I recall watching Buckley on his old show “Firing Line.” He managed to be erudite, civil, thought-provoking, and humorous.
Quite a contrats from today’s right-wing rant radio which is filled with so much vitriol (as we saw with the Bill Cunningham incidnet, yesterday) and has replaced thoughtful debate with histrionic name-calling.
While I did not always agree with Mr. Buckly, I found him worthy of respect for his thoughtfulness and his quick wit.

You’ve put your finger on it, Bob, so true.

As a liberal I too am sad today over this death.
As a teenager I found myself watching his “Firing Line” program, and was in awe that someone could have such a rich and diverse vocabulary. And use all the words in such a way that the ordinary sentence was almost poetry. While listening to his program I would learn new words for my own usage. When was the last time anyone said that about a television program?
I know of very few people on television that could ever match his intellectual power. While his political point of view was often in sharp contrast to mine I was never able to stop listening to the way he spoke. Even years later, in the occasional interview on televison, I would be drawn to his slightly elitist charm and world-class intelligence.
I guess the best programs he ever did on the air, in my estimation, were the debates that he orchestrated and helped star in. Powerful thinkers engaged in serious dialogue on issues that mattered. Sadly, much has passed over the years, including the art of debate without rancor.
We always say when the big names such as William F. Buckley pass away, that we will not see their kind again.
In this case it is true.

One more thought on Mr. Buckley…
Firing Line was on PBS! The most cogent, thoughtful, and eloquent conservative of his time was on a network which the ranting right-wingnuts who inhabit commercial radio constantly excoriate for being a nest of liberals.

We always say when the big names such as William F. Buckley pass away, that we will not see their kind again.
Not me. I’m already on the look-out for the next one. He loved words, that’s evident.
Good point about Firing Line on PBS, Bob. Liberals don’t care any less for intellect than conservatives.

it’s a sad day. to see my father’s generation of conservatives passing reminds me of just how different politics used to be. seems to me that for the most part this primary has been better, and more about the issues (except on blogs like this) than they have been since the early 90s. at least it’s not about wedge issues, but there are still pointless attacks based on sex, race, gender, religion.
i used to watch firing line with my dad. we’d debate the issues (he’s very conservative) and have great conversations. it’s impossible to talk politics with him anymore. the republican party has gotten quite nasty with the rise of conservative talk radio and worse with the inclusion of fox news. according to my mom, a lot of his anger came out of frustration during the george w. bush years. you see, my dad’s a old-time fiscal (and part social) conservative, a war veteran, and a protestant. he hated to see what happened to this country (bloated government, lies, corruption, sex scandals, the mess in iraq, schiavo, the economy, the politicization of religion) under the leadership of a so-called conservative. worse yet, he hated defending his vote. i miss our discussions and i hope that someday things will settle down and we can do it again before he’s gone with his generation, like buckley.

I have gotten with a remnant who are so fervently Protestant that we point out “If WFB, or Mother Teresa, or John Paul II, was relying
on his/her works to have right standing before God in heaven, each
of the above is very hot and disappointed right now.” Martin Luther,
followed by Calvin and the Puritans, insisted that to be true to the Gospel a church must teach justification by faith alone and by Christ alone.
Catholics can come up with a valid critique of secular society. So can Muslims, for that matter. It was a Muslim who invented algebra,
and there are some sweet Muslim people, but where will they spend eternity?

Yesterday, NPR replayed a Terry Gross interview with Buckley on voting rights and limits from, I dunno, 1989 or something.
You can find the audio clip on this page.
This is a taste …
“If you believe, as we have traditionally believed up until about 12 years ago, that you shouldn’t vote unless you’re literate, and if you are prepared to admit that the South was very heavily neglecting the education of black people, then under the circumstances you would have a much higher incidence of white people than black people voting. You have to remember we lived then in an age in which people, including myself, contributed to something called ‘The National Assoc. for the Advancement of Colored People.’ Well, if you acknowledge that you want to advance colored people, you acknowledge that they weren’t at that point as advanced as other people. And under the circumstances, they suffered certain disqualifications – which we all deplore but we can’t assume were not so.”
What we can take away from this is that those folks who fail to vote in the upcoming general election because they cannot make up their minds between the candidates might de facto, whether they realize it or not, be among those Buckley would deem “disqualified.”