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By John Rader Quijano, Contributor
William F. Buckley Jr. was the one who attracted
me to conservatism. He died on February 27. He was an author,
journalist and TV host. I have read all his light-hearted novel
Blackford Oakes espionage novels, the hilarious “Who’s on
First” and most of his political writings.
He more than any other American except Barry
Goldwater or Ronald Reagan made conservatism an acceptable
alternative to the liberalism of the Democratic Party and the
majority of America’s columnists and authors.
President Bush said of Buckley’s death,
“America has lost one of its finest writers and thinkers.”
Even left-of-center Americans recognized
Buckley’s political importance.
Pat Buchanan, who ran for president and lost
thrice, said he was “the spiritual father” of the conservative
movement. The historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a member of the
Kennedy crowd of intellectuals, referred to as “the scourge of
American liberalism.”
Buckley’s success partly came from his good
humor and personal charm. It helped him as a TV celebrity whom even
liberals and Democrats came to like.
Schlesinger, who was always critical of
Buckley’s ideology, became a friend. So did the “leftist”
Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith and such hardline liberals
as Allard Lowenstein and Murray Kempton.
Buckley wrote more than 40 books. The
ideological ones were well-respected by even his enemies.
He founded the National Review in 1955 and
edited for the next 35 years. It was at first thought to be sure to
die after a couple of years. But it became one of America’s most
widely read political magazines.
George F. Will, the columnist, was National
Review’s Washington editor for several years. He said, “Before
Ronald Reagan, there was Barry Goldwater, and before Barry Goldwater
there was National Review, and before there was National Review,
there was Bill Buckley, with a spark in his mind.” Will said the
spark turned into a “a conflagration” that made conservatism a
national ideology in the United States.
Other than George Will, among National
Review’s staffmembers and writers were Joan Didion, an icon of
literary journalism, Garry Wills, John Leonard, Richard Brookhiser
and David Brooks.
Republican candidate for president Senator John
McCain praised Mr. Buckley as “a man of tremendous vision and big
ideas. When conservatism was a lonely cause, he bravely raised the
standard of liberty and led the charge to renew the principles and
values that are the foundation of our great country.”
Buckley became a nationally syndicated newspaper
columnist in 1962. The column came out in 300 newspapers across the
USA.
In 1966, he started hosting the TV debate show,
Firing Line. Buckley was seen by audiences as a “normal, witty and
charming person” so different from other conservatives. Firing
Line had an audience of millions and closed down only in 1999, when
Buckley had begun to slow down.
Educated as a Catholic and throughout his life a
good Christian, he had easy use of Latin when he debated or gave
speeches.
Born on November 24, 1925, in New York City,
William Frank Buckley Jr. was the sixth of 10 children. His father
was a wealthy oilman. His mother was Aloise Steiner Buckley. He was
educated by tutors and at English and US boarding schools.
When he was seven, he wrote the king of England
to demand reparations for Britain’s World War I debt to the United
States. He had a two-year stint on the US Army.
His first book, which came out in 1951, God and
Man at Yale shows how he was, being a devout Catholic while a
respected intellectual on campus, alienated from other Yale people
who were mostly liberals and secularists. It marked the beginning of
his campaign for conservatism and gained him his national audience.
I cannot forget his televised account of how, no
matter how popular he was, he was being dropped from dinner
invitation lists because he was a “Christer.” That is someone
who always end up bringing up the Christian position on any topic of
conversation.
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John Rader Quijano is a Fil-American teacher
in New Jersey who became active until five years ago in the Young
Republicans association.
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