Bill Buckley
By Mona
.
He has died at age 82. All over the blogosphere one can find excerpts from his late 50s article in National Review — the magazine he founded in the mid-50s — claiming the South had a right to maintain its culture against blacks, until they were “improved.” In later years he would retract and repudiate such views. Yet, it remains true that he defended Joe McCarthy and the Vietnam War, and never backed away from those positions.
.
But he was cordial to his ideological opponents — in and out of print — in a way the modern conservative movement has abandoned; NR and conservatism have become the anti-Buckley when addressing the views of “liberals.” His Emmy Award-winning Firing Line show on PBS was simply the best intellectual sustenance on the airwaves in its time. He invited those with whom he passionately disagreed and let them fulsomely have their say, while (of course) eruditely disagreeing. He was no Hugh Hewitt or Rush Limbaugh, even if they spew encomiums now and if, as some argue, Buckley may have led to them. (I do not agree.)
.
Buckley befriended liberals, as one of those liberal friends, Rick Perlstein notes. Further, I defy anyone to read his eulogy for the late Pete McWilliams (his friend and correspondent), and not be moved by Buckley’s understanding of the viciousness of some prosecutors and the war on drugs in general:
Imagine such a spirit [McWilliams’] ending its life at 50, just because [prosecutors] wouldn’t let him have a toke. We have to console ourselves with the comment of the two prosecutors. They said they were “saddened” by Peter McWilliams’ death. Many of us are — by his death…and by the causes of it.
History will eventually put Buckley and his magazine through the sieve and decide his/its ultimate importance; how marginally good or really bad it was. But the man Buckley was kind and gentle, and enjoyed cerebral, fair give and take with non-conservatives. He came to oppose the war in Iraq before doing so was popular.
.
And again, only a humane and decent person could write as he did about the tragic death of his gay, libertarian friend Pete McWilliams, with whom he did not agree on all things. Bill Buckley was not of the current right-wing, facile slime machine, even if his magazine has certainly fallen into the hands of those who are.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
February 28, 2008 @ 7:29 am
I have mixed feelings about Buckley and so I don’t disagree with people like Perlstein. He definitely had his good side, at least on the social level.
But that magazine of his was capable of publishing the most morally disgusting crap imaginable (and I gather still is, but I never even glance at it now.) I used to keep clippings of especially outrageous articles I’d xerox at the library and don’t know if they are still stored in some box in my closet, but one I remember is when National Review, to my pleased surprise, harshly condemned Suharto’s genocidal occupation of East Timor. This was in the 80’s. A few issues later they retracted it all, saying that it was a cause of the radical left (which was true) and they were misled. It was clear to me that someone must have told them they were condemning mass murder supported by the US and to knock it off.
They weren’t always dishonest about rightwing mass murderers, but they were often enough that they lose any right to sneer at, say, 30’s radicals who supported Stalin.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
February 28, 2008 @ 8:47 am
The thing is that Buckley put his talents at the service of the slime machine, and then seemed surprised at the results. He was never an intellectual (as opposed to a well-read hack), but he really shouldn’t have been, except that he never saw himself as having anything in common with countless suave people who service vulgarians and then find themselves in a vulgar milieu. He could be charming to people he thought of as his peers, but there are many millions of people whose lives are worse off because of causes and people he pushed and for whom he never even pretended to have any respect, understanding, or compassion. He was capable of deep cruelty and nasty displays of wit at the expense of other people’s suffering, and the range of his tolerance for anyone else’s humanity was not vast.
As a young man, I admired the wit. Only later did I gradually realize that if I ever got the chance to try to express that thanks, I could expect all the courtesy given to Kerouac, or Vidal, or entire classes like AIDS victims, Spaniards not fond of Catholic dictatorship, and non-white poor people.
Comment by The Editors —
February 28, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
I don’t doubt that Buckley was a nice man in private. Lots of people are very nice, and thatis to be encouraged. However, nice people die every day and nobody is expected to notice. Buckley’s public work was to create National Review and substantially shape and husband the modern ‘conservative’ movement. National Review didn’t ‘fall’ into the hands of its current staff - he placed it there. This is his public work, and this is how the public will remember him.
Comment by Just a Quick Question —
February 28, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
I keep hearing that WFB repudiated his racist positions of the 50’s. Is the entire proof of this his renouncing the John Birch Society and his “black South Africans should vote ANC” statement?
Comment by Derek Copold —
February 28, 2008 @ 6:48 pm
Here’s a less flattering obit from Peter Brimelow. Yeah, I know Brimelow isn’t a fave around here, but his take is interesting nonetheless, though a bit catty.
Comment by Mona —
February 28, 2008 @ 8:35 pm
Well, I can’t recall anything specific from the period when I subscribed to NR — basically the 80s, but in that decade he became a huge fan of Thomas Sowell. Now whatever one thinks of Sowell, Sowell rejects Jim Crow in no uncertain terms. The tenor of the magazine in that decade just did not admit of any overt racism such as that ‘57 screed. (Which was essentially written contemporaneously with his purging of Birchers, so could not constitute proof of anti-racism.)
None of this should be interpreted to mean I then approved overall of NR, for I did not. Something at some point sufficiently p*ssed me off that I didn’t renew my subscription– this would have been late 80s or early 90s. Altho I was delighted with the pot legalization issue put out in, I think, ‘95 and bought it.
Comment by TGGP —
February 29, 2008 @ 3:47 am
I’ve got a sizable collection of links to fond remembrances and disses here.
Comment by mds —
February 29, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
And only a hateful, authoritarian scumbag could advocate mandatory ass tattoos for HIV carriers such as McWilliams. But at least he had a gay friend while he was touting stomping on the faces of gay people in general. Give the guy a goddamn monument.
Comment by abb1 —
February 29, 2008 @ 2:44 pm
Don’t you think the tattoo thing just might be a bit too grotesque to be serious?
Comment by mds —
February 29, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
He wrote and referred favorably back to an essay advocating “Tattoo all carriers” as a joke? Oh, well, that’s all right, then.
Comment by Mona —
February 29, 2008 @ 4:31 pm
Ok, mds, Buckley was advocating a policy that strikes most people as inherently fascist, but he did so in the cause of saving the lives of gay men, at a time when an entire generation of them was being decimated by an uncontrollable, ghastly death. Known carriers were not always telling lovers that they were infected.
You can sue someone who knows s/he has an active case of Herpes and fails to mention that to their sex partner, but a tort resolution for contracting AIDS seems a bit less than optimal; especially did it seem so in the 80s.
Comment by TGGP —
March 2, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
I’d be willing to compromise my libertarianism by endorsing quarantine in some situations, but AIDS isn’t one of them. It’s not one of the more communicable diseases in the world and can be avoided by adopting some safer practices. Having the government try to save people from themselves there seems similar to doing so with smoking. And Buckley did end up endorsing a ban on that.
Comment by Martin Wisse —
March 3, 2008 @ 10:20 am
It doesn’t matter whether Buckley was kind to his friends and family. Everybody is. Even Hitler had a kind word for Eva and a cuddle for his dogs. It’s how you treat those not your friends that matter.
And Buckley was racist, homophobic scum who helped make America a worse place.