Word: buckley
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...Buckley himself feels that the U.S. may be moving-at a snail's pace, to be sure-toward his kind of society. This is the point he makes in a book he is writing: The Revolt Against the Masses, a sequel to Ortega y Gasset's The Revolt of the Masses. To Ortega's somber message that the mass mind has displaced the aristocratic ideal, Buckley replies that there are signs of a resurgence of that ideal-in the movement away from behaviorism, from the "extreme pretensions of democratism." If Buckley foresees a conservative society emerging, however...
Despite the adoption of certain programs that might be considered conservative, the U.S. public is unlikely to swerve from its liberal course no matter how much a solitary Buckley may prod. But the fun is in the prodding, as far as William Buckley is concerned. And if, through fire, flood, earthquake, atomic holocaust or even conservatism, the present-day liberal U.S. should expire, no one stands to lose more than Buckley. For he enjoys the best of both worlds: a society that is especially vulnerable to criticism from the right and equally willing to take...
When he is confronting a Firing Line adversary, Buckley's secret is surprise, plus the ability to maneuver his opponent into vulnerable positions. He often hoists the man with the petard of his own argument. When Yale's Marxist-minded Professor Staughton Lynd told Buckley that he had made a trip to Hanoi to clarify Ho Chi Minh's peace terms, Buckley shot back: "Surely, as a Marxist, you don't seriously believe that your little vacation to Hanoi would have midwifed some sort of a dialectical reconciliation which would not otherwise have taken place? Surely...
...everyone is willing to do battle with Buckley on his turf. Buckley was anxious to match wits with Senator Robert Kennedy on Firing Line, offered him $500 and a role in planning the format. But Bobby was not about to rise to that tempting bale. He sent word back through an aide that he would rather not. Asked why he thought Kennedy had turned him down, Buckley replied: "Why does baloney reject the grinder...
Violently Inflamed. Buckley has a fondness for far-out analogy. Last spring, when John Kenneth Galbraith appeared at a picket line of striking television employees in order to show that he would not cross it, Buckley wrote in his column: "It was a nostalgic demonstration of an old faith, rather as if Marlene Dietrich, emulating the Victorian ladies of yesteryear, were to faint upon hearing an obscenity." Buckley summed up the attitude of Texas Republicans facing the approaching presidential election: "The dilemma is how to be, at once, both a winner and a Republican. That...