The Crusader

By David Von Drehle

If being a conservative always led to a life like that of William F. Buckley Jr., there would be no more liberals. The mansions and yachts, the cocktails and champagne and cigars, the fabulous wife, the Who's Who of friends and, somehow wedged in, enough career for five large lives.

For a half-century, Buckley, who died Wednesday at the age of 82, was chief spokesman for the signal political phenomenon of late 20th century America: the rise of conservatism. The son of an oilman, he leveraged his wealth with energy, passion and cheerful relentlessness. He wrote books laying out the conservative worldview; launched a magazine, National Review, to nurture and promote it; and created one of the longest-running shows in public-television history, Firing Line, to broadcast his views to millions.

He could get things completely wrong--including civil rights. But what made him formidable was the number of things he got right. Buckley almost single-handedly drove anti-Semitism out of acceptable conservative thought. He was leery of Ayn Rand, Richard Nixon and the Iraq war. And he was a staunch anti-communist. His fixed star was the idea of human freedom. A sure applause line in presidential candidate Barack Obama's speeches this year holds that "it's possible to disagree without being disagreeable." William F. Buckley Jr. was proof.