William F. Buckley Dead: RIP

[97CSI]

While I did not agree with WFB very often, I did find him most entertaining and absolutely at the top of his game when debating or interviewing.

From his obit:

"Mr. Buckley, you are the mouthpiece of that evil rabble that depends on fraud, perjury, dirty tricks, anything at all that suits their purposes. I would trust a snake before I would trust you or anyone you support."

To which Mr. Buckley replied, "What would you do if I supported the snake?"

Repartee at its best.

[Louis]

Sesquipedalian or pleonastic ?

(No, unlike him I don't carry those words around in my head - I just read the NYT obit / story.)

[Nil Else]

He was 82! I've always thought he was a much younger guy who didn't really take care of himself... Who'd thunk! Same here.. I liked him for who he was. RIP.

[Bill Bove]

I felt smarter for listening to him, but I also felt like I needed a shower :rolleyes:

[BUTCH RIDES]

Hello ..he played bach very nice
see you soon

[Kevan]

He could be damn funny at times.

[LegendRider]

He could be damn funny at times.

Yep. Like this: “I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”

[johnnymossville]

strange how that happens. The phonebook/harvard comment sounds about right to me. :)

Rest in Peace Mr. Buckley.

[BUTCH RIDES]

Buckley attended the National Autonomous University of Mexico (or UNAM) in 1943 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Army the following year. In his book, Miles Gone By, he briefly recounts being a member of Franklin Roosevelt's honor guard when the president died. With the end of World War II in 1945, he enrolled in Yale University, where he became a member of the secret Skull and Bones society[citation needed], and was an active member of the Conservative Party and of the Yale Political Union, and served as Chairman of the Yale Daily News.

Buckley graduated from Yale in 1950. That same year, he married Patricia Alden Austin "Pat" Taylor (July 1, 1926 - April 15, 2007), the daughter of industrialist Austin C. Taylor. He met Pat, a Protestant from Vancouver, British Columbia, while she was a student at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Buckley was her roommate's brother. Their son is the author Christopher Buckley. Pat Buckley was a prominent charity fundraiser for such organizations as the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery at New York University Medical Center and the Hospital for Special Surgery. She also raised money for Vietnam War veterans and AIDS patients.

In 1951, Buckley was recruited into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), yet served for less than a year. Little has been published regarding Buckley's work with the CIA, but in a 2001 letter to author W. Thomas Smith, Jr., Buckley wrote, “I did training in Washington as a secret agent and was sent to Mexico City. There I served under the direct supervision of Howard Hunt, about whom of course a great deal is known.”

In a November 1, 2005, editorial for the National Review, he recounted that:

When in 1951 I was inducted into the CIA as a deep cover agent, the procedures for disguising my affiliation and my work were unsmilingly comprehensive. It was three months before I was formally permitted to inform my wife what the real reason was for going to Mexico City to live. If, a year later, I had been apprehended, dosed with sodium pentothal, and forced to give out the names of everyone I knew in the CIA, I could have come up with exactly one name, that of my immediate boss (E. Howard Hunt, as it happened). In the passage of time one can indulge in idle talk on spook life. In 1980 I found myself seated next to the former president of Mexico at a ski-area restaurant. What, he asked amiably, had I done when I lived in Mexico? "I tried to undermine your regime, Mr. President." He thought this amusing, and that is all that it was, under the aspect of the heavens.
bye bye

[coylifut]

I remember when Buckley was on the tube once telling a blind guy, who'd just sailed across the Atlantic, that he would never know the true essence of sailing because of his lack of sight.

At that time, it was the most arrogant episode I'd ever witnessed.

[mike p]

A great man, and a real thinker, RIP

Mike

[mcteague]

One of his more famous "retorts" from 1968; hope it does not violate the forum rules on epithets.

Gore Vidal: "the only pro or crypto-Nazi here is yourself."

Buckley: "Now listen, you queer, you stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered."

Tim McTeague

[97CSI]

Funny, funny. Hope this is on tape. Would be fun to watch. WFB and GV were peas from the opposite end of the same pod.

When WFB ran for mayor of NYC in 1965 and was ask what he would do if he won, he responded, "demand a recount."

[LegendRider]

Another one of my favorites: “I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.”

[rcnute]

At least we still have George Will. Though his sense of humor isn't anything like Buckley's.

[KeithS]

Buckley v Vidal (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRjZR8j4-z4)

Good stuff. Thanks for the great quote McTeague. He was the grand pontificator. That dialog with Vidal is as good as it gets, classic Buckley!

My in-laws were at the Mayo Clinic last year and while waiting to be called another patient came in and spent a hour or so chatting with them. It was Buckley, my mother in-law was always smitten with him, she said he was warm, genuine, and talkative..

RIP Bill.