Alan Bock on Buckley
The OC Register's Alan Bock writes about William F. Buckley, Jr.:
His intellectual independence shone through from time to time, as in his early understanding that the drug war was unwinnable and socially corrosive, and his realization fairly early on that the Iraq war was a disaster, something the war-addled folks to whom he turned over National Review have yet to come to grips with. I don't know whether it is a commentary on present-day conservatism or present-day cable news that it is difficult to imagine a program of civil discussion like "Firing Line" from the current batch of angry shouters and rude dealers in the ad hominem that pass for conservative (and most liberal) talkers today.
Bock also knocks Buckley for his Murray Rothbard obit while concluding "there's little doubt that he had an enormous impact on the history of this country."
Bock blogs at the OCR's always interesting Orange Punch blog (he's there along with Steven Greenhut and Mark Landsbaum) and has his own thang over at alanbock.blogspot.com.