William F. Buckley

Quote of the day:
“When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half.”
--Gracie Allen

Daily Observations returns after a brief interregnum. Now that William F. Buckley is gone, someone has to use the word. And it might as well be me.

I think his public TV show was on Thursday nights. Somehow, I got hooked. Usually I found myself disagreeing with what he was saying, but “Firing Line” was entertaining, informative and substantial.

It might be hard to imagine William F. Buckley as entertaining, but he was, in so many ways. He was loaded with idiosyncrasies, including the tendency to lean back in his chair at an angle that was mighty odd to see on TV. No interviewer before or since has been as unconcerned with how he looked on camera.

I remember many times being absorbed in his conversation and then suddenly realizing that he might at any moment fall out of his chair if he leaned just a little more.

He always used notes and had a pen in hand throughout the show. His eyebrows were fascinating to watch. And the sound of the carefully-measured, long words drawling out of his mouth always had me coming back for more.

Most important was the meticulous and intellectually rigorous way he handled every subject. Buckley was always well prepared. More important, he always understood current issues in the context of history.

It was extraordinarily refreshing. It’s too bad that this kind of conversation is completely missing on TV or radio. Instead, conservative radio and TV political conversation has become, at its best, character assassination. At its worst it’s some variation of “moronic and immoral liberals pddgghh ditto ditto ditto.”