William F. Buckley RIP

The father of modern conservatism, William F. Buckley, joined Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater in that shining city in the clouds today. The founder of National Review, host of PBS's "Firing Line", and godfather of right-wing American thought, he spent more than half a century convincing our nation that greed was good and government was bad. And although his ideology triumphed in, and become almost synonomous with, the American heartland, Bill Buckley was a New York City boy through and through (he even ran for Mayor in 1965 but lost to John Lindsay).

Buckley was not, however, one of those pompous gas bags of the American right. Oh no. He was, above all else, a gentlemen and a scholar, a man of great wit and sophistication, a masterful intellect.

Yes, he thought Joe McCarthy was a hero and Social Security was the devil's work but there's no doubt that Mr. Buckley was a thoughtful, gracious man who respected everyone and valued the power of ideas and the American dream above all else. He changed America. How many of us can claim to have done that?

Here is Buckley providing commentary in 1968 on the upcoming Presidential Election with his archnemesis Gore Vidal (the one that gave us Richard Nixon). Agree with them or not, but do you think we'd never see such articulate men providing political analysis on TV today?