down memory lane with WFB

[update: here's a nice piece, similar in feeling to mine, from Robert Poole at Reason]

Back when I was a snotty whippersnapper and I was contemptuous of anyone who didn’t think like me and my obviously morally superior cohort, I worked in the same down-at-the-heels prewar building on East 36th Street where the National Review had its offices.

When I read this tribute, I was reminded of just how culturally out-of-favor the NR was back then in the post-Vietnam era:

Before Rush Limbaugh; before conservative talk radio; before Fox News Channel; before the Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, the Heritage Foundation and even Ronald Reagan, there was Buckley and his magazine. He burst upon the scene in the early 1950s, articulating concepts and ideas that were largely dismissed in that era–and even more out of favor in the 1960s. Still, Mr. Buckley never wavered, and his brand of conservatism became part and parcel of the Reagan Revolution that followed.

I’m no Republican. Having grown up among Republicans, I had a lifetime’s worth of exposure. I don’t even visit the Corner unless I’m sent there by a link. I’m just not interested in what conservatives are saying. I’m interested in my own tribe, not theirs!

Nevertheless, I admire William F. Buckley for his style, his wit, his erudition, and his persistence and faith, with which he built a place where the loyal opposition could talk amongst themselves. My hat’s off.