William F. Buckley jr

I disagreed with a great many things Bill Buckley believed and wrote, yet I always admired his intellectual verve and vitality (except on those rare occasions when he used his vocabulary and syntax to obscure and befuddle). I saw him on stage at the University of Port City when I was 17 (just after the peace treaty that ended the War of the Roses). He was polished, wittily acerbic, and immensely charming. For awhile I read everything he had written. Then I got over it.

It is now immensely sad to read all the encomiums written about him by conservatives, especially at National Review Online, who have essentially repudiated much of what he stood for: an intelligent, clear eyed conservatism that understood the distinction betweens ends and means. And, I might add, in his own person came to loathe the Iraq War once he realized it was a mistake.

I was reminded of how much I'd enjoyed his long ago talk when I read this exchange with a student found on Slate.com's "Doonesbury" page.

"In what ways would your life have been different if you had been born female?"
-- student journalist

"I'd have seduced John Kenneth Galbraith and spared the world much pain."
-- William F. Buckley Jr.