Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Remembering WillIam F. Buckley: Here's how to do a real debate


Part Two is here. Farewell, Mr. Buckley.

5 comments:

Andy said...

Sigh...
Mr. Buckley was a lion of a man and one of my heroes. He will be missed.

RMBruton said...

Whether one liked him or not, America has lost a principled man who had a tremendous command of the King's English. Thanks for posting this example of Bill doing what he did better than anyone else.

Peter Carey said...

While I didn't always agree with him, I have immense respect for William F. Buckley and he will be missed, sorely. He was one of a kind.

Peter+

Anonymous said...

One of the many things I learned from him was to be positive. He once commented on his debates that he always argued for the affirmative. Even if that meant he had to word the topic of the debate in tortured grammatical form, he would always make sure to argue for the affirmative.

I think we in the church have forgotten that. I want to argue for things as well, for the Good News, for Jesus, for the catholic faith ... and not be known for the things I am against.

And for that, as for many othe things, I thank Mr. Buckley.

Unknown said...

Exactly, dovefromabove. This is what I've been thinking about over the last twenty four hours. He lifted the debate, the conversation from these bullhorns that throw tantrums when they don't get their way. Waa Waa Waa.. We'd never see Mr. Buckley do that - in fact, he would use words and tone and inflection and the raised eye brow and completely melt his opponents and they never even know what happened, just a sort of vague sense that things didn't go as well as they hoped.

In my early years in DC during the Reagan Administration, you'd see these sort of "Mini Buckleys" running about (like the "Mini Dylans one finds at his concerts) and they'd have the outfit, the demeanor, the sanguine responses (some of them are famous now and you can still see hints of his influence). He was a devout Roman Catholic and it might have been his work entirely to bring the evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics together - ever. I wouldn't doubt it. There just isn't words - but it would be great to see conservatives remember to use the miracle of the English language and quit whining when they aren't fawned over. Waa Waa Waa.

Sure will miss you, Mr. Buckley. You were the helmsman, the one who kept the boat from tipping over.

bb