Obituary Mambo (WF Buckley, Jr., dead)

Buckley, as eloquent an Ivy League rat as America ever produced, passed away a few minutes ago. Buckley once called the Beatles "so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of antimusic." True, mostly, that: nonetheless moptops and their fans never signed off on the Nixon-Kissinger politics via napalm (as did WFB, and his occasional guest and friend Robert Heinlein). Buena suerte.

The alcoholic, psychotic Commander-in-chief offered his deeep thoughts on WFB's death. Dubya claims Buckley "...influenced a lot of people, including me. He captured the imagination of a lot of people." Alas, Buckley's rahh-thur baroque prose (villains often are wits--e.g. Iago) obviously had little effect on Presidente GWB, whose speech resembles that of, say, a Dallas RV-salesman.

That said, much of the Buckley-bashing on the usual leftist-bitch sites seems a bit unwarranted, and sort of begs the question (as usual) of the existence of objective Justice with a capital J. Assuming some objective, platonic realm of Justice holds (or theological if you prefer), yass, WFB’s probably on his merry way to the Malebolge. Assuming that an objective, platonic realm of Justice does not hold, the discriminating consumer could appreciate WFB’s rather Humean wit, while taking issue with his bad taste in regards to the ‘Nam affair.


Buckley vs. The Noamster (those who are able to put aside the Academy Awards for a few minutes, or spring training, the ObamaClinton match, or Coulter's predictable love-fest for Buckley, might recall that Chomsky had some back-up for his opposition to US involvement in 'Nam--including the aged Bertrand Russell, and even JP Sartre. Zut. That was the responsible opposition, as opposed to the stoned, stupid opposition. That's not to say that everything the Noamster has said or done--especially over the last 10 years---was as admirable as his 'Nam stance. Buckley of course offers his smooth reptilian oratory: Edmund Burke meets Goebbels)