Slog - Comments on Poor William F. Buckley Jr. http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr Yeah, he's dead, and just imagine what those final days must've been like: Dying of emphysema, watching his precious conservatism transforming over decades from Goldwater's small-government movement into a bloated, anti-intellectual overly religious knee-jerk reaction to fear. Worst of all, watching his magazine, the National Review, become a spider-hole of dunderheaded readers and loudmouth editors must've been like living hell to him. I honestly can't imagine a worse way to go out.... Copyright 2008 Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:49:40 -0800 Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:19:13 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by mackro mackro You're not being serious about that last statement, are you, Paul?

]]> mackro mackro http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948926 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948926 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:52:43 -0800 Comment by Jim Demetre Buckley jumped the shark early when he chose to defend Joseph McCarthy and the practice named after him.

]]> Jim Demetre http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948937 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948937 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:07:03 -0800 Comment by Gurldoggie Hard not to see his death as a metaphor. As the conservative movement chokes itself into a frail old age, it can once again look to Buckley as a role model for a timely demise.

]]> Gurldoggie http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948939 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948939 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:09:41 -0800 Comment by Original Andrew Are you kidding me?


Aren't we currently living in Buckley's sadistic, hellish vision for America? He was BFFs with Reagan, you know.


Speaking of, I'd say Reagan's 15 year decent into Alzheimer's induced madness would be by far the worst way to go, and at least the evil old fascist got what he deserved.

]]> Original Andrew http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948942 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948942 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:13:31 -0800 Comment by Paul Constant Well, mackro mackro, maybe having my face humped off by an orangutan. How about: "I can't imagine a worse way for him to go out?

]]> Paul Constant http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948943 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948943 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:14:07 -0800 Comment by Will in Seattle Their go my wishes that an asteroid hits him ...

]]> Will in Seattle http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948953 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948953 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:19:00 -0800 Comment by mackro mackro @5: !!! Paul, do you, uh, know of anyone who has died from a fatal facial orangutan hump-off?

]]> mackro mackro http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948968 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948968 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:26:42 -0800 Comment by mackro mackro OK Seriously. Dying of Alzheimer's or emphezema is horrible, no matter how much you like or dislike the sufferer. For that alone (the latter in this case), I do feel bad for Buckley as I would any human.

Paul, I'm guessing you were referring to the idealogical death that came with this. Now while I never studied Buckley that closely, he was much more of a pushover than Goldwater. I still feel far worse about Goldwater no longer being around than I ever will for Buckley. Wasn't Buckley towing the meddling neo-con line just as of a few days ago? I don't think he died thinking his intellectual heirs were primal pawns, although one never knows.

]]> mackro mackro http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948975 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948975 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:30:28 -0800 Comment by Paul Constant I do know that he wasn't happy about GWB as president, once the dust from 9/11 settled, and I think that he was terribly unhappy with the Repub presidential prospects for 08. I think that, yes, ideologically, he died a painful death.

]]> Paul Constant http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948980 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948980 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:33:35 -0800 Comment by isabelita Problematic, "dying from Alzeimer's"; the sufferers, as they worsen, don't seem to be aware of their decline, but their caregivers certainly are. So it's as if the people around them are suffering from the dying, too, especially if they're family members. I'm speaking from personal experience, taking care of a declining parent.
Reagan may have not have suffered at all.
Buckley - Glad he's gone, one down, but many of his spawn to go.

]]> isabelita http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948989 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948989 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:38:55 -0800 Comment by mackro mackro Buckley, proponent of the AIDS tattoo -- in 2005

Perhaps rhetorical, but nonetheless excellent fodder for your Huckanauts.

]]> mackro mackro http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948992 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948992 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:39:49 -0800 Comment by Hernandez Buckley's physical death: painful and horrifying - I feel bad when anyone dies that way.

Buckley's ideological death: glorious.

]]> Hernandez http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948994 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c948994 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:40:14 -0800 Comment by Timothy Now this is an excuse for a party! Maybe things will turn out all right after all.

]]> Timothy http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949092 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949092 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:20:39 -0800 Comment by Will in Seattle @8 - it's harder on the caregivers and the relatives, true.

But it depends on the exact progression of the disease, some people have visual and auditory hallucinations, and some of the other effects are not very fun.

Buckley dying is the signal for the conservatives that they need to go into the wilderness for the next 40 years - and we won't miss them here in America, that's for sure.

]]> Will in Seattle http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949094 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949094 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:21:01 -0800 Comment by RHETT ORACLE Vidal lives! The following from the 1968 Democratic National Convention wherein Buckley calls Vidal a queer in contradiction that Buckley was one of the most epicene commentators ever.

http://www.pitt.edu/~kloman/debates.html

]]> RHETT ORACLE http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949099 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949099 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:22:14 -0800 Comment by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me Personally, I will miss being able to read his columns, which I often did just for the language he used (it was vastly superior to that being used by anyone else writing today). It seems fitting that his last column focused in part on Fowler’s Modern English Usage and Buckley's “serious wish that students of the English language would themselves take the initiative of familiarizing themselves with the profundities and niceties of the points being made by Mr. Fowler.” Even if you didn’t agree with what he said, you have to agree that he said it well. That’s something in its self these days. We are rapidly running out of writers, speakers and thinkers who are even remotely aware of, much less interested in or familiar with, the profundities and niceties of the English language. He was one of the last.

]]> You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949111 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949111 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:24:32 -0800 Comment by vooodooo84 History has proved Vidal right Buckley was a crypto-fascist

]]> vooodooo84 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949113 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949113 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:25:42 -0800 Comment by Mr. Poe Who the fuck fucking cares? Please. This is embarrassing.

]]> Mr. Poe http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949153 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949153 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:32:23 -0800 Comment by PdxRitchie I always liked listening to Buckley talk.

]]> PdxRitchie http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949156 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949156 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:33:21 -0800 Comment by jeffg166 He got back what he put out.

]]> jeffg166 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949158 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949158 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:34:57 -0800 Comment by BELMONT PLACE But only embarrassing if - lacking knowledge - you have nothing to say.

]]> BELMONT PLACE http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949177 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949177 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:41:31 -0800 Comment by MichaelPgh And now he gets to roast in Hell with Jerry Falwell while they wait for Fred Phelps.

]]> MichaelPgh http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949207 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949207 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:51:32 -0800 Comment by just sayin @21, when has a lack of knowledge or anything to say stopped Mr. Poe from, nonetheless, posting whatever vacuous thoughts he has?

]]> just sayin http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949221 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949221 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:55:23 -0800 Comment by NapoleonXIV I still like to believe that Buckley died knowing that the Republican party had fallen so far that either a woman or a black man was a shoe-in to be elected President.

]]> NapoleonXIV http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949237 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949237 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:59:15 -0800 Comment by Fnarf Buckley was ideologically appalling, it is true. But he hated what "conservatism" became: he never had any truck with the neanderthals who speak for "conservatism" today. He was appalled by the Iraq war, for instance; he was never an adventurer. GWB is in that respect the least conservative president we have ever had. Paul's right: Buckley went out knowing that the movement he created had been taken over by baboons.

]]> Fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949256 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949256 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:03:05 -0800 Comment by Reverse Polarity Though of course I disagreed with him about nearly everything, I always thought Buckley was one of the most erudite and eloquent people I've ever heard/read. He must have cringed to listen to our chimp-in-chief mangle the English language.

]]> Reverse Polarity http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949389 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949389 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:43:19 -0800 Comment by Mr. Poe @23

No shit.

]]> Mr. Poe http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949413 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949413 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:53:06 -0800 Comment by K I've noticed two things about ideology since about, say, the 1960s (though maybe throughout all of human history).

One is that, as time goes on, old conservatism starts to look rational, sensible, and even downright humanitarian compared to new conservatism.

The other is that old liberalism becomes unarguable common sense.

]]> K http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949685 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949685 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:58:41 -0800 Comment by Fnarf Here's the TNR article by Johann Hari about the National Review cruise where Norman Podhoretz screamed at Buckley because Buckley's kind of conservatism isn't eager to start more wars:

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=0d96c2b6-3723-4560-a3c0-fcccce2891f2

]]> Fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949761 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949761 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:17:48 -0800 Comment by steve you people are scumbag liberal facists Long live Bill Buckley!

]]> steve http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949940 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c949940 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:15:57 -0800 Comment by Fnarf If Bill Buckley stood for anything, it was proper punctuation and capitalization, "steve" darling.

]]> Fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950055 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950055 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:12:01 -0800 Comment by Jean Just so your educated, Fascism is an invention of the LEFT and calling WFB a crypto fascist is like calling a horse a pig. But you pigs are free to keep squealing until McCains win the Presidency.

]]> Jean http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950082 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950082 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:31:25 -0800 Comment by I give it a three out of ten Jean @ 32, kind of a weak troll, with the intentional misspellings a particularly glaring over-reach. I give it a three out of ten; but keep trying, you're cute.

]]> I give it a three out of ten http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950122 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950122 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:55:32 -0800 Comment by RHETT ORACLE Bill Buckley - the Marie Antoinette of American politics - as opined by Mario Puzo back in 1968:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/07/16/specials/buckley-eye.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

]]> RHETT ORACLE http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950132 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950132 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:58:32 -0800 Comment by homage to me I couldn't have been more opposed to his philosophies, but he was an oddly compelling TV personality.

]]> homage to me http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950147 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950147 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:06:20 -0800 Comment by Will in Seattle I wonder how much good his money is doing him in Hades right now?

]]> Will in Seattle http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950202 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950202 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:02:11 -0800 Comment by Raphael Although I appreciate Buckley's tone over the bloviation that typically comes with a conservative point of view, I will always remember him as an early proponent of regrettable notion that the war on terrorism should lead to Baghdad. He happily conflated Bin Laden and Hussein.

That kind of deceipt is low, and I don't think he gets a "Go Straight To Heaven" card for his role in the debacle.

]]> Raphael http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950321 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950321 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:17:26 -0800 Comment by nose ring guy a pure shit head. thanks god, for his death.

]]> nose ring guy http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950379 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950379 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:03:52 -0800 Comment by gnossos It's too bad poor old Emmett Watson is dead...he missed one last time to trot out the well-worn legend of how lefty UW history professor Giovanni Costigan kicked Buckley's ass in a debate about Vietnam.

]]> gnossos http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950439 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950439 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:05:21 -0800 Comment by NapoleonXIV In the past twelve hours we've been talking about him, William F. Buckley has grown twelve hours deader.

Here's to you Bill Buckley, may you grow even deader, moment by moment, until at last you are indistinguishable from dust!

]]> NapoleonXIV http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950450 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/poor_william_f_buckley_jr#c950450 Media Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:19:13 -0800