Writer William F. Buckley dies at 82

updated 2:56 p.m. ET Feb. 27, 2008

NEW YORK - William F. Buckley Jr. died at work, in his study. The Cold War had ended long before. A Republican was in the White House. The word “liberal” had been shunned like an ill-mannered guest.

At the end of his 82 years, much of it spent stoking and riding a right-wing wave as an erudite commentator and conservative herald, all of Buckley’s dreams seemingly had come true.

“He founded a magazine, wrote over 50 books, influenced the course of political history, had a son, had two grandchildren and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean three times,” said his son, novelist Christopher Buckley. “He really didn’t leave any stone unturned.”

Buckley was found dead in his study Wednesday morning in Stamford, Conn. His son noted Buckley had died “with his boots on, after a lifetime of riding pretty tall in the saddle.”

His assistant said Buckley was found by his cook. The cause of death was unknown, but he had been ill with emphysema, she said.

As an editor, columnist, novelist, debater and host of the TV talk show “Firing Line,” Buckley worked at a daunting pace, taking as little as 20 minutes to write a column for his magazine, National Review.

Video   Conservative icon William F. Buckley dies Feb. 27: Writer and conservative commentator William F. Buckley has died at age 82. NBC's Brian Williams reports. Nightly News

Yet on the platform, he was all handsome, reptilian languor, flexing his imposing vocabulary ever so slowly, accenting each point with an arched brow or rolling tongue and savoring an opponent’s discomfort with wide-eyed glee.

“There’s no ‘weltschmerz,’ or any sadness that permeates my vision,” he told The Associated Press during a 2004 interview at his Park Avenue duplex. “There isn’t anything I reasonably hoped for that wasn’t achieved.”

President Bush called Buckley a great political thinker, wit, author and leader. “He influenced a lot of people, including me,” the president said. “He captured the imagination of a lot of people.”

But Buckley was also willing to criticize his own and made no secret of his distaste for at least some of Bush’s policies. In a 2006 interview with CBS, he called the Iraq war a failure.

“If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we’ve experienced, it would be expected that he would retire or resign,” Buckley said at the time.

Luck was in the very bones of Buckley, blessed with a leading man’s looks, an orator’s voice, a satirist’s wit and an Ivy League scholar’s vocabulary. But before he emerged in the 1950s, few imagined conservatives would rise so high, or so enjoy the heights.

For at least a generation, conservatism had meant the pale austerity of Herbert Hoover, the grim isolationism of Sen. Robert Taft, the snarls and innuendoes of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Democrats were the party of big spenders and “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Republicans settled for respectable cloth coats.

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