William F. Buckley Jr., RIP

"I was very fond of him," Didion said Wednesday. "Everyone was, even if they didn't agree with him."

Didion speaks for me, too. I didn't agree with Buckley 60 percent of the time, maybe more. It's hard to agree with a man who defended McCarthyism, although I can appreciate the contrarian aspect of that doomed endeavor. The last stage of his life brought a faint echo of his youthful mistake: he repudiated some essential liberties after dodderingness appeared to have set in. Seeing the lion transformed into a mewling pussycat was unpleasant, even shocking.

Nonetheless, in his decades-long prime, Buckley was charming and eloquent, a patrician renegade who didn't suffer fools gladly. With glee and gusto, he dished out haute-oratory tonguelashings against which even linguistically gifted liberals like the insufferable Gore Vidal had no proper defense.

I read Buckley's latest published book, Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription, just a couple of months ago. It struck me as preening and self-congratulatory at times. But the tome (a memoir of sorts) also made clear that the man, throughout his career as National Review's editor, was a master of mordant wit — not something conservatives had always excelled in.

Unlike, say, Ann Coulter, the manbot whose intellectual and comedic powers come up as short as her skirtline, Buckley was both titan and mensch. I'll miss him — not just the part of him that was on the good side of liberty, but the part of him that made you laugh out loud despite yourself.

Comments

[Phelps]

I always liked Buckley, even when I disagreed with him (which for me was more like 20% of the time). It is hard to pull off that effete accent and still be credible when you threaten to sock a lefty in the goddamned mouth.