He was the most unlikely of publishers, ever-rumpled and looking at times as if he slept in his car for days. His manner of speaking fell somewhere between snooterly and a yawn. He always looked tired, and no wonder. He worked constantly. He wrote columns and novels and spoke around the country, and he was always good for a chat along the byways of the public life he led.

Now he's gone. William F. Buckley died yesterday at his Connecticut home. He was 82. He died at his desk.

In this age of furiously right wing radio, it's hard to imagine how Buckley fit into American conservative thought. He was of such a different age and temperament.

And yet when all their voices are stilled, Buckley's will still he heard. He founded the National Review at a time, back in the '50s, when conservative thought was on the wane, and while his magazine never became a hit with the masses, Buckley was read widely by whole generations of young people who would go on to matter in American public life.

He made it okay to disagree with liberal orthodoxy when few would, and he brought ideas and eloquence to the entire debate, in his magazine, on “Firing Line,” his long-running television show, and in his syndicated newspaper column, "On the Right."

But as much as Buckley was a thinker, and a good one, he was first an entertainer, speaking and writing and appearing on TV and radio. It was a very public life, and one in which he seemed at ease. He would debate anything, holding whatever position seemed to make sense to him at the moment, never fearing he’d be made a fool of. He never belonged to anyone's camp. He delighted in the public challenges that came from the great numbers of other public personalities with whom he dared to disagree.

What follows are some of the observations and tributes being paid to Buckley:


“If you ever saw him on television, you'd remember it. When he spoke his face and his brain were pretty much equally active. He was equal parts passion and smarts. And he's being remembered as the father of the modern-day conservative political movement in the United States.”

Brian Williams, NBC News


“It is fitting, even poetic, that William F. Buckley, who died yesterday at 82, expired at his desk writing. There is perhaps no single figure who did more to change American politics of the last 50 years without holding office. He did it with the power of his peerlessly elegant speech and prose – and with the high-flying style of his singular personality."

Dallas Morning News editorial

“WFB was impossible to dislike. He was full of good cheer and humor. He had a great smile. Some of his closest friends were liberals, such as Hugh Kenner. He understood that politics wasn't everything--he even resented that politics mattered as much as they do.

“He was arguably the first modern public intellectual. He was certainly one of the first to master television. The ‘Firing Line’ was a far cry from the screaming-head shows that dominate political television today. They were forums of real debate, in which opposing viewpoints could state their cases and cross examine each other. It was a true marketplace of ideas."

John Miller, n ational political reporter for the National Review, writing in The Washington Post


“Bill's part in the rise of American conservatism is second only to that of Ronald Reagan, and perhaps not even to him. At the young age of 30, Bill established the National Review. He persuaded brilliant talents such as James Burnham and Milton Friedman to write for it. And he used the magazine to reconcile the quarrelsome factions of conservatism -- economic libertarians, moral traditionalists, foreign-policy hawks -- around a new philosophy resting on anticommunism, free markets, and traditional Judaeo-Christian values.

“It's often said that Buckley's National Review made conservatism respectable by purging it of anti-Semitism and other political viruses. That's true and important but perhaps not quite so important as that Bill personally made conservatism chic and sophisticated. As host of the 'Firing Line' program of television interviews for 30 years, he took on eminent liberals from J.K. Galbraith to Woody Allen in spirited debate, often dispatching them with better arguments and better jokes.”

John O’Sullivan, executive editor of Radio Free Europe


“Buckley was a hero to conservatives, each for their own reasons. For some, because he introduced them to conservatism. For others, he was a fun interviewer and interesting writer. For still others, he opened their eyes to the Catholic faith.

“To me, it was that everything about him was just so cool. His lifestyle. The way he famously leaned back in his chair. The way he dressed. His cocksure interviewing style. His magniloquent prose. He was one of the last true renaissance men and represented everything that today's political pundits aren't: He chose substance over sound bites and carefully explained nuance over shock value. He was a public intellectual in the truest sense of that term -- a genius with a remarkable gift for vulgarization.”

Adam Daifallah, writing in Canada’s National Post


“To start out as a young conservative is not--let's look at the facts--to end up there. But you have to start somewhere. You have to care before you can think, think before you can change your mind, and in my case, not stop changing your mind. I owe that start to the man who died today at his desk, the great author, writer, sailor of the ocean sea, alpine skier, Renaissance man, and in mine, as in so many millions of cases, teacher, and political guidance counselor.

“There's something else that needs to be said for William F. Buckley Jr. that concerns his own religious faith. He wrote once of a young man who stood alone in an empty church, juggling balls in the air: it was something he could do--throw balls into the air and catch them without dropping, in a swirly feat of personal mastery. As I said, it's something he could do. It was the one thing he could offer up to God when they were, as best as he could arrange it, alone together. And all the books and columns he wrote, and all the editions of National Review he published, our great William F. Buckley Jr. was offering up his prayer. This is what he could do. This is what he was doing, his work, at his desk, when he was taken home. To work is to pray. Laborare est orare.”

Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s "Hardball"