Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Bill Buckley--Post Obit Changes?

Buckley died and the obits are coming out:
The National Review defended the Vietnam War, opposed civil rights legislation and once declared that "the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail." Buckley also had little use for the music of the counterculture, once calling 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."
That bit from the Washington Post describes good reasons to be against him. But I had a personal prejudice--he was a show-off, using words to impress and rub one's nose in one's ignorance. I give him that over time he even came to be friendly with Arthur Schlesinger and he opposed the John Birch Society. But IMHO he gave wealth a bad name.

[Update] It's interesting--I linked to the Post obit about an hour ago (12:30) and got the quote above. Left the post as a draft and went off to do some PC maintenance. Now, at 1:26 pm, the paragraph reads:
In its early years, National Review attacked any and all U.S. policies it perceived as concessions to communism, condemned what it called "the welfare state" and defended the South's resistance to racial integration. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the National Review was one of only a few to criticize President John F. Kennedy for his deal with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev not to invade Cuba in exchange for removal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba. [Actually, the "deal" was not announced then, its existence has since been established by historians, so Buckley's crew was accusing JFK of doing a deal and ahead of the curve. Had the deal been announced, JFK would have lost considerable support.]
I think the omissions of the quotes makes it less critical and the missile crisis bit gives NR a bit of credit for knowing what was happening. Wonder why the change?
(Suppose I should label this post: "unfunny" as I'm criticizing the dead.)

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