The Voice of Treason

I was watching FNC yesterday and saw a couple things that made me think that if the phone had gone off at that very moment and the person on the other end of the conversation had been conducting one of those surveys that asks if America is moving in the wrong direction I would have at that particular moment, mind you, immediately and hysterically screamed into his ear: “HELL, YES, IDIOT!”

First there was the segment in which Jon Scott was interviewing Jason Itzler, the individual who claims he introduced Eliot Spitzer’s harlot to prostitution. Throughout the interview he insisted that, before his incarceration, he ran a “classy” operation and repeatedly boasted that he has “good taste.” He was miffed when Scott mistakenly stated that his girls earned $2000 a night. “That’s $2000 an hour,” he snapped.

And then there was Steve Brown illustrating how the whole delegate thing works by using marshmallow PEEPS. He explained – slowly and carefully – that in the state of Iowa the people would conduct part two of a four-part national selection process. There were county conventions, precincts, caucus representatives. Representatives represented here by PEEPS. Obama’s PEEPS, Hillary’s PEEPS, and the jumper candidates’ PEEPS. Some PEEPS will be persuaded to shift their loyalties, said Brown. Change their vote, so to speak. A political power grab? No, a PEEPS grab.

I asked T to watch the segment because I wanted his reaction. I wondered if he would see it as the further dumbing down of America. Like, we are all just PEEPS. He watched with furrowed brow, then said:

“Damn. They make bunny-shaped PEEPS now?”

Today Itzler appeared on an even longer segment, and Steve Brown’s PEEPS story was repeated. Pimps, PEEPS… whatever.

“… So there’s some of the things that are on my mind, and I appreciate you letting me get a chance to come by to speak to you. I’m — you know, I guess the best to describe government policy is like a person trying to drive a car on a rough patch. If you ever get stuck in a situation like that, you know full well it’s important not to overcorrect — because when you overcorrect you end up in the ditch. And so it’s important to be steady and to keep your eyes on the horizon.”

– President Bush at The Economic Club of New York

I listened to President Bush’s speech on the economy and thought I heard him say that one of the dangers of isolationism and protectionism is a tendency for “retrenching.” Before you roll your eyes, know that it is a real word. A few hours later, though, T and I were out with the dog and he was talking about her current health condition “reprogressing.” He caught himself and just looked at me. I looked back.

“Nice word, George.”

But I understood what he meant, and I understood what the President meant, and both words – one real, one not so much – actually make sense. In fact, the President’s advice in general makes sense. It reminds me of the time T and I and our friend, Tom, the North Dakota farm boy who now lives outside of Kansas City, decided to take a trip to Arizona to catch some spring training games. T was driving a Jeep Cherokee at the time and Tom was in the backseat. I was up front on the passenger side, white-knuckling as T sped over this stretch of Arizona mountain road dotted with signs that said: ELK.

I had lived in Arizona as a child and I knew elk and mountain roads. You may want to slow down a bit, I cautioned. There are signs. There are elk. He said he was perfectly aware of the situation, but I suspected that he really didn’t know about the elk part. And then came the curve… and the legs.

Directly in front of us on the road, just past the curve, were four legs. That’s what the car’s headlights had illuminated. Legs. What was attached to these legs was far above the range of the beams and therefore invisible, but it was, in fact, the mother – or in this case – the father of all elk. My suspicions were justified; clearly, T was unaware that elk were so large. There was hesitation, then the reflexes kicked in.

“Don’t overcorrect!!! Don’t overcorrect!!!,” Tom kept shouting from the backseat.

We swerved, we were on two wheels, we almost hit rock, then almost went off a cliff, but we did not hit the elk and T did not overcorrect. It was as close to overcorrection as possible, but if he had truly overcorrected we’d probably still be in that Jeep, in the ravine, our bones picked clean by friends of Mr. Elk.

Don’t overcorrect. Words to live by, indeed. Someone might have uttered them to Michael Jackson when he first contemplated cosmetic surgery — we don’t know.

As for the economy, there is a simple solution to our current woes. Elect a Democrat in November and the media will report the best economic environment in the last hundred years.

“Words matter. Words mean something.”

– Rush Limbaugh

“Actions speak louder than words.”

– Author disputed

“Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”

– John 3:17,18

“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.”

– Mark Twain

Ah, all The Great Debates revisited. Church v. State. Words v. Actions. God v. Man. Old Testament v. New Testament. Right v. Left. The Big Question: Is God – if he exists – a political animal? I think many people believe, as I do, that God is just this seasoned, hardworking conservative guy who produced a good-natured, long-haired, sandal-wearing hippie son. They might not see eye-to-eye on everything, and certainly they employ different methods, but their relationship still works.

I’m reminded of growing up in Chicago in the 1960s with my lapsed Roman Catholic Italian-American mother and my sister, the Conflicted Conservative. A misanthrope, who often made Florence King look like Mother Teresa, she was also the most generous, kind-hearted, least racist person I’d known. But what she said sometimes didn’t always jive with what she did or how she conducted herself. Uh, perhaps she was nuanced.

A “for instance.” I’ve mentioned we lived in Rogers Park – a “safe” neighborhood. I imagine, looking back now, that this was code for a neighborhood that was white. In truth, it was mixed, diverse even by today’s standards, yet predominantly Jewish. Mixed, yes, but not mixed with blacks. This was Mayor Richard J. Daley’s Chicago, remember, where whites lived on the North Side and blacks lived on the South Side. An undisputed fact of life. That was Rogers Park in the mid-1960s. Times have changed and so has the neighborhood.

Shortly before we left Chicago for Prescott, Arizona, my mother flirted with the idea of moving us into one of those new apartment buildings the city was putting up for lower income families. Read: The Projects. I clearly remember her enthusiasm. My older sisters were married, my brother was off to an Air Force base in Texas, and it was just me, my sister, my mother, two cats and a raccoon. She had paperwork and glossy brochures.

“We could live on the 20th floor! Or the 22nd! Or the 24th! How exciting would that be?”

My sister, about fifteen at the time and always the voice of reason where my mother was concerned, looked at me – I was almost nine – then at my mother.

“You want her raped in the elevator?”

Again, the most generous, kind-hearted, least racist person I’d known until I met T. He was eighteen, wore heavy metal T-shirts and ringlets down to his waist, and he and his brother had been raised by their single mother on the Berkeley campus. Polar opposites? Not really. I observed him at work and thought to myself: This boy is conservative and doesn’t even know it. And the first person I’d known who truly evaluated each person he met on the content of his or her character and not skin color, economic status, or nationality. Eighteen years later, that hasn’t changed.

And so it was interesting to hear his assessment of Michelle Obama after a CNN profile that likened her to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: “She’s ghetto.”

This statement had little to do with the color of her skin. I’ve been watching Mrs. Obama for some time and every time I see or hear her I’m reminded of one of the more colorful expressions my mother learned from my father: “Her shit don’t stink, but her farts give her away.”

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama was born in 1964 and raised on the South Side of Chicago. I was born a few years earlier and raised on the North Side. On the surface, one might think Michelle could have been envious of me. I was a white girl with straight honey-colored hair and (then) blue eyes and I lived in an apartment on a tree-lined block just steps from Lake Michigan. On the surface, however, I believe I probably would have been more envious of her. She had what I didn’t have: two parents with dual incomes, fewer siblings, and – frankly – probably less competition in school. At my school, I was up against some real super-geniuses – not only the Jewish kids, but also the Asian kids and a lot of the European immigrants. The most super of the super-geniuses, in fact, was a quirky, high-strung Scots-Irish girl named Karen. That kid was Bill Buckley in Mary Janes.

My parents had been separated as long as I’d known them. Michelle’s parents were not. My mother waited tables to support us. Michelle’s dad had a good job with the city and her mom worked for Spiegel. (I just loved the Spiegel catalog when I was a kid.) And Michelle only had to share her parents’ affection with one sibling – a brother who was very close to her age. Gosh, her life sounded so normal. So different from what I had and so close to what I’d always wished for.

Which brings us to the current issue of the Obamas and Trinity United Church of Christ.

“Racism is so deeply ingrained in this country that he (Barack Obama) could be flawless in terms of his policies. But he’s still a black man in this country which has a sorry history in terms of how it sees African-American males. That’s my 65-year-old, jaded perception of where this country is.”

– Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., March 2007

Relatively tame stuff compared to the videos from the pulpit. My, the response to those sermons! Shocking? No, disheartening. Obviously the people who are so wide-eyed over this never listened to Ray Taliaferro during the Reagan-Bush years. This is old hat, folks. And disheartening because it’s a clear sign that a large segment of the black community has not progressed. Yes, there is racism. But racism is changing. The country has been changing. Hearts and minds have been changed. Well, some, anyway.

What caught my ear when listening to Reverend Wright was the part where he chastised blacks for killing other blacks. What should be asked is this: If blacks shouldn’t be killing blacks because blacks aren’t “the enemy,” then who exactly is “the enemy” and who should blacks be killing? The Obamas have been attending that church for twenty years; perhaps they have the answer.

This “controversy” reminds me of when I was in class with a middle-aged woman who suddenly snotted up in the middle of the session and confided that her life had been turned upside down because the pastor of her church where she’d been a member for most of her life said something about homosexuals that she just didn’t agree with. With tears in her eyes, she asked me what she should do. Torn to bits, she felt that the right thing was to leave her church, but she had a history there, had made dear friends, and loved and respected many of the parishioners. These people were family. But then this something was said, and it challenged her beliefs. Clearly a problem for this woman because it made her question her religion, herself, and everything she had believed about her world.

I never belonged to a church or a particular religion, I told her, so I probably wasn’t the person who should advise her. I belong to a political party and I don’t agree with everything every member of it says, but that’s politics and not religion. If what your pastor said is so offensive to you, perhaps you should find a pastor who believes what you believe. You chose your doctor, your dentist, your hairdresser, and your bank. You can choose another church and still maintain the relationships with those people you consider family. If they truly are your family, they’ll understand and accept your decision. And if they don’t, then maybe you’ll learn something. But what do I know? I subscribe to a political party and not a church. Politics isn’t religion, right?

One would think. As for Reverend Wright, the more I listen to him the less he sounds inspirational and the more he sounds like a run-of-the-mill politician. Coincidentally, the same can be said of his longtime parishioner, Senator Obama.

Screw American Idol. Screw piano lessons. Screw studying Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Debussy, and Gershwin. Screw that degree in Music Theory and Composition. Screw Julliard.

Word to the wise: Just screw the Governor instead.

Gotcha.  I think we have a clear definition of what you and Your Holiness mean by “excessive wealth.”  To clarify, is it dropping 100K on overpriced whores?

Please remit.

“We sought to bring real change to New York, and that will continue. Today, I want to briefly address a private matter.

I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family, that violates my — or any — sense of right and wrong.

I apologize first, and most importantly, to my family. I apologize to the public, who I promised better. I do not believe politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas, the public good, and doing what is best for the state of New York.

But I have disappointed myself and I have failed to live up to the standard I accepted of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family. I will not be taking questions, thank you very much. I will report back to you in short order. Thank you very much.”

– Eliot “Client Number Nine” Spitzer

Se7en… The Sequel.

Lust. Gluttony. Avarice. Sloth. Anger. Envy. Pride. Dante made them household words.

Now a Vatican official has extended the list to bridge the gap between the 6^th and 21^st centuries. But I’m thinking he issued the list in either Italian or Latin because there appears to be some confusion in the media. It’s unclear, but perhaps this will be close:

“Bioethical” violations (this suggests contraception and abortion)

“Morally dubious” and “manipulative” genetic science (stem cell research and cloning, perhaps?)

Drug abuse and drug dealing (pretty straightforward, but does this include Celebrex?)

Polluting the environment (that could include littering, failure to recycle, and so much else)

Contributing to the widening divide between rich and poor (widening the social and economic gap between specific groups, aka social and economic injustice)

Excessive wealth (um… what exactly is excessive?)

Creating poverty (uh… spending?)

I believe that’s seven, but the list seems somewhat redundant. Oh, and I think I heard pedophilia was in there somewhere. Hmm. Considering the breaking news out of New York today, maybe the Vatican could have offered the following:

Cruelty

Vindictiveness

Ruthlessness

Arrogance

Narcissism

Hypocrisy

And, of course, one more.

Schadenfreude. The Sequel.

“Two words come to mind when I think of conservative William F. Buckley, who died last week at the age of 82: peanut butter.”

– Michael Winship

“I know that I shall never see
A poem lovely as Skippy’s peanut butter.”

– WFB

“In college, I wrote in the margin of one of my notebooks, ‘Can one be both Catholic and conservative?’ Subsequently, Mr Buckley has taught me the answer is yes, and has done so with style and grace.

And humor. I will never forget his column on the joys of peanut butter. God bless him from a young conservative/libertarian.”

– James Landis

In college, I damn near lived on what I would later discover – much to my delight, incidentally — was “the Buckley breakfast.” I don’t remember precisely when or how I learned of WFB’s appreciation of peanut butter, but there has been much written about it over the years, and although I can locate much of this material I cannot seem to locate the original recipe for “the breakfast.”

”Congenital, absolutely congenital.”

It’s what William F. Buckley, Jr. said about his love of… or perhaps “addiction to” is a better term… peanut butter.

“Mr. Buckley loved many things in this world; far more I suspect than he hated. But one of his great loves was peanut butter. When he married his wife, Patricia, he declared that he would have ‘peanut butter every day of the rest of my life for breakfast.’”

Oh, I know that feeling. Often I’ve said that if I was stuck on a deserted island in the Pacific or locked in a mildewy dungeon for the rest of my life and had to eat just one thing every day until my death, it would have to be peanut butter. I’d considered pizza and even curry at various times over the years, but I always seem to come back to that peanutty spread. Smooth, not chunky. (Although I admit I did go through that chunky phase when I was younger. But I’m older and wiser now, and frankly the smooth variety is imperative when creating what I recall is “the Buckley breakfast.”)

“In Switzerland, the Buckleys entertain between four and eight friends no fewer than three times a week. The affairs exemplify their commitment to good manners and etiquette, offset by an unwillingness to let convention get in the way of a good time. The appetizer might be foie gras, but the hors d’oeuvre is almost always bread bits covered in peanut butter. (‘If peanut butter were as expensive as caviar,’ Bill has said more than once, ‘it would be served at Buckingham Palace teas.’)”

– Chris Weinkopf, Salon, 1999

That breakfast recipe most likely appeared in an article written by Buckley himself – no, not the one in the link above that extols the virtues of Carver and the peanut – but rather the one that revealed not only his favorite brand but the preferred method of serving it. Much time has passed and often I’ve racked my brain trying to remember specifically which brand Buckley cited.

“‘Peanut butter for the toast, please. SKIPPY Peanut Butter.’ The word SKIPPY was underlined twice. ‘And not that damned Jif. I can tell the difference!’”

No, it wasn’t Skippy, although that brand had been his preference at one time. Red Line? No, no, that’s the “L” route in Chicago that goes through Rogers Park – my childhood neighborhood. Red Squirrel? No… no, that’s a tree-dwelling rodent. Criminy, it’s always on the tip of my tongue – well, like peanut butter – but I can never seem to remember it. But happily today I do, thanks to a variety of WFB tributes that mention it.

It was Red Wing.

“When I was a kid, I lived maybe a block away from the old Red Wing plant in Fredonia. One of the most powerful signs of autumn used to be the incredibly strong smell of tomatoes in the air in late summer, as the workers at the plant began processing ketchup.

It turns out that William F. Buckley, the famed Conservative writer and commentator who died last week, considered Red Wing peanut butter - now known as Carriage House - to be the greatest peanut butter on earth. The tale is told in today’s column. That’s high praise for the region, because if you Google Buckley’s name with the key words ‘peanut butter,’ you’ll get a sense of just how much the guy loved the stuff.

There is something wonderful about a man of such refined tastes loving a peanut butter sold as the store brand in both Wegmans and Price Chopper, a peanut butter that can often be purchased for less than a dollar a jar. So let me ask: Was Buckley right? Have you ever tasted a better peanut butter?”

– Sean Kirst

“He also loved peanut butter, and loved knowing others enjoyed it, too.”

– Brian Williams

That tribute from Brian Williams is lovely. Much like “the Buckley breakfast.” Do I have the recipe in an ancient dead-tree issue of NR somewhere? I probably do. At this point I don’t even know if what I’ve been calling “the Buckley breakfast” is even close to the Maestro’s recipe. It’s a bit sketchy, but I swear I remember the specific ingredients. Buckley stressed the importance of “a sturdy bread.” Oh, absolutely! The second staff of life. Always a sturdy bread, no matter what you’re doing.

So from what I can recall, and what I’ve been preparing and consuming since I was a girl, is this:

A generous slab of sturdy bread, toasted. A generous spread of sweet butter, covered by an even more generous spread of peanut butter. And, to finish it off, a generous drizzle of honey.

This combination, as far as I’m concerned, never fails to enchant. I just cannot describe the sense of satisfaction. What comes close, I suppose, is the feeling I get when I open my mailbox and see my copy of National Review. Ah… utter joy.

But if anyone can direct me to the true recipe, as shared by Mr. Buckley, I would be so grateful.

“For years I have thought that one could have no finer honor than to have WFB, Jr. write one’s obituary. He offered such wonderful tributes to his many friends and associates as they passed.

I wonder, today, who can write his; who is up to offering the tribute that he deserves.”

– Stephen Goldstein, Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan

“We will remember our dear friend who so generously and consistently and willingly, over many years, gave us a foretaste of heaven by his fun, his witticisms, his seriousness about serious things, his patriotism, his verve, his . . . the list is endless. Above all, he gave his love and friendship, a perfect agreement of wills, tastes, and thoughts accompanied by a benevolence and affection without peer. He was a great man motivated by great ideas. His passing from the American scene, upon which his impact was huge, is historic. Freedom has lost a luminous friend in the death of the most important journalist of the last 75 years, William F. Buckley Jr.”

– Tim Goeglein, the (former) Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison

(Eeeek! I certainly hope that tribute wasn’t lifted…)

Senator Lieberman’s statement, as e-mailed to NRO:

“America has lost a great patriot with the passing of William F. Buckley Jr. and I have lost a dear and cherished friend who I have known for more than 40 years. Bill was a man of considerable wit, charm, and grace who contributed so much to the intellectual debate and discussion in our country for many decades. He was truly an intellectual giant of the past century.

Bill Buckley was not only a national treasure but one of the most distinguished longtime residents of Connecticut. He was a man of principle who recognized that civility in our political life was a virtue. Regardless of where you stood in the political spectrum, you marveled at Bill’s ability to make a point with humor and aplomb. Indeed, all of our vocabularies were bolstered by his erudite analysis!

Although Bill is no longer with us, his legacy will continue to enrich our great land for many years to come. Hadassah and I send our condolences and prayers to Chris Buckley and the entire Buckley family.”

(For a glimpse of why so many on the “other side of the aisle” like Joe, click here for a lovely tribute to WFB, adapted from remarks he delivered on the U.S. Senate floor.)

Mario Cuomo’s office e-mails:

“I was privileged to know William Buckley for more than 20 years and was in fact his opponent in his last public debate.

He may not have been unique. But I have never encountered his match. He was a brilliant, gentle, charming philosopher, seer and advocate.

William Buckley died… but his complicated brilliance in thought and script will survive him for as long as words are read. And words are heard.”

(And for transcript excerpts from a WVOX Radio interview with the former governor, click here.)

“What a great and consequential man was William F. Buckley.”

– Cliff May

Q Any thoughts on Buckley?

THE PRESIDENT: I just had the — I just hung up with Christopher Buckley, the son of William F. Buckley. I expressed Laura and my sadness over the passage of this very important figure in American political thought. He was a great author, a great wit and a leader. And Chris said that his dad died at his desk. And I asked whether it had been a — I know it’s a painful experience for Chris’s heart, but he said that his dad died a peaceful death, and we got to thank God for that and thank God for his life.

Q You once said Buckley moved conservatism into the Oval office — that he moved conservatism from the margins of American society into the Oval Office.

THE PRESIDENT: No question, he was a — one of the great political thinkers. He influenced a lot of people, including me. And he was — I can remember those debates they had on TV, and he was so articulate and he captured the imagination of a lot of folks because he was — he had a great way of defining the issues. It was erudite and yet a lot of folks from different walks of life could understand it. And he’s a big figure in our history, and he’ll be missed. And we ask for God’s blessings on his soul. Thank you.

“William F. Buckley was a giant of conservative thought and action throughout his life. He taught, challenged, and inspired three generations of conservative thinkers. Mr. Buckley demonstrated that ideas are powerful things and have the capacity to change the world. The conservative ideas he so forcefully and eloquently championed certainly changed America for the better, and for that we are eternally grateful. William F. Buckley and his family are in our prayers today.”

– Mitt Romney

“I am very profoundly saddened to hear of the passing of William F. Buckley Jr. and offer my deepest condolences to the Buckley family. Bill had many friends, including my parents, who he even took time to visit when they were stationed at the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii. My father and mother very much admired him and so did their son. With Bill’s passing, freedom has lost one of its greatest defenders. Bill was a great American who helped change the course of history. When conservatism was a lonely cause, he bravely raised the standard of liberty and led the charge to renew the principles and values that are the foundation of our great country. A man of tremendous vision and big ideas, he founded the National Review in 1955 and through its pages and his other endeavors, as a lecturer, commentator, debater and author of dozens of books, inspired many and advanced an intellectual rigor that transformed American politics. Bill was an American giant who shall be missed.”

– John McCain

“As we all know, Bill was one of the most consequential figures of he age, let alone in our lives as conservatives. He defined us, to wit: when I went for my first White House personnel office interview to be vetted as an Assistant Secretary of State candidate, the young intern doing the initial paperwork noted that I was not a registered Republican in many public records and dutifully asked, ‘you are a Republican aren’t you?’ I said, ‘well, I’m a conservative.’ His pen hesitated over the yes box, then the no box, then the other box. I said, ‘look, I’m a Buckley man, a Buckley conservative – was on the masthead at National Review for a decade.’ He nodded with some recognition, but the party affiliation box was left unchecked. I felt as though I said everything about my political philosophy and reliability that would ever need to be said. It worked out.”

– John Hillen

“Please accept convey my deepest sympathy and condolences to you and the family of National Review.

Mr. Buckley was one of those rare individuals whose actions in life will continue to echo throughout eternity. His ‘echo’ has always been and will remain music of the highest quality - he was a precious antidote for a world that too often seems to reward individuals who choose avarice over charity, malice over justice, pride over modesty and vapidity over thought.

He will be greatly missed - I’m sure my father’s part of the (huge) reception committee greeting him at the Pearly Gates.”

– Henry Hyde’s son, Bob

Charlie Rose: But my guess is your proudest achievement – beyond family – is The National Review.

WFB: Oh, yes it is.

Charlie Rose: Why?

WFB: Because it’s a continuing source of information and exchange and uh, enlightenment for people who want to keep in mind the fundamentals of America as seen by generations who thought of themselves as conservative. It has marvelous writers… through great skills… and I think they do so seductively… well, which I suppose is the blood of its success.”

“As George Will once said, ‘before there was Ronald Reagan there was Barry Goldwater, before there was Goldwater there was National Review, and before there was National Review there was William F. Buckley.’ As conservatives — and as Americans — we are all standing on his shoulders.

Moreover, William F. Buckley’s life was marked by enormous joy. He had a lust for life as well as for letters and debate. He raised a wonderful and accomplished son, loved and was loved by a formidable and beautiful wife, had more friends than he could count — or, in a sense, even know — and will be remembered for generations to come. Sadness is to be expected at times like this, and I certainly feel it. But let’s leave room for, if not a celebration, then at least grateful appreciation, of a singularly remarkable life.”

– Jonah Goldberg

“I know what Jonah means about a life well-lived, as Bill’s certainly was, but it’s still hard to believe there’ll be no more Buckley columns on this week’s news, and next week’s and next month’s, and hard not to feel cheated that we were denied a nonagenarian Buckley sailing on in vigorous health toward his next century. I liked the way Rich put it at the 50th anniversary gala, after the announcement of some highly technical-bureaucratic change in Bill’s title or responsibilities: ‘This is still Bill Buckley’s National Review, and it will always be Bill Buckley’s National Review.’ Just so.”

– Mark Steyn

“Three or four years ago I hosted a group of visiting Chinese journalists who wanted to get a look at National Review. After showing them round the office, Rick Brookhiser and I sat them down in the library and gave them the ten-minute talk on American conservatism and the magazine’s place therein. Then I said something like this: ‘As well as being a vehicle for a certain political outlook — the one we just described to you — National Review, like any well-established periodical, has a character, a personality. It is the personality of our founder, Mr. Buckley, whose portrait you saw on the wall coming in. The magazine, like its founder, is opinionated, but generous to opponents; thoughtful, without being intellectual in the self-conscious, self-absorbed European sense; tolerant, but within firmly declared boundaries; spiced with humor and mild satire, but never frivolous; taking politics seriously, as a domain of great events and great responsibilities, yet never thinking that politics should dominate human affairs; never losing sight of the high ideals of our Western civilization.’

Those of us privileged to work for National Review can, I think, best discharge our debts to Bill by always writing in that spirit, always keeping Bill’s character alive in the character of the magazine he founded and loved. Whatever other kinds of immortality there may be, Bill Buckley surely earned that one.”

– John Derbyshire

“I can’t add much to the wonderful tributes to Bill that have appeared here and on the home page. Needless to say I agree with what has been said here so eloquently about Bill’s enduring importance. Let me focus for the moment on two smaller things I had a special vantage point on: Bill’s patience and his commitment to problem-solving.

When you are a young editor who basically knows nothing about how to edit a magazine, as I was when I was hired, patience in the proprietor is very important. Although patience is probably the wrong word. Bill wasn’t really the patient sort — you don’t write 50 books and thousands of columns and do everything else Bill did unless you are always anxious to get on to the next thing. I remember his long-time assistant Frances Bronson telling the story of how once over the phone he gave her a long list of things to do and by the end of it was asking whether she’d been able to do the first thing he had mentioned to her — even though she’d been on the phone with him the entire time!

So maybe it wasn’t patience, but a generosity of spirit. All I know is that he reacted to the various snafus, miscommunications, and scrapes that inevitably attended my early (and late?) editorship of his dear magazine with remarkable equanimity. He always wanted to put the past aside (even if it happened just two hours ago), and focus on the future — how to fix it, how to keep it from happening again, how to learn from it.

I can’t tell you how much I treasured this quality in him. Early on, I would take problems to him with trepidation, and always come away with a feeling of relief. No one was so adept at ‘moving on’ as Bill. Occasionally, he might send a withering memo or place a sharp phone call to me or someone else here — usually because something wasn’t happening quickly enough — and you’d be shattered. Then, you’d see him soon thereafter and that smile and twinkle in the eye would be there, and you were back in the sunny uplands of Buckleyville. He had moved on.

Which is not to say that he didn’t want whatever he had been writing or calling about to happen. A friend, and keen observer, of Bill once told me that he was a supremely talented executive, or he never would have been able to live his packed life as he did. I had never thought of it that way, but he was right. Bill was insistent on follow-through and accountability and timeliness. And once he fastened on a problem, he focused on it like a laser, as a certain president once said.

When I had a very minor, nagging health issue, Bill referred me to one of his doctors and wrote him a letter about me, bought and sent me things out of the blue he thought might help, and inquired about it over and over again. He wanted it solved.

As I think I saw someone write in the last day or so, his attitude to life was, ‘always forward.’ One of the reasons he was so captivating to his friends is that he always gave them the sense that if they would lash themselves to him, they’d be in for the ride of a lifetime. Anyway, these aren’t the most important things to say about Bill, but I have been thinking about them since yesterday as I’ve reflected on the extraordinary privilege I had to work with him so closely. I have a hard time imagining editing National Review without Bill Buckley to read it, and send us memos about what he liked and what he didn’t. Now I’ll always wonder.

When writing a column about him today, I came across this passage in a speech about gratitude that seems very appropriate:

To fail to experience gratitude when walking through the corridors of the Metropolitan Museum, when listening to the music of Bach or Beethoven, when exercising our freedom to speak or, as happened to us three weeks ago, to give, or withhold, our assent, is to fail to recognize how much we have received from the great wellsprings of human talent and concern that gave us Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, our parents, our friends…We need a rebirth of gratitude for those who have cared for us, living and, mostly, dead. The high moments of our way of life are their gifts to us. We must remember them in our thoughts and in our prayers; and in our deeds.”

– Rich Lowry

And from Kathryn Jean Lopez:

As you can imagine, it’s an emotional day here. I half expect an e-mail from him asking me for Laura Ingraham’s number to thank her for her kind words about him on her show today (the kind of thing this humble man would always do). We’re already getting some beautiful tributes from readers, Right and Left. We’ll share as many as we can over the coming days.

Just a few from my inbox:

I am saddened by the passing of William F. Buckley, but our loss is Heaven’s gain, and I’m sure the Good Lord told his angels to ‘Bring me a dictionary, Buckley’s coming.’

–Terry

“Cool and intrepid. Just two of the reasons William F. Buckley Jr. was so effective in changing the world.

I was always conservative but, I suspect, like many I didn’t realize I was a conservative until I read WFB. Until the seventies, the liberal regnancy in politics, media, and academia made many hesitant to publicly declare their conservatism. But by that time the irresistible logic of Bill Buckley’s advocacy and perhaps more importantly, the grace, wit and élan with which he dispatched liberal sparring partners made it cool to be a conservative — an indispensable predicate to expanding the movement.

More than his cool, however, what endeared Bill Buckley to so many was his steadfast leadership against communism. Well before Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul II raised the hopes of millions locked behind the Iron Curtain, Bill Buckley rallied those Americans who despaired that our country was becoming irresolute in the fight. And most can remember when and how he rallied them. For the son of a man who had escaped the torture chambers of the Soviet Union, it was reading National Review in the Spring of 1976. WFB was a giant and a hero.

– Peter Kirsanow

“He was the model of the modern American intellectual. He published a small magazine of ideas whose influence and centrality to the country in which he lived vastly outdistanced publications with 100 times its readership. He wrote a newspaper column for a half-century, twice or three times a week, at which he grew so expert that he could dash one off in the time it took his driver to navigate the length of the Bruckner Expressway, and with a quality of prose that made other newspaper scribes seem as simple-minded as the anonymous authors of Dick and Jane. He ran for office once, a fool’s errand that led to the publication of one of the best books ever written about politics, The Unmaking of a Mayor. He was one of the first writer-thinkers to find a home on television with his show Firing Line, and his wit made him a superb talk-show guest. For all these reasons, he transcended his roots and became a pop-culture icon, the only writer to have appeared as a caricatured figure in a Disney movie (when the genie in Aladdin, voiced by Robin Williams, converts himself into Buckley, complete with his patented lean-back in a chair, as he details the ‘three-wish’ rule). From the first to the last, however, he had an intellectually transcendent purpose from which he never deviated: The explication of, defense of, and advancement of, traditional mores and traditional beliefs, and a concomitant commitment to the notion that social experiments are very dangerous things indeed. He was, ever and always, a serious man in an increasingly unserious time.”

– John Podhoretz

“I’ve often thought about, growing up in the 70s, the sense of anticipation reading WFB’s column in my local paper. In those dark days his was the only voice of optimism I remembered. While the culture and many of my peers were trying to tell me that America was in decline, that the good times (aka ‘the 60s, man’) were over, that we had to get used to second class status as a nation and a people, I could always count on WFB to either argue that things were better than we thought, or if there was something wrong, we could do something about it. We did not have to be passive and accept the negative judgement or flawed reasoning of others; we could fight back. I discovered Firing Line by accident — it came on TV after something else I had been watching and I paused to listen to the theme music — then after an embarrassingly long time I figured out the man on TV and the man writing those great columns were the same guy! I found out about National Review like many people my age, from Annie Hall (‘Why dontcha get William F. Buckley to kill the spider?’). I loved getting the magazine in the mail, seeing what was in store that issue, especially in the pre-wired days when there was no way of knowing the contents in advance. It was a pre-packaged set of intellectual adventures with a wonderful puzzle in the back. I thought then that if I could ever write for William F. Buckley’s magazine, I would be as happy and proud as I could be. And in time I did, and I was, and I am.”

– James S. Robbins

Chris Matthews: It was in high school that I came under the charm and the influence of William F. Buckley Jr., the dashing, charismatic young conservative who wrote God and Man at Yale, McCarthy and his Enemies, and founded the wistful, precocious, companionable monthly, National Review…

It was from National Review that I gained my early affection and appetite for political philosophy and argument. To start out as a young conservative is not — let’s look at the facts — to end up there. But you have to start somewhere. You have to care before you can think, think before you can change your mind and, in my case, not stop changing your mind. I owe that start to the man who died today, at his desk: the great author, writer, sailor of the ocean sea, alpine skier, renaissance man, and in mine, as in so many millions of cases, teacher and political guidance counselor.

Peggy Noonan: I gotta tell you, Chris, what you just said about Bill Buckley was beautiful from beginning to end, and I shared very much your recounting of what it was like to discover National Review when we were kids. For you, it was one point of view that you were discovering. For me, as a young, unformed-politically person, it was a magazine that told me things I had never heard before: There was a conservative movement, there was something called conservatism, there was a way of thinking or approaching the world that I had never heard of before…

He was really a great man with a consequential life, one of the great lives of the 20th century, I think.”

“A marvelous writer; a true gentleman; a great American.”

– John Derbyshire

“Before there was Goldwater or Reagan, there was Bill Buckley.”

– Newt Gingrich

“For generations of conservatives, Bill Buckley was the north star in an all-too-barren intellectual landscape. His columns, books, and, of course, his beloved National Review, inspired, entertained, and made us all think anew and act anew. Buckley had a heavy influence on an entire generation of young conservatives who came of age under Ronald Reagan. I can still remember going to the Emory University library, as a Ph.D. student in history, and stealing away to a back corner with a copy of NR, giggling like a kid in a candy store. Like so many before and after, I was thrilled to learn that someone thought like me.

And not just anyone. Bill Buckley was witty, charming, urbane, fun to be around, intellectually curious, and unfailingly generous. This was thoroughly contrary to the prevailing caricature of a conservative when he burst upon the scene. Whereas too many saw conservatism’s frown, Buckley added the smile. And a twinkle in the eye. It made all the difference. His joie de vivre, affection for people and ideas, and his playful verbal fencing and matching of wits with friend and foe alike made him one of the more remarkable personalities of the latter half of the twentieth century.

… From the Oval Office all the way down to the local precinct volunteer or an NR subscriber or talk radio listener owes a debt of gratitude to Bill Buckley that we will never be able to fully repay.”

– Ralph E. Reed Jr.

“Bill was our Socrates.

He lured us to his side, at first, by showing us that upsetting the conventional wisdom was, as Socrates said, ‘an activity not without its amusing side’ and naturally appealing to the young.
Once he had our attention he taught us that we were in a deadly serious game. For then as now the Sophists were serious about seizing power, and then as now their way of doing so was to discredit the very notion of truth and make their power the only reality.

Jacques Maritain famously said that there were never more than three schools of philosophy:
The idealists who believe that getting the truth was easy. These are the conventional liberals, whom Bill gently mocked.
The nominalists, the Sophists, who deny truth altogether; these are the hard Left, the true enemy he rallied us against.
And finally the realists, who accept that the truth is out there but is fiercely difficult to lock down.

Bill’s most enduring achievement was to identify and shape conservatism as the political expression of philosophical realism in our time
And so simultaneously, he gave us a vision of the intellectual life well lived, and put us in the field against the great enemy of our time.
He did what Socrates dreamed of: made philosophers of citizens and citizens of philosophers.

I hero-worshipped him. I am not ashamed to say it, because I chose my hero well, and my life has never been the poorer for it.”

– Richard Vigilante

“I would dearly love to stick around the preliminary Irish wake here in the Corner. But I have to leave for Chicago. Still, I thought I might post a link to a piece I wrote about WFB when he turned 80 and the magazine turned fifty. Bill wrote me a very sweet and grateful note about the column and I was giddy that he’d even read it. Anyway, there’ll be plenty more to say, by everyone. Here’s the conclusion for those who don’t want to wade through it all:

‘But I should say this: William F. Buckley understood that conservatism can only be a partial philosophy of life, because any calling which claims to be a whole philosophy of life is not one at all. It is a religion, and in all likelihood a false one. Armed with this conviction, he changed the world by arguing with those who could not comprehend that a man could be joyful, charming, generous, and passionate about hobbies and people far outside politics while walking against what all the right people insisted was the tide of All Good Things. In this he remains the archetype for conservatism, properly understood.

Conservatives believe in dreams but we don’t believe they can ever be made reality in this life. Nonetheless, when Bill Buckley once asked, ‘Have you ever seen a dream walking?’ he may not have realized that for conservatives, at least, he was the answer to his own question.’”

– Jonah Goldberg