Column: Buckley changed everything

By Ronnie Ellis
CNHI News Service

FRANKFORT, Ky. Tue, May 13 2008

— One needn’t be conservative or Republican to find fascination in the life, work and ideas of William F. Buckley. He demonstrated one could take seriously the serious ideas of society, art, and government while mischievously delighting in the debate about all of them.

Buckley never converted me to the cause, but he persuaded me not to join the other side. His ON THE RIGHT columns and television show, FIRING LINE, led me to conclude there are both good and bad ideas and people on either side of the political divide, and with a little work and thought you can discern the difference

I came to follow Buckley by an odd route. A high school classmate who fantasized he was a smart-aleck cross between Hawkeye Pearce and Bobby Kennedy urged me to watch FIRING LINE – for the unintended comedy. And so I did – only to be seduced by Buckley’s intellect, erudition, vocabulary, and wit.

I’ve forgotten who wrote it but I read once that Buckley “has the great, high grace never to offend anyone unintentionally.” Intentional insults, of course, were an altogether different matter. NATIONAL REVIEW, one week after the inauguration of President Lyndon Johnson, editorialized: “Our patience with the Johnson administration is exhausted.” On another occasion, he wrote of LBJ that he sometimes was afflicted with an attack of conscience “but as a rule he will lie down for 10 minutes until it passes.”

He told Ronald Reagan (who almost certainly would not have been president had Buckley not redefined conservatism in America) during a debate about the Panama Canal treaty that “the force of my illumination would blind you.” His eyes gleamed, his eyebrows and tongue darted, and he flashed that toothy grin when he’d set up a debating opponent and knew he’d scored a direct hit. He once wrote of himself: “Who else, on so many issues, has been right so much of the time? I couldn’t think of anyone.” But while running a Quixotic race for Mayor of New York City he was asked what he’d do if he won. “Demand a recount.” He received 13 percent of the vote.

He wrote more than 50 books. He confounded political allies by supporting legalization of marijuana and declaring the war in Iraq a mistake. He devilishly published in his magazine letters criticizing him personally. He answered one from a man named Marshall Prickman and addressed to “Mr. Buckley” with this: “Call me Bill. May I address you by your nickname?”

I met him twice, both times at Western Kentucky University where I attended two of his lectures, the first time while an undergraduate and then a decade later when I worked at the nearby Glasgow Daily Times. They were nothing more than brief encounters, the sort of thing where you shake hands and say something inane. I might have told him he helped inspire my wish to write columns like this one.

He died this week at 82, apparently while sitting at his desk – writing of course. He lived his life with fun, grace and style, with grandeur as one of his protégés, the New York Times columnist David Brooks, put it. So it’s difficult to grieve his passing. But it’s just as difficult to think he won’t continue to puncture the self-important and frequently misguided with his wit.

He changed the country with the force of his ideas and words. He won’t mind at all if we debate whether the change was for the better, but Lord knows the debate won’t be as interesting and enlightening without him.

Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort, Ky. He may be contacted by email at rellis@cnhi.com.

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