February 28, 2008 at 3:41

Someone somewhere referenced Hunter S. Thompson’s eulogy of Nixon:
…..
I can’t resist adding my favorite part (which I discovered when the LA Weekly reprinted it on the occasion of Reagan’s death):

If the right people had been in charge of Nixon’s funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.

Deliriously exquisite (and widely applicable).

It would seem that Mr. Vidal was on to something, and that Mr. Buckley knew it, too.

How right you are! If you listen carefully to the famous video clip, you can hear Vidal mention “what happened at Sharon”. What happened was this:

On March 4, 1944, Mr. and Mrs. Sully Berman bought a house on the green at Sharon. The Bermans were Jews. Now in Sharon, there was a gentleman’s agreement to keep out Jews. Needless to say, the arrival of the Bermans was considered by village gentry to be a betrayal of that agreement, and the town’s wrath was directed not so much at the Bermans as at the real-estate agent who had done such an un-Christian thing as to admit Jews to Sharon. The agent was Mrs. Francis James Meadows Cotter. Her husband was the Episcopal minister at Sharon, the Rector of Christ Church. The Cotters were a well-liked family, and their two daughters were contemporaries and friends of the young Buckleys. Buckley Sr., however, was a most unforgiving man. He complained loudly and bitterly about what Mrs. Cotter had done and, like Henry II, vowed revenge. Shortly thereafter, on Saturday, May 13, Christ Episcopal Church was vandalized. Honey and feathers were poured over the velvet cushions of the pews. Prayer books were defaced. Obscene photographs were inserted in the Bible.

There was considerable uproar the next morning when the Reverend Cotter and his flock assembled. Who had done it? The high-spirited Buckleys were immediately suspected. Acting on a tip, detectives went to the Buckley house and there found the magazines from which had been torn the nudes, the oatmeal and syrup containers still set out on the kitchen table. Minimal sleuthing revealed which of the young Buckleys had been in town that night. The detectives then confronted the three vandals and got them to sign confessions. The case came to court June 10, and the three (one was in college and two in prep school) were found guilty by a Justice of the Peace and each fined $100 for damaging the church. Buckley Sr. did his best to take further revenge on the Cotters, even going so far as to request the Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut to remove Cotter from Christ Church, but by then the village sentiment was entirely on the side of the Cotters and Buckley Sr. dropped the matter. But he had made his point as far as his family was concerned and therein lies the key to his son’s character. Buckley Jr. has never accepted any view of the world other than his father’s. He is forever the little boy trying to impress Daddy by hating what Daddy hates.

–From Vidal’s “A Distasteful Encounter With William F. Buckley Jr.”

So Buckley’s famous shit-fit wasn’t so much at being called a “crypto-Nazi”, it was an attempt to shout down Vidal before the TV audience could see that where the Buckleys were concerned, there’s nothing “crypto” about it.

The entire Connecticut branch of my family is probably in mourning right now, but all I can think is, ‘wow, one fewer Connecticut Republican voter available to continue the ongoing and seemingly endless project of fucking the state up further.’

No, Emmett has his own kinky reasons for wanting to stand athwart things.

This merely strengthens my point.
…My point being that it’s rather odd if you [i.e. anyone] reckon your intellectual hero’s most heroic moment was when he was least intellectual. When he lost an argument and tried thuggery as Plan B. When the mask of civility slipped (not to mention the white gloves of vocabulary, and the unconvincing toupee of an Ivy-League education).

Well, a stuck pig will squeal, you know.

It would seem that Mr. Vidal was on to something, and that Mr. Buckley knew it, too.

I agree, but with a couple of provisos and quid pro quos.

You’re doing it wrong…

On this we must agree to disagree…

I always thought that the root of conservatism was to conserve – none of the fuckers running around calling themselves conservatives fit that definition…. unless they want to preserve privilege.

Buckley is just one more old white dude that people seem to want to mythologize/worship… meh

Kathryn Jean Lopez, the stupidest person on the masthead (marvel at that), sez, “Another Face of the WFB Legacy From today’s New York Times: “Louisiana Governor Pierces Business as Usual” and a picture of Bobby Jindal.

R. Emmett Tyrrell : Bill was one of the few who could qualify as a great man. We’re all very sad. Bill is famous for standing athwart history and shouting “Stop!” Today, I wish I could stand athwart history and shout “No! Don’t tell us Bill’s gone.”

Judging by which comments? If you want to argue that modern day conservatism isn’t racist at its core go ahead but saying he bears responsibility for how things have turned out is no Goldbergian leap. You don’t see any difference here? And Buckley believed in racial inequality in his youth? He may have moderated his views on race over the years but he was writing pro apartheid opinion pieces in the 80s.

I will credit his column in the NY Daily News with making me sit up and take notice of what a shitpile conservatism was in my teen years though and for motivating me to launch my angry letters to the editors career at 16. On politics anyway. There were those embarrassing letters about Dondi and the Dr. J and Tom Seaver trades published under my name but I swear on my autographed Murray Kempton picture that someone was name stealing me.

sorry for the late followup. Here is a quick google search of WAMU on animal rights. I didnt mean to be contrary on your point its just that when i think of journalistic biases i always laugh that Diane Rehm is biased…. she loves animals. (And that Terri Gross is biased too, she loves lesbian talmudic scholars who unionize sex workers in lebanon) so some random synapses fired and i posted a comment (not unlike this rambling comment)

so way way OT just thought id put the linky up

This is stupid: “Mussolini was a socialist once + Mussolini founded the fascist party = Fascism is Socialism”

But somehow this is smart: “Buckley believed in racial inequality in his youth + Buckley founded the conservative movement = Conservativism is racism”

Sadly, No!

As much as I love SN! I knew that Buckley was going to bring the stupid out of some people here.