On Buckley...

William F. Buckley died last night.  I've gone back and watched several speeches and debates of his during his heyday in the 60's and 70's (his debates with Noam Chomsky are especially interesting), and while i certainly don't agree with most of what he believed, i appreciated his quick humor and-- most of all-- his civility towards those he disagreed with.  He also was, as far as i am concerned, more grounded and consistent in his conservative philosophy than most so-called conservatives are today. 

Last year, Johann Hari of The New Republic did a piece on the annual "cruise" that The National Review puts on, where you can drop a few thousand to ride around the Caribbean on a large boat with columnists and bloggers from The National Review-- a publication founded by Buckley which serves as the standard bearer of conservative thought in America.

Hari's account of his trip (he wryly referred to it at one point as "the Muslims are Coming cruise") includes this passage that to me perfectly illustrates just how far the conservative movement has strayed from Buckley's vision:

A fracture-line in the lumbering certainty of American conservatism is opening right before my eyes. Following the break, Norman Podhoretz and William Buckley—two of the grand old men of the Grand Old Party—begin to feud. Podhoretz will not stop speaking—“I have lots of ex-friends on the left; it looks as if I’m going to have some ex-friends on the right, too,” he rants—and Buckley says to the chair. Just take the mike, there’s no other way.” He says it with a smile, but with heavy eyes.

Podhoretz and Buckley now inhabit opposite poles of post-September 11 American conservatism, and they stare at totally different Iraqs.  Podhoretz is the Brooklyn-born, street-fighting kid who traveled through a long phase of left-liberalism to a pugilistic belief in America’s power to redeem the world, one bomb at a time.  Today, he is a bristling gray ball of aggression, here to declare that the Iraq war has been “an amazing success.”  He waves his fist and declaims, “There were WMD, and they were shipped to Syria. ….This picture of a country in total chaos with no security is false.  It couldn’t have gone better.”  He wants more wars, and fast.  He is “certain” Bush will bomb Iran, and “thank God” for that.

Buckley is an urbane old reactionary, drunk on doubts. He founded National Review in 1955—when conservatism was viewed in polite society as a mental affliction—and he has always been skeptical of appeals to ‘the people,’ preferring the eternal top-down certainties of Catholicism. He united with Podhoretz in mutual hatred of Godless Communism, but, slouching into his eighties, he possesses a worldview that is ill-suited for the fight to bring democracy to the Muslim world. He was a ghostly presence on the cruise at first, appearing only briefly to shake a few hands. But now he has emerged, and his is fighting.

“Aren’t you embarrassed by the absence of these weapons?” Buckley snaps at Podhoretz.  He has just explained that he supported the war reluctantly, because Dick Cheney convinced him that Saddam Hussein had WMD primed to be fired.  “No,” Podhoretz replies. “As I say, they were shipped to Syria.  During Gulf War One, the entire Iraqi air force was hidden in the deserts in Iran.”  He says he is “heartbroken” by this “rise of defeatism on the right.” He adds, apropos of nothing, “There was nobody better than Don Rumsfeld. This defeatist talk only contributes to the impression we are losing, when I think we are winning.”

The audience cheers Podhoretz.  The nuanced doubts of Bill Buckley leave them confused.  Doesn’t he sound like the liberal media?  Later, over dinner, a tablemate from Denver calls Buckley “a coward.” His wife nods and says, “Buckley’s an old man,” tapping her head with her finger to suggest dementia.

Ladies and gentlemen: I give you the modern conservative movement.

"There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush.  I don't believe his successor would re-enunciate the words he used in his second inaugural address because they were too ambitious. … So therefore I think his legacy is indecipherable."

"If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign." Buckley says.

-- William F. Buckley, when asked about the Iraq War and President Bush's foreign policy legacy.