William F. Buckley Jr. has passed away at the age of 82. I certainly wouldn't say that I agreed with him on everything. But I did enjoy Firing Line. (Some episodes are available online at the Hoover Institution.) Wherever you stood on the issues, those shows did a lot more to advance the public debate than the fluff you see on cable news shows today.
I think the most fitting thing to post today would be to recall my post on the death of Buckley's intellectual sparring partner and friend, John Kenneth Galbraith. Here's the last paragraph of my comments from that post, with only the name changed. It sounds just as true.
Tonight, I cannot help but reflect on what it means to be liberal or conservative in the major policy debates of today and how our debates and the circumstances of our time will influence the intellectuals of the next generation. I hope that our time can produce a few liberals and conservatives with the passion and conviction of Buckley, but I suspect that there will never be another quite like him.
Links: NY Times Obituary, WSJ Commentary by Buckley on how he and others neutralized the influence of the John Birch Society, some previously published material in Slate, a remembrance from Robert Lawson of the Division of Labour blog, comments from Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution--including a link to some YouTube videos. I know I'll be watching a few of them.
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