The passing of an icon

Modern American conservatism lost a giant today when William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away at his home in New York. He was 82. According to one story by the AP, "conservatives had been outsiders in both mind and spirit, marginalized by a generation of discredited stands — from opposing Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal to the isolationism that preceded the U.S. entry into World War II. Before Buckley, liberals so dominated intellectual thought that critic Lionel Trilling claimed there were “no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation.” It was Buckley, however, who ended our years in the wilderness. He penned over fifty books and launched in 1955 the mother of all conservative journals, the "National Review". He helped end the era of "Happy Days are hear again Republicans" of the 1950s who were more liberal than conservative. Buckley helped launch conservatism into the American mainstream by supporting Barry Goldwater in 1964 and advising Ronald Reagan in 1980. I saw Buckley speak as an undergraduate on Reagan and the Cold War. In a word he was "brilliant". Conservatives across the country owe Mr. Buckley a debt of gratitude for standing up for those very core conservative principles that have made this country great in a time when it was very unpopular to be conservative. He was a true American icon and he will be missed.