can replace him.

well as someone (in a NYT op-ed?) said, current cons (eg Billy Kristol) don't write books.

R.I.P., really smart and sometimes very funny maniac with some awful ideas who would sail his mini-yacht 3 miles off the coast of the U.S. to smoke pot with assorted intellectual giants.

They could make a really amazing DVD boxset of some of the better "Firing Line" episodes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRjZR8j4-z4

The Corner will be unbearable for the next few days – worse than when Reagan died.

I don't think I ever saw my grandfather enjoy TV more than when watching Buckley/Vidal.

srch "You'll stay plastered, fag" clip

just posted it

it's "you goddamn queer"

the o.g. morbius vs and what

Chomsky vs Buck

RIP

number-tattoo the cryptofascist's corpse.

ALVY
(Looking down at the magazine)
What is this? What are you, since when do you read the "National Review"? What are you turning in to?

ANNIE
(Turning to a nearby chair for some gum in her pocketbook)
Well, I like to try to get all points of view.

ALVY
It's wonderful. Then why don'tcha get William F. Buckley to kill the spider?

I'm more affected by Wally George's death for some reason.

RIP, weird crazy old intelligent guy

A hilarious John Boehner eulogy:

"America has lost a giant. William F. Buckley was, in large measure, the architect of the modern conservative movement. His intellect, wit, and dedication have inspired generations. In the 1950s, as many in America were moving toward a socialist future of ever-expanding government and ever-decreasing freedom, it took an act of courage and vision to stand athwart history and yell, ‘stop’ as Buckley wrote in the first issue of National Review. As long as America honors the ideals of our Founding Fathers – free speech, freedom of religion, and limited, Constitutional government - his legacy will be cherished."

RIP

A charming speaker and writer, he seemed anachronistic long before he passed away. I rarely agreed with him, but he was at least a civilized voice for the right, something in short supply now.

'god and man at yale' was one of the most eye-opening books i read in college, which set a context for the rise of conservatism at a time when i was really confused about how people could think that way.

On September 15, 1963 a bomb went off at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing 4 black girls and injuring many more children. (Those killed were Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair; McNair had been a classmate of the young Condoleezza Rice). The bomb was set by members of the Klu Klux Klan, as part of a wave of terror designed to intimidate the civil rights movement. Here is how National Review commented on the bombing in the October 1, 1963 issue of their biweekly Bulletin: “The fiend who set off the bomb does not have the sympathy of the white population in the South; in fact, he set back the cause of the white people there so dramatically as to raise the question whether in fact the explosion was the act of a provocateur - of a Communist, or of a crazed Negro. Some circumstantial evidence lends a hint of plausibility to that notion, especially the ten-minute fuse (surely a white man walking away from the church basement ten minutes earlier would have been noticed?). And let it be said that the convulsions that go on, and are bound to continue, have resulted from revolutionary assaults on the status quo, and a contempt for the law, which are traceable to the Supreme Court’s manifest contempt for the settled traditions of Constitutional practice.”

"at least a civilized voice for the right"

AIDS tattoos? Civilization is overrated, apparently (Nazis loved Wagner).

I'll have to find that AIDS column; I don't think it was THAT militant, if I'm remembering it correctly.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f163/courtneykaehler/maracas.jpg

RIP

"stand athwart history"?

wtf that is some shitty writing

I can't say I admired him, because I didn't. He was staunch for the privileges of the priveleged, catty, self-important and was not above intellectual dishonesty when it suited his purposes.

OTOH, he had an arch sense of humor, which was a nice feature when it came into play, and he was capable of surprising one by actually stepping away from the dogma from time to time. Witness his eventual conversion to opposition to the War on Marijuana.

The story went that he sailed his luxury sailboat into international waters and smoked some marijuana. It convinced him that the stuff was essentially pretty harmless and not worth outlawing. Too bad that he exhibited such willingness to embrace facts over ideology all too rarely.

As for his vaunted vocabulary... nerts to him. It never could expunge the stain of his many apologia for the outrageous.

is no one going to decry ILX's satisfaction over the death of a certifiable asshole as ghoulish/inhuman/morbid/cruel etc? O THE HUMANITY

Wonkette's headline:

"Elegant, Witty Conservative Writer William F. Buckley Jr. Dies, Leaving No Intellectual Heirs"

OK this is vile.

Public heath officials are considering measures which, 20 years ago, would have been though fascistic interventions in human rights. There is thought of infiltrating gay sites, particularly those on the Internet. What, having identified such sites, will they then do? Interpose a message about the danger of unprotected sex? Collect names and email addresses, and send individual warnings to prospective victims? Such measures are not easily composed: “Dear Sir: You have recently kept company with Tony Venenum. Tony has a new and dangerous strain of AIDS and you may have contracted it. You should report to a doctor and you must not engage in unprotected sex because in doing so you may be committing murder.” The boundaries of the new campaign, let alone the niceties, haven’t been resolved upon, but not much thought is being given to concerns of privacy. Murderers need to be stopped, and if this means opening their mail, well — such things happen and you can take comfort that you may be saving a life.

The objective is to identify the carrier, and to warn his victim. Someone, 20 years ago, suggested a discreet tattoo the site of which would alert the prospective partner to the danger of proceeding as had been planned. But the author of the idea was treated as though he had been schooled in Buchenwald, and the idea was not widely considered, but maybe it is up now for reconsideration.

The smirking tone is just awful.

Buckley went against The Corner on Iraq and/or torture dinnt he?

I never understood how his celebration of the legislative branch jibed with the Republican, or at least the Nixon and post-Nixon love of the executive.

editor: "Let's pick a white leftist besides Kunstler... Any Democratic president will do..."

i am reminded of how sad i'll be when gore vidal dies

R.I.P Bill, a man of integrity and style, and one of the last great American thinkers. Maybe it's a blesisng he won't be around to see the next eight years.

It already is.

Slate re-linked his email dialogue with Kinsley from a while back. When he types years, he employs the old-school typewriter quirk of using a lowercase L for the one, as in l964. (The surprise was that Slate's default font is such that I didn't even notice the first few times.)

if i started doing that would it be like when dudes wear fedoras

n_n

Alex Cockburn:

When I first came to America in 1972 I was astonished to find that the conservative cold warrior William Buckley had a television channel paid for out of public funds and reserved for his exclusive use. This was PBS, which alternated Buckley's show with "Wall St Week". In an effort at balance PBS offered the left's point of view in Sesame Street. Buckley's syndicated column was also featured in Dolly Schiff's New York Post. I found him mostly unwatchable and unreadable, being 97 per cent predictable and disgusting in all his views, with a style intolerably loaded with affectation -- fake English urbanity and pompous usage. He was the sort of writer who could never use the word "punishment" without sticking "condign" in front of it, the better to flaunt his stylistic credentials.

His staple was straight cold-war paeans to the unfettered glories of capital. It was all aimed at college-age conservatives. I doubt the rubes could endure him. Who would, when the alterative was Jimmy Swaggart in full spate?

One of many such stories but this one's a reasonably in-depth interview with Christopher B. about the memoir.

allen ginsberg's appearance on the firing line is some kind of something

kerouac's is really sad

^

I second or third or whatever wanting to see that Sagan debate.

Although it is a cliche to point it out, Wm. F. Buckley was precisely the kind of man who would have crucified Christ 100 times out of 100.

Not only crucified him, he would have gone out of his way to ensure it and chortled at the thought of him nailed to a cross under a scorching sun, as he drank some nicely chilled wine on a veranda with a pleasant view. If some urbane company were present, he no doubt would have passed off some witty conversation on the subject, leaving them all congratulating themselves on their shared sophistication. iow, a shitheel with polished manners.

Nah that was Yoo.

His compassion for the Vietnamese people was legendary, Ned. The poor were his especial concern. The similarities to Mother Theresa are too numerous to mention.

He spent his life comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Nothing could make a wealthy burgher more apoplectic than to quote some of Buckley's political opinions to him.

Or am I mixing him up with Lord Buckley?

Lengthy excerpt in the NY Magazine.

his FBI file -- pissed off Hoover eventually

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/oct/01/william-f-buckleys-fbi-file/

http://media.giphy.com/media/yoJC2uNKCH6n6qcTwA/giphy.gif

that's some uncanny valley shit

how does he make his eyelids do that??

Catholicism.

Best part is young Christopher Buckley knowing how to hyphenate syllables.

Is Clint Eastwood giving his character some Buckley mannerisms in dirty harry? Specifically the famed this is a 44 meegnum speech?

"I wondah, Mister Eastwood, if you can explain the, ah, concatenation of events that have made you America's top box office stah...."

Although it is a cliche to point it out, Wm. F. Buckley was precisely the kind of man who would have crucified Christ 100 times out of 100.

Not only crucified him, he would have gone out of his way to ensure it and chortled at the thought of him nailed to a cross under a scorching sun, as he drank some nicely chilled wine on a veranda with a pleasant view. If some urbane company were present, he no doubt would have passed off some witty conversation on the subject, leaving them all congratulating themselves on their shared sophistication. iow, a shitheel with polished manners.

― Aimless, Saturday, 25 April 2009 18:28 (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Pilate isn't the bad guy in the Bible tbf

i musta missed that episode of Firing Line, dmac

The line just came up on some quotes thing and I'm telling ya he's doing Buckley I'm sure of it

you're reminding me of that old SCTV bit where they had assorted celebs doing the Taxi Driver mirror monologue, i think Joe Flaherty's Buckley was in there.

I got to see the American Masters ep on Buckley last night. It's a bit delicious how every retrospective on Conservative thought produced in the last 8 or so years has to wrap up with Trump, and if it's from the last few years, you get Trump *and* J6.

It doesn't even have to be about Conservative thought; I've seen at least four or five documentaries the last few years that started in one place and ended with Trump. It doesn't even have to be a documentary--BlacKkKlansman ended with Trump. He's the endpoint of history for films made during a certain window.

xp haven't seen the doc but scott s linked this piece in another thread:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-04-17-an-implausible-mr-buckley/

That piece is excellent, as so much of Perlstein's work is

Really good piece by Jensen on the biography.

https://defector.com/william-f-buckleys-bill-never-came-due

I have it on hold at the library.

There is one fantasy about Buckley that goes like this: America was better off when men like him were famous, and that we are lacking proper right-wing intellectuals. Of course, the right wing itself doesn’t believe this; they think they have plenty. It is liberals, and sometimes even leftists, who dream of a modern Firing Line. I sympathize with this fantasy but do not particularly share it. My wish, which is maybe equally childish, is that men like Buckley would be burdened by the fact of themselves. I would love to believe that people like him are conflicted, tortured, haunted in some way when, as they survey their lives, they confront what they have wrought.

Tanenhaus offers no comfort in this regard. A priest, looking to reassure the devout Buckley, once suggested to him that “everyone at some point has doubts.” Buckley responds, “I never did.” The book gives me the sense that this is true of matters both spiritual and profane. Buckley never doubted, never wavered, merely laid down his head after a long, untroubled life. He lied as well as he did, and so prolifically and for so long, because it really came that easily to him.

i read tanenhaus’ whittaker chambers bio earlier this year. incredibly good book

Yup. It's prime Sotobait.

someone really ought to make a movie about the hiss case. nixon is like the crooked detective in a film noir with all the shoe leather investigating. and his cussing is amazing

this does sound like a great book but holy shit 1,040 pages! I've already read Lonesome Dove this year, ain't no way I'm reading something even longer.

lol I will probably just listen to the inevitable Know Your Enemy episodes on it. They had him on to talk about Hiss, too.

They’ve already done an episode on it

Well I guess I need to catch up!

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:2kfemzpsbyfpzkp4op6dopoj/bafkreia6s6o6i2svzdppuonlhikjp6kgsfw34oylqozynsj3epxdlizwvq@jpeg

no way

They couldn't get a better photo? then again

first AI stamp?

They should issue a special Buckley-Vidal stamp.

"Stop calling me a crypto Nazi or I'll sock you in your goddam face" still an all-time sentence

and you'll stay plastered (to an envelope)

From crypto Nazis to crypto-bro Nazis, the long journey of the American right.