William Buckley and the Price of Kicks

I have never met William Buckley, and the only place I’d care to would be on a public platform, in debate. But for some time I’ve been hearing about his attractive qualities: he is charming, witty, literate, a cultivated man who happens to hold distasteful political ideas. So he has been described by certain intellectuals who should have known better but out of their boredom with the fuzziness of American politics and their desire for sharp confrontations of mind, allowed themselves to be taken in by Buckley’s style.

The recent New York City elections should put an end to this nonsense. For the Buckley who emerged from this election was, in Alike Harrington’s kindly words, “an urbane front man for the...