HERO
William F. Buckley
Editor, Conservative, Critic, Sportsman
1925-2008

In the early 1950’s, I became a fan of William F. Buckley after reading his book, God and Man at Yale, which attacked his alma mater for its antagonism towards religion and capitalism. He was 29 years old when he wrote that best seller. A few years later I became an early subscriber to the National Review, a monthly magazine that he founded and edited for 35 years.

I canceled my subscription a few years later because Buckley and his writers seemed to me to be conservative Ivy League elitist snobs who wanted to tear down everything the Democrats under FDR built. Buckley also seemed to be something of a showoff, using multisyllabic and arcane words instead of words and phrases that that most people could understand.

A Catholic like me, he seemed to be against the Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s. What he was against, I later learned, was the loss of the Latin Mass and the introduction of guitar Masses and modern hymns, which in retrospect I acknowledge were often dreadful.

Buckley’s brand of conservatism gave us Barry Goldwater and President Ronald Reagan, neither of whom I regarded as intellectual giants. Moreover, I believed that Reagan should have been impeached for selling arms to the Contras and allowing Oliver North to run a shadow government in the basement of the White House.

Obituaries written after Buckley’s death last week have given me a new appreciation of the man, and I acclaim him as a hero because he had the courage to write and make people think although they, like me, might not always agree with him. He wrote 70 books, edited the National Review for 35 years, and filmed 1,429 episodes of his television program “Firing Line.” I watched his television program a number of times, especially when he invited liberal guests. In the programs I viewed he never tried to demean his guests or put them down but treated all with civility, sophistication, and respect.

I especially admired his sense of humor. A recent Wall Street Journal article included this incident: Someone once asked him why he was always seated on “Firing Line.” Is it, the questioner asked, because you can’t think on your feet? Buckley replied, “It’s very hard to stand up carrying the weight of what I know.”

He was a sportsman who loved sailing and racing in the sea as this paragraph from his essay, “Thoughts on a Final Passage,” attests: “Ah, but the sea has always something lying in wait for you. . . . You are moving at racing speed, parting the buttery sea as with a scalpel. And the waters roar by, themselves exuberantly subdued by your powers to command your way through them. Triumphalism – and the stars also seem to be singing together for joy.”

I liked what he wrote recently about our country’s involvement in the war in Iraq: “Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.”

May I end this with the concluding paragraph of a eulogy to Buckley written by Peggy Noonan published in the Wall Street Journal (3-1-08): “Bill Buckley lived a great American life. His heroism was very American – the individualist at work in the world, the defender of great creeds and great beliefs going forth with spirit, style and joy. May we not lose his kind. For now, ‘Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels take thee to thy rest.’”

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