With the passing of Wm F. Buckley, Jr passed another gentleman of the school of eloquence, fine oratory, unapologetic intelligensia. I first learned of the Wm F. Buckley, Jr---he never failed to affix the suffix---through Walt Disney's "Aladdin" when Genie employed a spot-on impersonation of the man and his verbose vocabulary.
A few years later in college I met him when he delivered a speech on campus. Afterwards on the walk over from the chapel to the reception hall I sided to his right and introduced myself. When I told him about the Disney character he was first confused, then bemused deadpan, "Well, was it a good impersonation?"
Mr Buckley was an immense personality who wore his Ivy League stripes and privilleged upbringing as proudly as a gangsta rapper wears his former prison stripes and under privilleged upbringing. Glamour and buzz words took a backseat to his navy blazer and vocabulary; his posturing became trademarked by the way he often flashed his eyes in pronunciation of a polysyllabic word, bit on the tip of a pen, and unerringly parced sentences that some composition professors insist be broken up by at least four periods.
Mr Buckley made himself known at a time when conservatism was discouraged and unpopular. He championed conservatism into a rational, intellectual philosophy and mode of politics (embraced largely by republicans and libertarians) and he did it with posh and eloquence; and hardly diminished from the scene even as liberalism was bouncing back from being a bad word...or, for that matter, as conservatism was being bamboozled and bushwicked.
(view news interview)A few years later in college I met him when he delivered a speech on campus. Afterwards on the walk over from the chapel to the reception hall I sided to his right and introduced myself. When I told him about the Disney character he was first confused, then bemused deadpan, "Well, was it a good impersonation?"
Mr Buckley was an immense personality who wore his Ivy League stripes and privilleged upbringing as proudly as a gangsta rapper wears his former prison stripes and under privilleged upbringing. Glamour and buzz words took a backseat to his navy blazer and vocabulary; his posturing became trademarked by the way he often flashed his eyes in pronunciation of a polysyllabic word, bit on the tip of a pen, and unerringly parced sentences that some composition professors insist be broken up by at least four periods.
Mr Buckley made himself known at a time when conservatism was discouraged and unpopular. He championed conservatism into a rational, intellectual philosophy and mode of politics (embraced largely by republicans and libertarians) and he did it with posh and eloquence; and hardly diminished from the scene even as liberalism was bouncing back from being a bad word...or, for that matter, as conservatism was being bamboozled and bushwicked.He was William F. Buckley, Jr and damn if no one in the room knew it.
Those of us who appreciate erudite---and visible!---intelligence and preppy-ness, liked the man; even scholars cut from a different swatch respected him as a "worthy opponent". Conservatism certainly owes a great deal to Mr Buckley...as well as the prototypical Ivy Leaguer. And he must have struck a chord with many, many other less patrician, less esoteric folk to have hosted his long running show, Firing Line, through some more than twenty seasons---right up there with The Price is Right and As the World Turns.
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