Remembering Buckley
Fulsome tributes to the late William F. Buckley Jr. at the Weekly Standard. Our weakness for Christopher Hitchens leads us to favour his contribution. He calls up F. Scott Fitzgerald's observation about the need to be able to manage contradiction within oneself in assessing "A Man of Incessant Labor".
"The Roman Catholicism that was always so central might seem to have offered a clue here, but this element also dissolved into ambiguities and approximations. 'Faith' surely helped explain his solidarity with the Sovietized 'captive nations' like Poland and Hungary and Latvia and Croatia, and even his sympathy for McCarthy and for the Diem family regime in Saigon (the last two allegiances being among the few that he shared with the Kennedy family). Yet it was in the liberal Catholic journal Commonweal that he also declared in 1952 that he was in favor of 'Big Government for the duration' of the struggle against communism, and in favor of this, moreover, even if it meant Democratic party stewardship."
Our preference for Hitchens pays off because he ends his appreciation with this noble sentence: "William F. Buckley Jr. was never solemn except or unless on purpose, and seldom if ever flippant where witty would do, and in saying this I hope I pay him the just tribute that is due to a serious man." Favourite Buckley quote? Here's one that fits Germany today: "Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich." And here's one for our dear leaders in Washington and Brussels: "One must bear in mind that the expansion of federal activity is a form of eating for politicians." He was a great man and a good man.
