William F. Buckley's Extraordinary Life

National Review Online: Sen. Lieberman Remembers Conservative Editor As Spirited American

(National Review Online)  This column was written by Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.)

---

I had the privilege of knowing Bill Buckley for some 40 years. He was a devoted and patriotic American; a remarkably creative and eloquent man of letters; a person with an extraordinary sense of humor, exhibiting a spirit that infused everyone around him. He lived a remarkable life, and had a tremendous impact on this country that he loved and on the many people who read his books, read his columns in National Review, and watched him for so many years on that wonderfully cerebral, provocative TV program, “Firing Line”. He believed in the power of ideas - and loved the exchange of ideas. “Firing Line” was open not just to conservatives like Bill Buckley, but to people of all shades of opinion who were willing to engage him on the field of ideas.

I was privileged to get to know him more than 40 years ago when I became the editor of the Yale Daily News - or the “Chairman of the Board,” as the post was called. There was a gentleman at the Yale Daily News named Frances Donahue, who had been its business manager for what seemed forever. I remember that the day after I was named editor, he told me that he had informed Bill Buckley of this development in his regular back and forth correspondence with Buckley. I soon began regular communication with Bill Buckley, as well. He took a wonderfully warm, kind of brotherly interest in those who were at the Yale Daily News. He invited me and a couple of our friends from the News to come to his house in Stamford for a dinner or two - which were stimulating, thrilling evenings. Our friendship would continue.

Buckley's life is an extraordinary one. Upon leaving Yale, he became well known for a book he wrote - “God and Man at Yale” - about what he saw as the hostile environment there toward people of faith. He started National Review in the mid-1950s. I remember reading once that he had said in the founding issue that the publication would derive from the original ideas of the moral order. Bill Buckley was a person who studied history, studied literature, and learned from it. He was also infused with a deep and profound commitment to his Roman Catholic faith. I believe that was the origin of the moral order which he gave expression to in his writing for National Review, and in speaking out and conducting himself as a provocative, loving American.

He believed that ideas mattered, and they do. National Review, in some sense, gave birth to the modern American conservative movement. It wasn't necessarily a Republican movement; his conservatism was a matter of ideals and ideas and philosophy. He rejected extremism. To his everlasting credit, he took on the John Birch Society when it wasn't popular to do so.

Buckley's conservative ideology was not always favorable to Republican candidates. I recall reading National Review’s endorsement of General Dwight D. Eisenhower for President. While everyone else was echoing the slogan "We Like Ike," Buckley's editorial said "We Prefer Ike.” He was more thrilled, of course, by the candidacy of Senator Barry Goldwater, and then most of all by the candidacy of President Ronald Reagan.

At one point in the mid-60s, Buckley ran for Mayor of New York, as kind of a joyous, thought-provoking, elegant, eloquent exercise in being involved in the marketplace of public ideas. Perhaps the most famous, if not the most substantive, thing he said in that campaign was when they asked him what he would do if he was elected. Bill Buckley famously said, "Demand a recount."

My wife and I had the privilege of spending wonderful evenings with him and his late wife, Patricia, at their home in Stamford, Connecticut. These were classic evenings of great food, some drink, and good, spirited conversation - cigar and brandy to follow - but always open to ideas and always with a ready willingness to laugh. In fact, he passed away earlier today in his study in his magnificent home on Wallacks Point in Stamford, probably working on a column or some other piece of writing.

I feel particularly grateful to Bill Buckley for all that I learned from him, all the good times I had with him. You might say that I would not be a U.S. Senator were it not for Bill Buckley - though Buckley himself would not say that. When I ran for the Senate in 1988, Bill Buckley was not a fan of the incumbent Republican Senator. He called me up and said, "Joe, I'm thinking of endorsing you. Do you think that would help you?" So I said, "Well, that's very good of you." Then he interrupted and said, "Please understand, this is the only time I am likely to endorse you in your career." So I said, "It probably would. What do you have in mind?" He actually wrote a column, a very good column, in National Review, and I think it was a syndicated column. He also, with the puckishness that was a part of him, started something he called BuckPAC, which he said was a PAC open to anyone in Connecticut whose name was Buckley and who was committed to the defeat of the incumbent Senator. They printed bumper stickers and the like and helped out on the campaign.

I said to him after I won that election - and I won it by very little - that I thought in a close election, there are so many reasons one is successful. But I said, "You have reason, Bill, to take part of the credit for this, I won by less than one percent of the vote." And I said, "I'd go so far to say that you played a rabbinical role for me in this campaign." "Well what do you mean by that?" he replied. I said, "Your endorsement of me and the columns you wrote said to Republicans in Connecticut who really didn't like the incumbent Senator that it's kosher to vote for Lieberman." And he laughed, which I remember well.

There's so much I could say about Bill Buckley’s contribution to our country, about his openness to ideas, about his civility. One could disagree with him - as I did quite frequently - and never lose respect or affection, dare I say love, for a wonderful human being.

I offer my sincerest condolences to his family. I pray that they will be strengthened by their faith and comforted by the good memories of and pride in an extraordinary person, Bill Buckley.

I think it most fitting to end with a quote from President Reagan on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of National Review in 1985. Reagan said that when he picked up his first issue of National Review, he received it in a plain brown wrapper. Later on, he still anxiously awaited his biweekly edition, but no longer in a plain brown wrapper. But this is what Reagan said of Buckley: "You didn't just part the Red Sea. You rolled it back, dried it up and left exposed, for all the world to see, the naked desert that is statism. And then, as if that were not enough, you gave the world something different, something, in its weariness, it desperately needed - the sound of laughter and the sight of the rich, green uplands of freedom."

I pray with confidence that Bill Buckley’s soul will be taken up in the bonds of eternal life.

[gkc99]

One big diff between Buckley and Loserman. Buckley opposed U.S. entry into WW2. Loserman wants U.S. entry into WW3.

Plus the NRO (Nether Repugniscum Orif*ce) has become nothing but a slimy mouthpiece for the U.S. Fascist party. Buckley did have some integrity. Nothing like that to be found on board the NRO these days!

[tbweb]

Interesting fellow who reminded me of a watered down Ambrose Bierce!

[noloyalisti]

The only problem with Buckley (not a minor issue) is that he defended the failed ideology of conservatives. He may not have been the imperialist God Bless America of the current Republican extremists but he did defend Reagan, the second worst president of all time.

The concentration of wealth into the fascist hands of the corporations, our current imperialistic foreign war policy and the failure of our democracy and our economy is directly related to people like Buckley. Don''t let your friends, relatives and neighbors forget it. Make conservative the bad word it is.

[sanfelz]

Buckley was long-winded, pompous and a bore. But he did have the foresight to endorse Lieberman so he could get a nice obituary.
Buckley was regarded as an intellect. Surely the last to write for National Review.

[rushlimpdrug]

"William F. Buckley''s Extraordinary Life"

really?
the guy was a user.
he used everybody including God to keep himself afloat.

[Razzl]

The only thing I can really compliment Buckley on is that he had the good taste to be horrified at the excesses of the Bush regime and shrank from being put in a position of having to support it. In the last tv interview I saw him do about 3 years ago he discussed Iraq in a way that made it clear the Bush program was not his idea of conservatism...

[cfin5]

Posted by IRLiberal at 06:17 PM : Feb 28, 2008-----Too late! Guys like me are taking up where he left off. You libs have aborted your posterity for the last 35 years,.....we have not!

[relee42]

Like most right wing plutocrats he was so full of himself, he had no room in his oversized brain to contemplate the merrits of compassion, a more meaningful life. Let''s face it. Guys like this never had to work a day in his life. He was Bush with a vocabulary and a brain and the ability to use it for always venomous rhetoric.

[l8c6]

Joe Lieberman, a sleazy dishonest right wing conservative who entered the democratic party, a party with a history of populism and representation of working americans. It''s obvious what he is and this story confirms it. What a sleazy dishonest creature.

[l8c6]

Too late! Guys like me are taking up where he left off. You libs have aborted your posterity for the last 35 years,.....we have not!

Posted by cfin5

No, his passing is another sign that right wing criminal sociopaths will be called to justice.

[l8c6]

Elite "conservatives" are conservative with everyone but themselves.

Working for a living "conservatives" are suckers.

Henry kissinger said western nations are having a difficult time getting their people to sacrifice. This from a right wing creature who has his dog shuttled via limousine.

Hitler marched Jewish attorneys in the streets of it''s major cities such as Munich for representing clients who were at having legal problems with the SS.

Former democratic Alabama governor is in prison under unjust terms that are not being investigated properly. It''s no joke but right wing sociopaths act like it''s all a big joke. Right wingers are berating school yard bigoted bullies. Too many right wing criminals have infiltrated high offices. Humanity doesn''t have to be led by criminal bullies.

[ubrew12]

Did he really just not see that he was encouraging Americans to charge their gov''t services to the unborn? 30 years later and we haven''t paid for the REAGAN administration, much less Bush.

You owe $30,000 to rich folks for floating the gov''t. You can thank Buckley for that bill. His brand of conservatism is all hat, no cattle.

[relee42]

Obviously Plastic Man doesn''t get it that this is a soliloquy, he is talking to himself while everybody else is having too much fun writind appropriate footnotes to history to hear what he is saying to himself.

[l8c6]

Well, gotta say, these right wingers all know how to say really good sounding sh*it about each other. As a very small kid, I knew Buckley was a creep when I saw him on t.v. A very young kid and I could see a cold, callous creep. An icicle of arrogant entitlement.

[Larry Fafarman]

I purchased the Buckley vocabulary-building desktop calendar of obscure high-falutin words. Most of the words had good, well-known synonyms. LOL

A remarkable life. William F. **********, Jr. Should we say more?

[geneb5]

Cigar-loving Lieberman refuses to acknowledge the role cigars played in Buckley''s emphysema and untimely death, a role Buckley admitted in a widely-circulated column he wrote just 3 months ago:

"Half a year ago my wife died, technically from an infection, but manifestly, at least in part, from a body weakened by 60 years of nonstop smoking. I stayed off the cigarettes but went to the idiocy of cigars inhaled, and suffer now from emphysema, which seems determined to outpace heart disease as a human killer."

--Buckley, William F. Jr., "My Smoking Confession" NY Sun, Dec. 3, 2007.

http://www.nysun.com/article/67349

[ioweign]

Too late! Guys like me are taking up where he left off. You libs have aborted your posterity for the last 35 years,.....we have not!

Posted by cfin5 at 06:50 PM : Feb 28, 2008

You are wrong - I have invested in my children - my posterity - you and your kind are nothing but cannibals...

[rdnearthezoo]

You have to appreciate the love of the liberals and socialist here who have opined on this piece regarding the passing of Bill Buckley. Whatever happened to the liberal mantra of "I may not agree with you but I will defend to the death your right to say it."? It truly is sad that to the progressives (nee socialists) of today, everyone is entitled to their own opinion as long as it is the same one they have.

To Brazil42, the man who "never had to work" wrote more books than you have probably read and gave more speeches and participated in more debates than you can probably count. Your ignorance of the man''s accomplishments (whether you agree with his opinions or not) is telling.

And to l8c6, your use of ad hominem attacks here illustrates the vast difference between you and the man who died. While he argued with logic and reason, you appear to relish slinging unsubstantiated accusations from the gutter. Do you consider Al Gore to be a creature as well for traveling to a conference on "global warming" in a PRIVATE JET and then having his LUGGAGE transported to his hotel in its own Mercedes Benz LIMOUSINE? And the only justice his death serves is the exact same one you will endure upon you passing. However, I believe that you will be missed a lot less and by a multitude fewer.

[it_oldtimer]

Buckley was a rich, arrogant *** who would have brought back Feudalism (in a corporate form) if he could have. If he''d had his way, we''d all be corporate "serfs" right now, with absolutely no rights, and no hope for a better life or a better country.

He was never any friend of the common man - far from it. He served only the interests of the filthy rich.

I, for one, am very glad he''s dead, and I won''t mourn his passing for a single second.

[cfin5]

Posted by IOWEIGN at 09:18 AM : Feb 29, 2008------Cannibals huh,....take you long to come up with that? Stuck on a story today genius? LOL!