Noonan and Judis on Buckley

Here are a couple of more pretty good appreciations of William F. Buckley. Peggy Noonan is such a graceful writer, and she usually finds a point or perspective nobody else has said quite the same way -- in this case the value to the country of people with broad and deep educations and wide-ranging curiosity. John Judis, still with the New Republic, is a liberal who wrote a pretty even-handed biography of Buckley, I think in the late 1980s. He describes Buckley as a rebel, but not a heretic.

More thoughts on Bill Buckley

Here's a link to the Register's editorial today on the death of Bill Buckley, and to a blog post that has some links to other comments. Dave Boaz at Cato did a quick piece that the Register will run on Sunday (at least it's on a page proof as of today, though sometimes things change) suggesting that the conservative movement Buckley was so influential in building died with him, taken over by Christian rightists and neocons, who are in a self-destructive mode themselves. While I'm at it, here's a roundup of comments from others, and a link to Tibor Machan's piece. Tibor came into the office yesterday and recorded a Webitorial as well. Maybe we overdid it a bit, but he was a writer who really had an impact on America.