It saddens me to say that William F. Buckley is dead at the age of 82.  He had a power of the spoken was that was uncanny, a self-deprication that was completely honest--when asked what he would do if he won the election as Mayor of New York City, his reply was, "I'd demand a recount"--and a quest for Liberty that started a Crusade. In the wake of the second World War, conservatives were thought of as a dead ideology. They had opposed Roosevelt's New Deal, and isolationism blinded them to the necessity to entering into WWII. WFB (as Buckley often signed his writing) was among the front-runners who brought conservatism back to prominence not by jumping from one hot-button issue to another, but establishing a consistency of logical thought that could be applied to nearly everything that was going on in politics through the 60's. Liberty, freedom, and the strength to defend them. He founded the National Review in 1955, supported Goldwater in 1964, and Reagan in 1980.

He was a thinker, writer, and speaker of the highest calibre. His list of accolades extend far more than I could hope to type. His presense will be sorely missed. One can hope that his ideas, wit, and teaching, will live on for ages to come.