William F. Buckley RIP

Bill Buckley died today, in his study, doing what he probably did best; writing. There will be plenty of time and days for fond reminisce, for the sadness of his leave-taking, and to do justice to this giant of two centuries as we mark his death.

But I'd like to tell my own Bill Buckley story. I had always been interested in politics. From the age of six, when my Mother gave me a book of bios of the presidents, I was hooked. As a youngster I saw it as great sport, and less, much less as ideology.

In 1964, about a week before the election I had followed with great interest with my six year old mind, I told my father Goldwater was a shoe in. I was also a smart ass very young. I knew that everyone in my parents circle was calling Goldwater crazy (in your gut you know he's nuts was a famous rejoinder then). But I knew next to nothing. Except the excitement of it all. The soap opera quality...the tears, the great victories, the sad but often needed defeats. They were all a part of what I thought this great sport was about.

I followed the tote boards on election nights as most boys might scour the box scores of last night's ball games. Slowly, I started to gather what these men were saying, but what they said still meant less to me than how they said it. All said, I was convinced by the nightly news guys that to be interested in politics, government...civics, was to be a good citizen. And yet, as I grew older, and a bit smarter, I recognized a very deep emptiness in my hobby. I had happened upon the concept of substance (somehow) and I wanted more. Was there really a difference between Nixon, Humpfrey, McGovern, Rockefeller, and all the rest who, be it said, did disagree on large, specific things. The War. Race. Law and Order.

But as I grew bigger I wanted to know more about everything. I even flirted with George Wallace because he was saying things that had meaning and was at least QUESTIONING the philosophy of government that almost all of the other men held. I was too. By the time I was fifteen, I wanted more. Not who was going to save the world, or reform the economy, or end the war. I needed to know what it was these men thought about. What was behind their ideas for government.

In steps William F. Buckley. Granted, it is hard to hoist oneself onto the shoulders of a giant to see the world more clearly. But, and I don't remember how or when, I was given a copy of National Review Magazine. And I was introduced to the world of conservative thinkers. Bill Buckley could write and speak to men in hard hats, blue jeans and white socks, popping open a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon, as well and clearly and easily as he could to his own set, the Park Avenue men in Brooks Brothers suits drinking in the evening martini.

Buckley was the first man to set me straight. The first man I found who was writing about the why's of politics, much less than the hows. I followed politics for a decade before I realized that ideas mattered. And on the shoulders of this giant, I took the ride, the intellectual ride of my life up through conservative valley, into Reagan land, and finally, when I saw (and I do believe WFB did as well) that the conservative movement that he had nurtured with his mighty philosophical heft and from his own unique pen, was going to disappoint us all, he moved as close as he could to libertarianism.

Just to look and listen to William Buckley was a trip, even if you hadn't a clue. But if you did, and you are one of us who wants to change the world, and has been at work at it for decades, tonight you'll shed a tear for this great, great, man.

Joe Postove