Dartblog
Special Feature: Give a Rouse
Whither the College on the Hill? Dartblog brings you news and commentary from Hanover and the world at large, including deep coverage of the maturing tenure of Dr. Kim.
Archived post
This is an archived post. Please click here to see the latest entries.
Wm. F. Buckley Jr. Passes Away at 82

As someone wrote on National Review’s website just now, the angels and saints have just phoned in their order for a full set of the Oxford English Dictionary. William F. Buckley died this morning in his home, at his desk, hands no doubt poised upon a keyboard and one final column, in Stamford, Connecticut. It is, if not unexpected, a supremely lamentable passing; the world of American letters, not to mention America, is far poorer for his parting.
Mr. Buckley was the founder of modern conservatism; but more than that he was the man who reintroduced, at a time when the way seemed one and the headwinds were overpowering, multistrain political thinking to the United States of America. He infiltrated a philosophical monopoly, introducing competition. And his idea was competition. And his advocacy, famously unapologetic, was invested with unequaled humor, grace, and generosity.
It was a slight or a nod, depending I suppose upon the speaker, to describe Bill Buckley as patrician; but in point of fact there was nothing haughty or narrow about the man. In conversation he was generous and in bearing catholic. He judged utterances, not utterers. On the few happy occasions when I shared a table with him, I was each time the person most junior and of least consequence—but I was somehow made not to feel it.
In a late interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bill Buckley said that he always endeavored to work within “the genial tradition.” Precisely so. He was a Yaleman and a yachtsman, but before either he was a gentleman.
…et lux perpetua luceat ei. My condolences to Christopher and to Mr. Buckley’s brothers and sisters.
You may want to see Senator Lieberman’s speech of this afternoon. Myron Magnet eloquently remembers WFB here, and The Dartmouth Review, founded out of Buckley’s expansive beneficence, pays its respects here. Marc Thiessen, recently named President Bush’s chief speechwriter, has a lovely college remembrance here.
The credo of National Review, still a stirring document, may be read here.
And the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page says hail to a brother.
Featured posts
-
October 18, 2009
When Love Beckoned in 52nd Street
We were at San Francisco’s BIX last evening, enjoying prosecco, cheese, and a bit of music. A full year of inhabitation in Northern California has unraveled to me no decent venue for proper lounging, but… -
October 9, 2009
D Afraid of a Little Competish
So our colleague and Dartblog writer Joe Asch informed me that the D has rejected our cunning advertising campaign. Uh-oh. The Dartmouth is widely known as a breeding ground for instant New York Times successes,… -
September 4, 2009
How Regents Should Reign
As Dartmouth alumni proceed through the legal hoops necessary to defuse a Board-packing plan—which put in unhappy desuetude an historic 1891 Agreement between alumni and the College guaranteeing a half-democratically-elected Board of Trustees—it strikes one… -
August 29, 2009
Election Reform Study Committee
If you are an alum of the College on the Hill, you may have received a number of e-mails of late beseeching your input for a new arm of the College’s Alumni Control Apparatus called… -
August 23, 2009
Fare Thee Well, Tom Crady
And now Dean Tom Crady has precipitously announced his departure from the College after only 20 months on the job. How to read this? By way of background, prior to coming to Dartmouth, Crady had… -
May 31, 2009
Kangaroo Court, Indeed
In an interview with The Dartmouth, alumni-elected trustee T.J. Rodgers ‘70 explained his reasons for declining to participate in future evaluations of trustees up for “re-election,” namely the “kangaroo court” nature of such discussion in…