William Buckley dying is a bit redundant, as far as I'm concerned. A defender of the lack of principles of the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy; a race-baiting, Martin-Luther-King-Jr.-hating defender of the peculiar institution of Jim Crow as true Americanism; a tired promoter of the idea that Ronald Reagan was somehow the only true American President; and a man who would rouse himself from his semi-comatose, semi-reclining position to toss out a quote from Cicero or St. Thomas to make himself look smarter than he really was - I'll just say, with Douglas Adams, "So long, and thanks for all the fish."
Will they bury him in that same position, leaning so far back in his chair it looks like it and he will tip over, pen cap in his mouth, a look of petulant triumph on his face because his adversary didn't know that he had just quoted from the Tridentine Mass rather than Virgil, just to throw the guy off?
All this will change if, in his will, he has left it all to the most obscure liberal blogger on the planet. In that case, may I just say, "Bill, you were a swell guy, up until 1967 or so, when you actually died."
UPDATE: I can't agree with Matt Yglesias. I refuse to say anything nice about a guy who defended Franco and Pinochet; who continued to deride the Civil Rights movement long after it had succeeded in its initial goals; and who, in his ultra-montane Catholocism resembled a disheveled Cardinal Newman trying to deliver his lectures on "The Idea of the University". No props here, Matt. Sorry.
Virtual Tin Cup
