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Entry: William F. Buckley Jr.-- R.I.P. Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/william_f_buckley_jr_rip#18240 Post contents: WFB lived a life of composed of many qualities; among them elegence, breeding, classical knowledge steeped in Jesuitical inquiry combined with anticommunist zeal. His achievements are many as has been noted. Perhaps in some day yet to come, the long held suspicion that he was at least initially, funded and encouraged by the CIA will be proven in error. It is a mystery he would surely have enjoyed; one can just see the raised eyebrow and mischievous smile as his inquisators seek the answers. As one of his accusers once in Buckwellion mode slyly stated to him, "...but Bill, after all, you DID go to Yale...". We can only wonder what he may have been thinking at the end; did he feel justified that the collapse of the Soviet Union was worth his sometimes devious machinations? Or, did he in witnessing the morphing of his brand of conservatism into the bastardization of the neocons, come to regret his marginalizing and eventual defenestration of the last of the real conservatives, the Old Right. We shall never know and yet, in his increasingly infrequent missives of his last years I always detected a bit of almost undefinable melonchaly tinged with hints of regret. That many who had serious disagreements with him still found him personally eminantly likeable may be his finest epitaph. Sent at: 2008 09 07