William F. Buckley Jr., Rapier Wit Of the Right

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William F. Buckley, Jr. -- 1925 to 2008

William F. Buckley, Jr., the intellectual founder of the modern American conservative movement, died Feb. 27, 2008, at his home in Stamford, Conn. Buckley founded the influential National Review in the 1950s, giving voice to a conservative movement that had been marginalized during and after the New Deal era.

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Of course, the argument could be made that there would have been no Reagan presidency without Buckley, the man who made conservatism exhilarating, the man who convinced a substantial part of the public that it was liberals, not conservatives, who were the lugubrious navel-gazers.

Buckley was a man of wild energy, a man who claimed to write his syndicated column in 20 minutes, a feat possible because he was, in the words of a former employee, "the fastest typist I ever saw." He wrote 5,600 of those columns, by one account. He wrote more than 50 books, including 10 spy novels and journals of his sails across the Atlantic, along with a children's book he claimed to have written in 45 minutes. He gave 70 speeches a year. He ran for mayor of New York. With his wife, Pat, he conducted a blue-chip social life. His television show, "Firing Line," ran for 33 years. He played the harpsichord.

Norman Mailer, who also attained monstre sacré status but had to work at it harder, said of him: "No other actor on earth can project simultaneous hints that he is in the act of playing Commodore of the Yacht Club, Joseph Goebbels, Robert Mitchum, Maverick, Savonarola, the nice prep-school kid from next door, and the snows of yesteryear." He was in the Army during World War II, and in the CIA afterward.

If not a barbaric yawp, he was a wry yawp of conservatism, and his life love alone should make it no surprise that toward the end of Jack Kerouac's life, the original beatnik found favorite reading in the National Review.

Once I saw him debate William Shockley on "Firing Line." Shockley had won the Nobel Prize for his work on transistors but had moved on to a theory of racial inferiority based on intelligence tests.

Buckley despised him, but like a creationist, a Shockley is unbeatable in argument -- they're too good at defending themselves, and they always get the last word.

The program was a donnybrook of true vexation on the part of Buckley. I thought maybe he'd have to leave Shockley with a draw. Then he made the move he must have been waiting to make the whole time.

I have to quote from long-ago memory, but I think I have the sense of it: One topic we have neglected to light upon is the remarkable fact that Asians and Jews tend to score markedly higher on intelligence tests than members of our ethnic group, Dr. Shockley.

Before Shockley could summon up his full harrumph, Buckley glanced at his wristwatch, and no doubt with a flash of the eyes, a dance of the brows, and a glare of a smile, he said: "But I see we've run out of time. This is William Buckley, for 'Firing Line.' "

The last word, at least, was Buckley's. And the last laugh.