William F. Buckley, RIP

National Review's founder has passed away. I think anyone in the ideological journalism business has to give the man his props. What's more, Robert Farley is certainly right that he seems preferable to his co-ideologues in some respects:

"Aren't you embarrassed by the absence of these weapons?" Buckley snaps at Podhoretz. He has just explained that he supported the war reluctantly, because Dick Cheney convinced him that Saddam Hussein had WMD primed to be fired. "No," Podhoretz replies. "As I say, they were shipped to Syria. During Gulf War One, the entire Iraqi air force was hidden in the deserts in Iran." He says he is "heartbroken" by this "rise of defeatism on the right." He adds, apropos of nothing, "There was nobody better than Don Rumsfeld. This defeatist talk only contributes to the impression we are losing, when I think we are winning."

The audience cheers Podhoretz. The nuanced doubts of Bill Buckley leave them confused. Doesn't he sound like the liberal media? Later, over dinner, a tablemate from Denver calls Buckley "a coward." His wife nods and says, "Buckley's an old man," tapping her head with her finger to suggest dementia.

Of course the Buckley-era National Review was also an apologist for violent, anti-democratic, populist nationalist movements of the right in Spain, the Old Confederacy, and elsewhere though one wouldn't want to call those people fascists since, after all, they weren't liberals.

Comments

Buckley was a jerk.

My condolences to his family.

Posted by The Fool | February 27, 2008 4:01 PM

Buckley had his good side and his bad side. MY points a few of the awful points: defense of southern segregation in the 1950s and 60s and defense of totalitarian governments abroad in pursuit of extravagant anti-communism.

In addition, Buckley was the intellectual leader of the conservative movement in general, and of the National Review in particular. The publication that had Whittaker Chambers, Frank Chodorow, Russell Kirk, and Frank Meyer in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s - all of considerable talent - today is home to Rich Lowry, Jonah Goldberg, and Kathryn Lopez. The single decent thinker in the bunch is Ramesh Ponnuru.

In a way, National Review's decline mirrors the general decline of intellectual conservatism into an entirely political movement captured by people like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh.

Buckley deserves credit for the rise of conservatism, and deserves (at least some) blame for its decline.

On the good side, Buckley was a fairly harsh critic of the Iraq war in his own way. I heard him speak in 2004 and he delivered some awfully cutting remarks about Bush and the war to an all Republican crowd.

And, as well, he had some sensible views about marijuana/drug policy.

Posted by Joe Strummer | February 27, 2008 4:02 PM

No, Buckley was not a jerk. He had some terrible ideas but also a capacity to change. At the risk of being self-promoting I'll quote the obituary I wrote this morning obitutary:

http://sanseverything.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/william-f-buckley-the-gift-of-friendship/

Conservatives are supposed to be defenders of the status quo but Buckley had a life-long capacity to change, adapt and learn. This can be seen most clearly on the issue of race. Like many Americans of his generation, Buckley was raised to be a bigot. His siblings once burned a cross in front of a Jewish resort. In the 1950s, Buckley and the circle of writers at National Review around him were unabashedly racist, often publishing whole-hearted defenses of Jim Crow segregation....

Despite this dismal stance, Buckley did in fact change and renounce racism by the mid-1960s, in part because his horror at the terrorist tactics used by white supremacists to fight the civil rights movement, in part because of the moral witness of friends like Garry Wills who confronted Buckley with the immorality of his politics. Buckley’s change was by no means pre-ordained. Some of his friends from the 1950s, notably Revilo Oliver remained adamant racialists (Oliver moved from National Review to the John Birch Society to the fringes of neo-Nazism). There are a host of other issues on which Buckley moderated his politics. In the 1980s, he said that if he were a black South African he would probably support the ANC, a statement that shocked fellow conservatives. This independence of mind continued to the end of his life. Not too long ago, he admitted that the Iraq war was a ghastly mistake, again annoying his intellectual fellow travelers. He was learning until his last days.

Posted by Jeet Heer | February 27, 2008 4:06 PM

Buckley was an apologist for McCarthy, and he was horribly, horribly wrong on civil rights.

But he was right about the near-absolute evil of communism when some (not all) leftists and some (not all) liberals were entirely too casual about it.

Posted by jbd | February 27, 2008 4:11 PM

There was a very interesting article by Corey Robin about American conservatives that once ran in Lingua Franca which talked about Buckley's covert sympathy for the left. See here:

http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/print/0101/cover_cons.html

An excerpt:

At the end of our interview, I ask Buckley
to imagine a younger version of himself, an aspiring political enfant
terrible graduating from college in 2000, bringing to today's
political world the same insurgent spirit that Buckley brought to
his. What kind of politics would this youthful Buckley embrace? "I'd
be a socialist," he replies. "A Mike Harrington socialist." He
pauses. "I'd even say a communist."

Can he really imagine a young communist Bill Buckley? He concedes
that it's difficult. The original Bill Buckley had the benefit of the
Soviet Union as an enemy; without its equivalent, his doppelgänger
would confront a more complicated task. "This new Buckley would have
to point to other things," he says. Buckley runs down a laundry list
of left causes—global poverty, death from AIDS. But even he seems
suddenly overwhelmed by the project of (in typical Buckleyese)
"conjoining all of that into an arresting afflatus." Daunted by the
challenge of thinking outside the free market, Buckley pauses, then
finally says, "I'll leave that to you

Posted by Jeet Heer | February 27, 2008 4:12 PM

Of course the Buckley-era National Review was also an apologist for violent, anti-democratic, populist nationalist movements of the right in Spain, the Old Confederacy, and elsewhere...

That may be, though it's in slightly poor taste to wallow through that on the day of the man's death.

Posted by jbryan | February 27, 2008 4:12 PM

Wow. Could his death have come at a more symbolic time?

Posted by Angry Sam | February 27, 2008 4:14 PM

Matt - Give it a rest on Goldberg. It's been played. To use someone's death, whomever it is, as yet another opportunity to snark against someone who is obviously your arch-nemesis is small ball. You debase your aguments by continuing to engage in such lowbrow tactics with a lowbrow intellect. Plus, it's pretty tasteless. Shame on you, Matt Yglesias.

Posted by MikeO | February 27, 2008 4:17 PM

Buckley at his worst was obviously the defense of Southern White Supremicism. I'd be careful about being too critical of "extravagant anti-communism". You try living through an era in which an ideology propels the political murder of 100 million people or so in a few decades, while many leading "journalists" and "intellectuals" deny that the murders are taking place, and see if you don't get a bit extravagant.

The best I ever saw of Buckely came during the Carter Adminstration, when he was willing to take on, in public debate, most of the GOP, including Reagan, which was opposed to ratifying the Panama Canal Treaty. His summation of his position, which I happened across on a Firing Line show from the mid-80s which was playing some old stuff, was intellectually powerful and emotionally stirring. It was some of the best public speaking I've encountered.

Posted by Will Allen | February 27, 2008 4:21 PM

So who's today's Buckley? Kristol?

Posted by America Fuck Yeah | February 27, 2008 4:22 PM

Wow. Could his death have come at a more symbolic time?

Maybe the day after Obama carries 40 states?

Posted by right | February 27, 2008 4:22 PM

As the above post by Yglesias makes clear, at least he wasn't completely off his rocker like Podhoretz, who always has an excuse when things don't turn out like he expects them to. And he deserves credit for not being a reactionary and willingness to change his views, especially in view of the civil rights era. But that said, his defense of Franco is indefensible. As is the general trend of the modern day right to excuse Pinochet for his crimes.

Posted by TheCurseofLono | February 27, 2008 4:24 PM

Gore Vidal gets the last laugh.

Posted by Lincoln | February 27, 2008 4:25 PM

Will: You're exactly right. He was a great debater. Here's the video...watch him work the room.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5J9TTllu8eU

(the 3-1/2 Harvard professors line is priceless)

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein | February 27, 2008 4:27 PM

"So who's today's Buckley? Kristol?"

George Will, now.

Posted by Lincoln | February 27, 2008 4:27 PM

There's no disputing that America would be a very different country right now if William F. Buckley — who died today at the age of 82 – had never been born.

Posted by Steven Hart | February 27, 2008 4:29 PM

About Buckley's extreme anti-communism: this was another issue on which he moderated and developed his views. Sam Tanenhaus, who is working, on a Buckley biography made this very interesting observation in a New York Times Q&A session:

Q: In what ways did Buckeley’s conservatism change throughout the years? Was there any postions he later regretted? —Publius

A: He evolved from militant anti-Communism to a more pragmatic view. He told me just a couple of weeks ago that today he would have taken a less doctrinaire or “monolithic” attitude toward socialist regimes in Latin America. The Vietnam War cured him of the “rollback” policy on Communism he had supported in the 1950s, and he objected when this policy was removed from cold storage by conservatives to justify the war in Iraq.

http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/qa-with-sam-tanenhaus-on-william-f-buckley/

As I said before, Buckley is a much more interesting man than his intellecutal compartiots. I think liberals and radicals would be amiss to dismiss him and his work out of hand. He was not a clown like Jonah Goldberg figure; he was a conservative worth arguing with.

Posted by Jeet Heer | February 27, 2008 4:34 PM

I have to admit that I did not follow Buckley closely (though I assume a number of conservatives I did follow owed a fair amount to him). Over the last 10-15 years or so when I have heard him, I barely understood what he was talking about. I am probably just dense, but when I heard him he rarely seemed to say anything directly or plainly. I don't mean to speak ill of him, but I am curious just what effect he had, particularly over the last two decades.

Posted by Chunche | February 27, 2008 4:36 PM

Come now Matt. First of all it's not kind to speak ill of the honorable dead. Second of all, we can't very well root up the dirty laundry of conservatism and lay it at Buckley's feet when we liberals have a ton of our own. Let us not forget that we were full-throated apologists for the mass murderers of millions over in Asia while the conservatives were snuggling up to their kkk friends.
Now the conservatives are at least pretending to have discarded that ideology. We're still dressing babies in shirts with that bloody Che all over em so lets show some grace hmm?

Posted by Minnesota | February 27, 2008 4:37 PM

Who's "we liberals", white man?

Posted by Fausto Carmona | February 27, 2008 4:44 PM

"So who's today's Buckley? Kristol?"

I agree with Lincoln. Will is clearly a conservative but unlike most of them doesn't have this knee-jerk compulsion to defend really dumb Bush policies, he can write a glowing review of American Gangster, and he understands Obama better than Shelby Steele does.

Hart--I agree with the general claim, but think that the U.S. without Buckley would have been worse. Conservatism could have won through calculating politic restraint rather than an intelligent, attractive interpretation. People could have been attracted to the conservative movement because it offered power rather than wisdom. We could have had Reagan, Bush and Bush without Buckley, and it could have been worse. Or it could have been the same balance of power, with a worse public discourse. Liberals should thank Buckley for giving them someone very intelligent to debate.

Posted by Colatina | February 27, 2008 4:45 PM

Jeet Heer is right about everything. Buckley was a man worth arguing with, and a man ready to engage in lengthy arguments with people with whom he disagreed. Buckley's been a voice of reason of late among movement conservatives. This is sad news.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | February 27, 2008 4:46 PM

Minnesota, I think you might do better with a lot less snark. But you're correct that Buckley was dead right about communism when many, way too many, on the American left were wrong.

Posted by jbd | February 27, 2008 4:48 PM

The Tanenhaus interview is good, particularly the first question and answer:

What is the most surprising discovery you’ve made while working on this biography of William F. Buckley Jr.? —Joyce Huyett Turner

A: There were two. First, he would rather talk about almost anything other than politics — literature, music, sailing, music. He once told me, “I only talk about politics when someone pays me to do it.” Second, I never heard him make a personally disparaging remark about anyone, even adversaries like Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Gore Vidal. He might describe something they did or the style in which they did it, but never in an insulting or even critical way. He had a large sense of the human comedy.

.....would that our current pundits, and mere blog posters like me, would endeavor to attain that standard.

Posted by Will Allen | February 27, 2008 4:51 PM

the Old Confederacy, and elsewhere though one wouldn't want to call those people fascists since, after all, they weren't liberals.

Neoconfederates may be weirdos (and possibly dangerous), but they have even less in common with Mussolini than, say, Kennedy (who had very little in common with fascists) did.

Posted by Shinyk | February 27, 2008 4:55 PM

"In the 1980s, he said that if he were a black South African he would probably support the ANC, a statement that shocked fellow conservatives."

What a guy. I bet if he was a black slave in 1800s America he probably would support killing his owner and many other crackers.

In the 1970s and 1990s, Buckley said that AIDS suffers should be tattooed against their will, to allow them to be identified. He was hating until his last days.

Posted by Roger Ailes | February 27, 2008 5:04 PM

Thank god anti-communism never killed thousands in Asia. Like a million in a single massacre in Indonesia...

Posted by M. Peachbush | February 27, 2008 5:06 PM

Buckley had an affinity for strange words and word constructions which made him an entertaining read. And, "Firing Line" was quantum leaps better than the lameass "Crossfire" which followed. And, the guy himself was an ambulatory parody- who had his facial tics, snake hisses, and weird Gothic orations? He made a bad decision to turn over National Review to the neocons and I'd almost bet he regretted it. I think it was prompted by his fear of being tarred as an "anti-Semite" as his friend Joe Sobran and to a lesser degree Pat Buchanan were. It's too bad- he might've been a strong voive against the War if not for getting sucked into that dank place.

Posted by Trevor | February 27, 2008 5:47 PM

The only person who may be even closely comparable to Buckley on the right today might be Chris Caldwell - waspy, erudite, occasionally willing to let his intelligence lead him to voice opinions unacceptable to the Right noise machine. But there's a voice that seems to have gone quiet, I haven't seen much from Caldwell lately.

Posted by vanya_6724@pochtaru | February 27, 2008 6:27 PM

"Jeet Heer is right about everything." I really like that thought. I wish it were on a billboard somewhere prominent.

Posted by Jeet Heer | February 27, 2008 7:10 PM

Re: But that said, his defense of Franco is indefensible.

I disagree. In real world international politics the enemy of your enemy is your friend and that's the way the game is played. Franco was an enemy of Moscow, therefore Franco was our friend. I can see the point behind criticism of that amoral viewpoint, but I'd still vastly prefer that sort of foreign policy to the calamities brought on by the wild-eyed, high octane idealism of the Neocons.

Posted by JonF | February 27, 2008 7:19 PM

The world was worse for his having been in it.

Posted by Toadmonster | February 27, 2008 7:38 PM

On tattooing people with HIV:

"The objective is to identify the carrier, and to warn his victim. Someone, 20 years ago, suggested a discreet tattoo the site of which would alert the prospective partner to the danger of proceeding as had been planned. But the author of the idea was treated as though he had been schooled in Buchenwald, and the idea was not widely considered, but maybe it is up now for reconsideration."

Posted by William F. Buckley | February 27, 2008 7:40 PM

I'd still vastly prefer that sort of foreign policy to the calamities brought on by the wild-eyed, high octane idealism of the Neocons.

Ah, the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Posted by James Gary | February 27, 2008 7:42 PM

May his corpse replenish something to the earth that he took from it. Sorry. So tears here. He's better than what has come after, but he's responsible for that filth. Again, no tears.

Posted by Lilybelle | February 27, 2008 7:48 PM

This is the precise quote:

"Everyone detected with AIDS should be tatooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals."

I'm glad he's gone. Covering up your immorality with verbosity doesn't fool me. I'm surprised so many here are being so nice.

Posted by Volum | February 27, 2008 8:00 PM

Buckley was dead right about communism

He supported Joseph McCarthy and the Vietnam War.

Posted by Marc | February 27, 2008 8:01 PM

Actually, the last time Buckley proposed compulsory tattooing of AIDS suffers was in 2005, not the 1990s.

Fuck him.

Posted by Roger Ailes | February 27, 2008 8:08 PM

Roger Ailes, Volum, et al:

Look, the stuff about tattooing those with AIDS is terrible and there are any number of other reprehensible statements by Buckley that we could dig out. But none of us is simply the sum of our opinions. Buckley had a decent side to him, as witness by his move away from racism, his active effort to purge the conservative movement of anti-Semites (which cost him some close friends), his support of drug legalization, and his increasing moderation on foreign policy. But aside from these public stances, there is ample evidence (to be found in John Judis's biography and the testimony of many friends)of his personal kindness and many unobtrusive but real acts of charity: cases where he lent friends in need thousands of dollars, just to name one example, but also helping with his time and energy.

And there's a lot liberals and radicals can learn from WFB. I wish to God American liberals had someone on their side who had Buckley's energy and ability to forge intellectual and political alliances.

Buckley was a complex figure and you're doing liberalism and the left no favor by treating him as an easily dismissable devil figure.

Posted by Jeet Heer | February 27, 2008 8:41 PM

It's one thing to support a regime through official means under "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." It's another thing to do it with gusto and intellectually defend their actions. Nobody made the NR put a halo on Franco. I would understand supporting him like we supported Beijing against Moscow in the late Cold War, but actually worshipping guys like Franco, like the glowing obits written about him, is just wrong. He could be intellectually engaging, but you do have to ask yourself how many good people died in the anti-apartheid movement and such because conservative politicians could look to the National Review for an intellectual framework in which to support apartheid and such.

Posted by Reality Man | February 27, 2008 8:47 PM

Jon F.,

If you had read the obiturary Yglesias linked to when he was discussing the "liberal fascism" book, you would be disabused of the notion that Buckley's defense of Franco was solely based on anti-communist realpolitik. There was a genuine fondness for Franco in his obituary.

Defense against anti-communism is one thing, but we should not have kowtowed to a government for purely that reason. When the U.S. give tacit permission to Indonesia to commit genocide in East Timor for example, how ridiculous is it to claim moral superiority over communism? Anybody who believes something bad would have happened if we never gave Indonesia permission is kidding themselves. Indonesia would not have fallen to communism. The support the U.S. gave was given because Ford and Kissinger didn't really care and wanted to keep Suharto happy.

To use another example, I was similarly disturbed by Thatcher's support of Pinochet when he was being held in Britain. When she was in power, I could understand her having to deal with him and at least be cordial, but if you don't feel the need to shower after dealing with a mass-murdering dictator, there is something wrong with you.

Posted by TheCurseofLono | February 27, 2008 9:01 PM

The Falangists of Spain can rightly be called fascists. But the Confederacy predated fascism and had little to nothing in common with it. The system they sought to preserve was quite similar to that which existed when this country was founded, so if they were fascists then Washington, Jefferson and Madison would seem to be as well.

Posted by TGGP | February 27, 2008 9:17 PM

For what it's worth, many neo-Confederates also collect Nazi memorabilia and worship Hitler. A neo-Confederate is not the same thing as a Confederate during the Civil War, after all.

Posted by Reality Man | February 27, 2008 9:44 PM

Not to say ill of a man just dead, it must be pointed out that to characterize his latter change of heart on civil rights and MLK, long after MLK's death, as some sort of intellectually superior and morally courageous act would not even be viewed by Mr. Buckley himself as a coherent argument.

Posted by gregor | February 27, 2008 9:46 PM

To add to Gregor's comment, Buckley's supposed change of heart would have been a lot more meaningfull if he hadn't been actively supporting the white government of South Africa virtually until the end.

And Jon F just because some leftists we're wrong about Stalin doesn't mean Buckley was right about everything he said about Communism. He and his ilk are resposnsible for not just the Vietnam War, there are thousands of dead Guatamalans and other Latin Americans who can be laid at Buckley's feet.

Posted by Eric K | February 27, 2008 10:00 PM

"Franco was an enemy of Moscow, therefore Franco was our friend."

Franco also eventually paved the way for Spain's peaceful transition to constitutional monarchy/democracy by reaching out to (now) King Juan Carlos. KJC later stood down a coup attempt, and the country has been democratic ever since.

Posted by Fred | February 27, 2008 10:15 PM

I think it was prompted by his fear of being tarred as an "anti-Semite" as his friend Joe Sobran and to a lesser degree Pat Buchanan were.

Fear?

Ok.

That's quite a misunderstanding of Buckley's historical role, being that he's the one that did the "tarring."

I'm just curious, Trevor. What is your general view of say, David Irving? Is he an anti-Semite, or an "anti-Semite"?

Posted by SoCalJustice | February 27, 2008 10:18 PM

One of the irritating aspects of discussing the Spanish Civil War is the frequency with which people fail to acknowledge that the forces opposed to Franco were dominated by real, live, Stalinists. Buckley may have been too friendly towards Franco, but it is a damned good thing that Franco won, and the people who failed to acknowledge the nature of Franco's opposition, which encompasses a huge swath of the American Left, have a helluva lot more to be ashamed about than Buckley.

Posted by Will Allen | February 27, 2008 10:23 PM

Will,

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, I and the rest of us leftists who rightly considered Franco to be just as evil as Castro, Baby Doc or any other dicatator whether they are of the right or left have no need to feel ashamed of anything.

It is you right wing assholes who never meant a dictator you didn't like as long as he said the right thing about commies.

Posted by Eric K | February 27, 2008 10:32 PM

Tell me, Eric, are you one of those who failed to acknowledge that Franco's opposition in the Spanish Civil War was dominated by Stalinists, or are you simply unable to read?

Posted by Will Allen | February 27, 2008 10:56 PM

Franco also eventually paved the way for Spain's peaceful transition to constitutional monarchy/democracy

Very admirable, no doubt. Too bad he didn't try the "peaceful transition to democracy" thing back in the 30's, but what's a few decades of dictatorship and mass murder?

Posted by rea | February 27, 2008 10:57 PM

are you one of those who failed to acknowledge that Franco's opposition in the Spanish Civil War was dominated by Stalinists, or are you simply unable to read?

The history of the Spanish Republic was a great deal more complicated than simply "dominated by Stalinists," as a presumably literate person like yourself ought to be willing to acknowledge, Will Allen, and moreover, unless you think the United States was on the wrong side of the Second World War, you ought to know that Stalinists were rather to be preferred to Nazis.

Posted by rea | February 27, 2008 11:05 PM

Also, Eric, the sort of intellect which would conclude that Franco was just as evil as any other dictator, thus meaning that Franco was as evil as Stalin, well, I don't know whether "intellect" is the correct word to use. I think the horse I rode in on may have superior powers of perception.

Posted by Will Allen | February 27, 2008 11:07 PM

The point I was making, Rea, was that Franco was preferred to Stalinists. Whether Stalinists were preferred to Nazis was mostly a matter of circumstances, I think. Change some geography a little, or make Hitler a little more chronically ill, and the preference may have changed. When you are dealing with ideologies as murderous as Hitler's or Stalin's, of course, there is little to choose from, other than through short term calculations.

Posted by Will Allen | February 27, 2008 11:15 PM

Will,

The Spanish Civil War was in the 1930s, Franco ruled Spain with an iron hand for 40 years after it ended.

The fact that Franco never had to commit the kind of mass murder Stalin did doesn't make him morally superior. Being a totalitarian dictator who murders his own citizens and locks up political prisoners for thought crimes is evil whether he does it to 1 person or a million, the willingness to do it is the crime, Franco proved he would kill as many people as he needed to to maintain power, that amkes him no different than Stalin, Castro, Baby Doc, Pinochet or any other thug.

Posted by Eric K | February 27, 2008 11:38 PM

Eric, why don't you go ask the Spainish citizens circa 1975 whether they think Franco was as evil as Stalin. Yes, all dictators are evil. No, all dictators are not equally evil. It is a bit of a wonder that this needs to be explained.

Posted by Will Allen | February 27, 2008 11:44 PM

"Too bad he didn't try the "peaceful transition to democracy" thing back in the 30's"

If he had, Spain, as a new, fragile democracy, probably would have quickly fallen to the Communists, and not even begun a transition to democracy again until after the end of the Cold War.

Posted by Fred | February 27, 2008 11:51 PM

"Look, the stuff about tattooing those with AIDS is terrible and there are any number of other reprehensible statements by Buckley that we could dig out"

There are many others. Let's dig.

Not today though, that's fine.

Tomorrow and forever, every despicable idea, OK.

Posted by Andruw | February 27, 2008 11:57 PM

Will,

Ask the families of the people Franco killed if he was better than Stalin. I didn't realize you right wingers were such moral relativists. It isn't that complex, killing your political opponents to maintain power makes you an immoral thug, the fact that you succeed in supressing them wihtout having to kill more of them is not a point in your favor.

Ask the people in Spain in 1975 if they were happy living in essentially a 3rd world country 40 years behind the rest of Europe. Ask them if they'd rather be say Denmark.

Posted by Eric K | February 28, 2008 12:02 AM

Re: Franco,

There were no 'liberals' in Spain in the 1930s, and no one was interested in such nebulous chimaeras as 'democracy' or 'freedom'. (I would argue that in times of political crisis, almost no one anywhere in the world is a liberal.) The choices in that time and in that place were either a dictatorship or the right or one of the left.

Now as a man of the Left, and as someone who has little liking for liberalism anyway, I would have preferred a dictatorship of the Left, of course. There's little reason to believe that a Left-wing Spain would have resembled Stalinist Russia more than, say, Cuba or Yugoslavia. But even I would recognize that the Spanish Left, whether or not they were in fact Stalinist, had _a lot_ wrong with them, most notably the anticlericalism. And Franco, as murderous as he was, had quite a few things about him that it would be hard not to find attractive. If I was a Catholic, and more generally right-wing in my views, and had lived in that place and in that time, I might have been an enthusiast of Franco too.

Regarding Buckley's anti-communism, while he was right to be critical of Stalinist Russia and China, it's hard to justify that kind of reflexive opposition to the regimes in, say, Cuba or Yugoslavia. Or for that matter in Vietnam. I actually find that incredibly interesting that he appears to have reconsidered his support for U.S. foreign policy....I never would have thought that of him. it's to his credit. (well i did feel like I should say _something_ about the man on the day of his death).

Posted by Hector | February 28, 2008 12:37 AM

"Now as a man of the Left, and as someone who has little liking for liberalism anyway, I would have preferred a dictatorship of the Left, of course. There's little reason to believe that a Left-wing Spain would have resembled Stalinist Russia more than, say, Cuba or Yugoslavia"

Why would you have preferred a Cuban-style leftist dictatorship in Spain? Then Spain today would still be a dictatorship, and an impoverished one at that. Rightist dictators have had a better track record of allowing their countries to peacefully transition to democracy, and of laying the economic groundwork for prosperity (e.g., Korea, Chile, Taiwan, etc.).

Posted by Fred | February 28, 2008 12:43 AM

If Franco was preferable to Stalinists, Saddam should have been preferable to the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, not to mention the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis.

Posted by gregor | February 28, 2008 12:43 AM

Gregor, when you took the SAT did it still include an analogies section? I hope for your sake it didn't.

Posted by Juan | February 28, 2008 12:46 AM

Fred,

Largely because I don't _want_, as the endpoint, the kind of liberal-democratic, individualist, capitalist order that the modern West has. I'm bitterly opposed to liberalism in all its forms, and what I admire about Cuba (and to a certain extent, in spite of his evil, about Franco) is that they were striving for something fundamentally different- an order based on virtue and the common good, not 'freedom' and 'prosperity'- a 'Republic of the Saints' if you will. Whether in its medieval form or its socialist form, either one would be preferable to the modern liberal order that thinks that virtue and self-sacrifice for the common good are simply matters to be left up to individual 'choices'.

Posted by Hector | February 28, 2008 12:56 AM

The Republican faction in Spain likely wasn't taken over by Stalinists well into the Civil War once they became dependent on Moscow, though there is still some debate on this. After all, the Stalinists on the Republican side only became dominant after purging its rivals from the forces, often via murder. This makes Franco's claims a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy because he was the one who started the war in the first place. Without that war, the left in Spain would not have become so Stalnist. It's like how the Pakistani military goes around either blocking democrats' attempts at reform or kill them, leaving only the religious crazies behind as a bogeyman forcing people to leave the military in charge.

Also, when you let Hitler bomb your own people for target practice, you don't have any sort of claim to any type of morality.

Posted by Reality Man | February 28, 2008 12:59 AM

Hector,

"Largely because I don't _want_, as the endpoint, the kind of liberal-democratic, individualist, capitalist order that the modern West has."

Just the West? Capitalism seems to have taken root and raised living standards spectacularly in other parts of the world, e.g., Taiwan, Singapore, etc.

"I'm bitterly opposed to liberalism in all its forms, and what I admire about Cuba..."

Have you considered moving there? If not, why?

Posted by Fred | February 28, 2008 1:09 AM

Buckley once observed that he never watched a sporting event in its entirety. Therein lies his brooding soul.

Instead of enjoying the sweet swing of Williams, he encouraged the fastballs thrown by McCarthy.

Instead of celebrating the poetry of Ali, he condoned the scatology of Jim Crow.

Instead of relishing the magic of Michael, he reposed on the mystery of Providence.

I suppose, in retrospect, that he might have gotten his angels and demons mixed up. Until today.

Posted by resh | February 28, 2008 1:12 AM

Why would you have preferred a Cuban-style leftist dictatorship in Spain?

Why do you prance down the yellow brick road with a young woman, a large cat, a mechanical robot and a dog?

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | February 28, 2008 2:03 AM

Buckley may have been too friendly towards Franco, but it is a damned good thing that Franco won

--if you're a glibertarian cunt like Will Allen.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | February 28, 2008 2:09 AM

Well, I'm hardly an expert on 1930s Spain, but I'd tend to agree with Hector's overall assessment of Franco's historical standing.

And societies which over-emphasis individualism and short-term interests at the expense of the common good and long term interests represent a meta-stable state which rapidly decays into something else. And that "something else" which comes afterward---whether Left or Right---will then denigrate its defunct predecessor by names much harsher than merely "liberal"---words like totally "corrupt" and "decadent" come to mind.

Offhand, I'd say America of the last few years have quite obviously reached that meta-stable state.

Posted by RKU | February 28, 2008 2:32 AM

The fact that Franco never had to commit the kind of mass murder Stalin did doesn't make him morally superior.

Had to commit? Are you actually saying Stalin's crimes were and are defensible? If so, please offer a defense.

Posted by Shinyk | February 28, 2008 3:44 AM

"but it is a damned good thing that Franco won, and the people who failed to acknowledge the nature of Franco's opposition," Will Allen

His opposition wasn't monolithic. The Basque nationalists were generally Catholic and at least somewhat conservative. Franco had little problem killing those who believed in democracy rather than Stalinism or priests who failed to speak a "proper language." They suffered as bad or worse than the Communist element. They continued to suffer after they lost. Their suffering was, arguably, worse than that of his other enemies.

Granted the main element of the Republican side was abusive and allied with Communism, but Franco supported a unhealthily narrow nationalism that encouraged abuse and allied with Fascism. (Francoism does not really fit as Fascist in itself. His economic system was different, he was not expansionist on a meaningful level, etc) To me both sides had strongly negative elements. Because it had greater legitimacy, and allowed the Basques greater autonomy, I suppose I'd say the Republicans were better.

Posted by Thomas R | February 28, 2008 5:55 AM

"Rightist dictators have had a better track record of allowing their countries to peacefully transition to democracy" Fred

That's the nice way to look at it. Another way, which I think is just as plausible, is that Rightists dictators are generally poorer at working on a system of succession. A Rightist dictator is working in a system that trends more egoist than collectivist. If he's no longer going to rule why care what happens next? Might as well let democracy or monarchy or whatever happen next. Further that Rightist dictatorships are less stable so once their leader dies there's less reason to keep an obviously failing system.

This isn't in praise of Leftist dictatorships at all. If anything their greater survival skills and ability to deal with succession makes them much more disturbing. If reports are accurate North Korea has been able to turn itself into almost a cultlike compound. A Right-wing dictatorship would have collapsed after their equivalent of Kim Il Sung died or at least after the period when people were eating grass. Leftists have a somewhat chilling competence that makes them more able to make people embrace their own victimization. I saw an interview of a refugee of North Korea who said that when guards beat her she thought of Kim Il-Sung with love in her heart and sadness that he wasn't there to save her. Her story was not even that unusual of internees. I'm really skeptical prisoners of Franco wept at the thought their caudillo no longer loved them.

Posted by Thomas R | February 28, 2008 6:14 AM

Buckley believed in the lesser of two evils. His support of dictators like Franco was made in reflection of what butchery the communists would have done in stead of the "wight-wingers".

History has shown McCarthy more right than wrong. WFB was there when the media and academia almost achieved consensus that the bloody work of Stalin, Mao, the Jewish Bolsheviks were best swept under the rug. Now we have a consensus that WFB fought all his life for, emerge about who were deadlier - Fascist right wing types, or communists.

In the 1970s and 1990s, Buckley said that AIDS suffers should be tattooed against their will, to allow them to be identified. He was hating until his last days.

Would have stopped the AIDs epidemic dead in it's tracks, wouldn't it? Deadly, infectious people with other incurable diseases in the past had to carry bells to warn others of their danger.

Eric K - Ask the families of the people Franco killed if he was better than Stalin.

1. Having Francos crowd ask that question of "the families with Total Moral Authority" would take a minute per family, OR, just under a year at 8 hours a day.

2. Having Stalin's crowd, including the earlier Jewish Bolsheviks that invented the Red Terror Stalin inherited ask families? That would take 171.2 years.

As for S Africa and other transitions to black majority rule - city or country - WFB predicted they would fuck things up and become (in his verbose equivalent of the term..) squalid, dangerous shitholes.

While the jury is still out because the historical time span is still too short to know for certain (except Haiti and a few other small countries), the trend has been that, globally, black majority rule does transform cities and nations into shitholes.

*******************
Anyways, in death, WFB deserves no less than liberals who had consequential lives and who carried themselves with grace and dignity in fighting for and debating the great issues of their times. He deserves our admiration.

Just as Michael Harrington did.

Just as much as George McGovern will when he passes.

Posted by chris ford | February 28, 2008 7:27 AM

My problem is that you have guys at the National Review, including Buckley, who never actually seemed to be all that enthralled with actual democrats. When Kim Dae Jung was illegally arrested in Japan by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency and slated for execution, the National Review wasn't exactly outraged and demanding that the Korean military dictatorship release him. The same goes for another eventual Nobel Peace Prize winner, Nelson Mandela.

A strong case can be made that these two men, often associated with their countries' left, moved their economies to the left in a way that made them more capitalistic. After all, Korea was a system based around right-wing five-year plans and the chaebols. South Africa was a system of statist racial social engineering that was rather expensive, causing the pro-apartheid Standard Bank to often bail out the frequently bankrupt government. In fact, according to Whorten, as early as 1978 major white South African business leaders were secretly in talks with the ANC leadership abroad to bring them to power because then those inefficiencies would be gone and they could promote good black employees over lazy white employees. They haven't exactly been fans of Ricardo Lagos, who continued Pinochet's best policies while making them more equitable and making Chile more democratic. In fact, Lagos is one of the main three Latin figures in a new pan-Latino anti-Chavez group, along with IIRC Vicente Fox of Mexico and Llosa of Peru. That's the thing: the NR, including under Buckley seemed to prefer right-wing dictators to moderate democratic leaders with social democratic leanings who were not actual communists. They actually romanticize dictators like Franco and Pinochet. It's one thing to think they were the better of two evils, but another thing to actually think they were good. At least Zakaria, who is a conservative with a compelling thesis on the role of liberal authoritarianism leading to democracy, doesn't romanticize such leaders and respects actual democrats.

With that said, Buckley gets some credit for being the only major public figure, alongside George McGovern, who wanted to back attempts to overthrow Pol Pot.

Posted by Reality Man | February 28, 2008 8:09 AM

JBD: Fair enough. I felt I was matching our host on the snark level. The point remains, every movement (and every person who lives for eighty years) has it's (and their) skeletons.

Posted by Minnesota | February 28, 2008 8:32 AM

Eric, one need not be a moral relativist to have enough intelligence to grasp the simple fact that Franco is not Castro is not Pinochet is not Stalin is not Hitler is not Pol Pot. If you can't grasp that there are degrees of evil in the world, and you often have to choose among them, you may as well just stay in the sandbox. The strength of the Stalinists, relative to the other elements which opposed Franco in the Spanish Civil War, was such that Franco's victory very likely reduced the total suffering of the Spanish population by an extremely large amount, especially since it was an era in which "liberal" institutions like the New York Times were quite willing to plainly lie about mass slaughters that Stalinists engaged in.

Hector and I got into it the other other day about Castro, primarily because he fails to acknowledge that governments which make it a crime to emigrate are engaging in a form of slavery, and are responsible for the deaths of those who thus must risk their lives to emigrate. However, I would never be so silly as to say Castro was as evil as Stalin or Mao. That would be ridiculous, as it would be to say that Francoism was as evil as Stalinism.

Posted by Will Allen | February 28, 2008 9:52 AM

Hector, you seem to me to merely be just a mirror image of those you oppose on the far Right. You and your opponents make the fundamental error in believing virtue can be achieved via coercion. This is plainly wrong. A citizen who behaves "virtuously" because he or she has a gun to his head hasn't engaged in virtue at all. Virtue can only be achieved when an individual can freely choose to not be virtuous, without risking annihilation.

Posted by Will Allen | February 28, 2008 10:04 AM

...What's more, Robert Farley is certainly right that he seems preferable to his co-ideologues in some respects...

Yes, compared to the fascist street-thug orators of America's current right wing, Buckley must have seemed so much more -- cultured. So much more, uh, nuanced.

Hail, fellow, and all that. And his family was, well - of the right sort, don't you know. So much better than those odious little people like O'Reilly and Limbaugh and Weiner and Coulter (though it's supposed that they have their uses).

But, you realize -- the idea that Buckley was somehow "not so bad -- well, not as bad as Podhoretz!" is a bit like being Dutch in 1940 after the German invasion, and saying, "Gosh, I'm glad we have a cultured German overlord like that Seyss-Inquart! What if they'd sent some really terrible nazi?" (Seyss-Inquart turned out to be an exceptionally reprehensible and vile man, no matter how perfect his manners.)

I've always assumed that right-wing demagogery remained exactly that, no matter how thinly you sliced it.

Buckley was ultimately an angry, small man with a ridiculous ego. He though so well of himself, not because he was more intelligent, or 'better', than a common humanity -- but because that belief is a birthright of his class and believed by them to be true.

His expressions of his politics were narrow, vicious, and even unprincipled. He built nothing in his life but a legacy in that same spirit, and good riddance to him.

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | February 28, 2008 11:17 AM

Shinyk,

Work on your reading comprehenesion, read my entire post.

Posted by Eric k | February 28, 2008 11:47 AM

shinyk,

You need to work on you readinign comprehension

Posted by Eric k | February 28, 2008 11:48 AM

"Eric, one need not be a moral relativist to have enough intelligence to grasp the simple fact that Franco is not Castro is not Pinochet is not Stalin is not Hitler is not Pol Pot. If you can't grasp that there are degrees of evil in the world, and you often have to choose among them, you may as well just stay in the sandbox......

However, I would never be so silly as to say Castro was as evil as Stalin or Mao. That would be ridiculous, as it would be to say that Francoism was as evil as Stalinism.

Posted by Will Allen"

I generally agree with your points, Allen. I would be cautious about compressing an entire fascist system or totalitarian movement down to a single man.
Others make the same mistake of personalizing all radical Islamism to bin Laden and like with the other "Single Great Men" of history, allude all bad things happened just because of them not the broader sea of the people in the movement and what they believed in, where the Head of State was in many cases just the 1st among evils.

Same with good things, where we think all good things that happened in civil rights were the solitary work of Saint Martin Luther King, or Harry Truman single-handedly won WWII..

It leads to certain people actually believing "it was all this one person's credit/fault, and making stupid assumptions.

Many thought that Stalin would change the Red Terror that the Jewish Bolsheviks devised. He didn't, he embraced their terror of Gulags and executions. When Stalin died, many thought since the single person was gone, Soviet Totalitarianism was dead. Hardly.

Same with dumb people that think "Getting bin Laden" automatically ends radica Islam or Fidels death will of course rapidly lead to a Free Cuba.

Not so.

Posted by chris ford | February 28, 2008 12:28 PM

I'll admit I've never really paid a great deal of attention to Cuba, so maybe some commenters who have can correct or enlighten me...

My impression is that once Castro came to power in the late 1950s, he rounded up and shot a few hundred or so people associated with the old Batista Regime, many of whom probably deserved it. Afterwards, he imprisoned a few thousand more people, and periodically shot some additional groups each year until some time after the Bay of Pigs. But that overall, his total body count was laughably small, even by Caribbean standards (e.g. Trujillo's massacre of Haitian immigrants a few years earlier).

Then, for the remaining forty-odd years in power, Castro just shot a handful of "troublemakers" each year, and kept a few thousand more in his "gulag".

Castro's economic policies were certainly stupid in the usual marxist way, his alliance with the Soviet Union was a huge Cold War embarrassment in our own backyard, and the Miami Cubans are very "excitable"---but other than that, I can't understand why he ever received much attention or was considered a "Great Dictator."

I wouldn't be surprised if more innocent Kenyans weren't recently butchered in a couple of weeks than Castro killed Cubans over the last 40 years combined. And the Argentina and Chile body counts were vastly greater and more concentrated.

Just curious whether my impressions are off by an order-of-magnitude or so.

Posted by RKU | February 28, 2008 12:57 PM

"Rightist dictators have had a better track record of allowing their countries to peacefully transition to democracy" Fred"

"That's the nice way to look at it. Another way, which I think is just as plausible, is that Rightists dictators are generally poorer at working on a system of succession."

You can't seriously believe that. Democracy isn't the default when a dictator doesn't plan his succession; the default is usually another dictatorship.

"If he's no longer going to rule why care what happens next?"

Because he cares about his country, his children, and his legacy, like absolute rulers have since... uh... forever? Those are the same reasons that so many rightist dictators have chosen to let their countries transition to democracy.

Posted by Fred | February 28, 2008 1:07 PM

Erik K

Shinyk, Work on your reading comprehenesion, read my entire post.

shinyk, You need to work on you readinign comprehension

Aside from the obvious hypocrisy of criticizing the literacy of someone else in driveling scrawl like this, the entire post you refer to

(The fact that Franco never had to commit the kind of mass murder Stalin did doesn't make him morally superior. Being a totalitarian dictator who murders his own citizens and locks up political prisoners for thought crimes is evil whether he does it to 1 person or a million, the willingness to do it is the crime,)

is illogical. Your thesis that despotic thought is worse than (or as bad as) despotic action is one of the most puerile idiocies imaginable. Anyone reading that nonsense is diminished by it.

The only thing remotely interesting about your post is that it contains an implied defense of Stalin's murder as something he "had to commit." I've never heard that defense. Please explain.

Posted by Shinyk | February 28, 2008 1:32 PM

Yes, I'm sure Franco needed to cling to power for decades in order to fend off the red tide. Please. As I understand it, he had no intention of turning Spain back into a democracy. He was hoping that Juan Carlos would rule as a king, not as a ceremonial figurehead. The problem with Buckley is that he did not think of Franco as a "necessary evil" in the fight against communism. He actually seemed to admire him.

If you want to look at a "lesser evil" dictatorship look at the Turkish Republic's history since it became a democracy. The military overthrew the government three times. However, they did try and hold onto power with their dying breaths. They never ruled for more than 4 years.

Posted by TheCurseofLono | February 28, 2008 2:37 PM

Chris Ford

While the jury is still out because the historical time span is still too short to know for certain (except Haiti and a few other small countries), the trend has been that, globally, black majority rule does transform cities and nations into shitholes.

I've been to Senegal and it's not too bad. It's certainly better than the Arab world (minus Dubai)looks on television.

As for non-Senegal Africa, our well-meaning-but-destructive aid packages prevent the creation of viable economies, which, in turn, prevent the creation of viable states.

It might be more prudent to see how Africa would do when well-meaning-but-ignorant elements in the US aren't devaluing any and every possible domestic good in the name of 'humanitarianism' before blaming Africa's disproportionate dysfunction on race.

Posted by Shinyk | February 28, 2008 2:44 PM

Yes, I'm sure Franco needed to cling to power for decades in order to fend off the red tide. Please. As I understand it, he had no intention of turning Spain back into a democracy. He was hoping that Juan Carlos would rule as a king, not as a ceremonial figurehead. The problem with Buckley is that he did not think of Franco as a "necessary evil" in the fight against communism. He actually seemed to admire him.

If you want to look at a "lesser evil" dictatorship look at the Turkish Republic's history since it became a democracy. The military overthrew the government three times. However, they di