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Buckley Leaves Conservatism Up the Creek

Posted Mar 2, 08 5:45 PM CST in Politics 

(Newser) – William F. Buckley may have been the architect of the modern conservative movement, but what will it do without him? Evan Thomas even wonders, in Newsweek, if what he created still exists at all. Buckley was “a man who could spar intensely with the late liberal icons…and then have a laugh over a martini.” Rush Limbaugh he was not.

Buckley’s National Review set the stage for the presidency of Ronald Reagan (who joked that he brown-bagged the mag in liberal Hollywood) and a new, intellectual conservatism, but late in life he bemoaned the state of the movement he created. He saw the Iraq war as a failure and conservatives “slothful;” who knows how he felt about Limbaugh calling him “another father”?

Source Newsweek

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William F. Buckley Jr. left, talks with former California Gov. Ronald Reagan at the South Carolina Governor's Mansion in Columbia S.C., on Jan. 13,1978, after the two debated the Panama Canal Treaty....   (Associated Press)
William F. Buckley Jr., the conservative pioneer and television "Firing Line" host, smiles during an interview at his home in New York on July 20, 2004. Buckley died Wednesday morning, Feb. 27, 2008.(AP...   (Associated Press)
The March 10 issue of NEWSWEEK (on newsstands March 3), "Mr. Right, R.I.P." Evan Thomas looks at how William F. Buckley Jr., largely inspired and held together the modern conservative movement that is...   (Associated Press)
William F. Buckley   (Archive Photos)
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Iraq  • Iraq war  • obituary  • Ronald Reagan  • Rush Limbaugh  • conservatism  • National Review  • Arthur Schlesinger Jr.  • William F. Buckley


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