Sick of the sycophancy to WFB

An e-mail I sent to Powerline:

The title of your entry about William F. Buckley and the 50th anniversary celebration of National Review is “The conservative lion in winter.”

Please—spare us the sycophancy. “Lion in winter” suggests someone who still has his vital force and is a dominant figure. Buckley is essentially retired, and he has scarcely produced a single readable or coherent column in 15 or 20 years. Eight years ago he handed over the editorship of his magazine to a boy reporter with no intellectual substance, and let the magazine turn into a pallid ghost of its former self. If you want to honor Buckley for founding the conservative movement 50 years ago, an important historical achievement, fine. But then also acknowledge how he has betrayed most of the things he ever supposedly believed in.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 10, 2005 10:13 PM | Send