Grand daddy Of Modern Conservatism Leaves Us

The man who made modern conservatism what it is, (or should I say what it was, at least for the moment) from the magazine he founded The National Review died Wednesday and will be greatly missed as yet one more of the old guard of conservatives now leaves the ball in the court of the modern aged conservatives of today like Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and many others to carry that conservative torch that he lit so brightly for us all.

May he rest in peace.

Often imitated, never duplicated: William F. Buckley, conservative icon --

With brilliant mind and Brobdingnagian vocabulary, his spine stiff and jaw locked, William F. Buckley Jr. stood athwart history to reinvigorate America's right

chicagotribune.com: "So dapper with that noblesse oblige, so jaunty with that je ne sais quoi, he was that rare thing: an intellectual who morphed into a celebrity, so much so that he was the subject of good-natured parodies on TV shows such as 'The Smothers Brothers' and the movie 'Aladdin.' Yet William F. Buckley Jr., 82, who died Wednesday, was the guiding spirit of a conservative movement that stuck a stick in the spokes of post-New Deal liberalism and pushed Ronald Reagan into the White House.""Conservatism in the 1950s was in disarray. He cleaned it up," said his son, author Christopher Buckley. "He not only made it intellectually sound -- but because of his personal style, he made it cool."

Buckley came across a bit like Thurston Howell III in "Gilligan's Island" -- declaiming his well-chosen words in a patrician, faintly British-sounding accent, accompanied by a rakishly arched eyebrow. In the program he hosted on public television for 33 years, "Firing Line," and in his role as an engaged chronicler of the second half of the 20th Century, Buckley somehow kept an expensively shod foot in the worlds of elite intellectuals and regular folks amused by his elegant demeanor and elephantine vocabulary.

"In the 1960s and '70s," Christopher Buckley said, "any stand-up comic worth his salt had a William F. Buckley impression." And his father never minded. "He got a kick out of them. He was immensely secure that way." continued