With the recent passing of noted conservative intellectual William F. Buckley Jr., many media outlets and bloggers are looking back on Buckley’s career and offering their perspectives on the man and his legacy.  Here are two Vermont bloggers’ reactions to the news of Buckley’s passing…

JD Ryan from Five Before Chaos writes:

I can’t help but see something symbolic in his death in the way it relates to the conservative movement today.

Norman Mailer:

“No other act can project simultaneous hints that he is in the act of playing Commodore of the Yacht Club, Joseph Goebbels, Robert Mitchum, Maverick, Savonarola, the nice prep school kid next door, and the snows of yesteryear,” Mr. Mailer said in an interview with Harpers in 1967.

Good riddance to a both eloquent and deplorable man.

And Vermont Tiger’s Jon Harrison writes:

Bill Buckley died yesterday. In the second half of the 20th century, Buckley, along with Milton Friedman, was one of the two most influential public intellectuals on the Right. When Buckley started National Review in 1955, the conservative movement in America was fractured and without influence. Twenty-five years later, it rode into the White House with Ronald Reagan. Only Reagan himself deserves more credit for that victory than Buckley.

I grew up watching Buckley’s PBS program, Firing Line. It was for years the best program on TV. It contributed greatly to my intellectual coming of age. Buckley was simply the best thing to happen to conservatism in a long, long time. He will be sorely missed.

Posted by admin on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 5:47 am.