Commentary: The Passing of Bill Buckley

Our mission from day one at the Davis Voice has been to offer a space for our community to share thoughtful and civil policy discussions.  Although such spaces do exist for national politics on the internet, thoughtful and polite policy discussions on mess media and at the highest levels of government are rare.  It has not always been this way.

The passing of William F. “Bill” Buckley last week brings attention to the lost art of respectfully disagreeing.

Goodbye Bill
by Michael P. Bartolic

I well remember first watching Buckley on his show “Firing Line” when I was in 8th grade, and being captivated by his command of language and logic. As many have remarked, I almost always disagreed with him  but I enjoyed the argument.  Ever since, I preferred listening to Buckley more than most of the folks with which I agreed.

I enjoyed listening to Buckley primarily because it sharpen  my wits, enhanced my  knowledge, and improved my use of both vulgate and vernacular.  Also, he was simply a fun character.

In my estimate, the  only person writing/speaking on the liberal side who matches up with Buckley is Gore Vidal, but frankly he’s too much of a fastidious tight-ass for my taste. One gets the feeling Vidal not only underpays his housemaids, but makes fun of their accented English. Buckley, on the other hand, always seemed to be having fun, and struck me as a gent who not only valued the deckhands, but  relished sharing a drink with them.

A telling display of his  open-minded ethos was that he could argue with J. Kenneth Galbraith tooth and claw, and then go with him on skiing vacations.  A compelling insight into Buckley as a human being was his love of sailing: the sea makes no distinctions based on gender, age, race or creed, but recognizes only the skills and equanimity we posit against the challenges of wave, wind and weather. Any person willing to travel  between continents in a small wooden sailboat, and laugh while doing so, has a beautiful sense of their place in the universe.

The world is truly a poorer place without him. If I  ever get to heaven I hope to go for a morning’s sail with Bill in the Elysian Gulf, where the zephyr always blows offshore, force 3, visibility to the horizon …

Mike Bartolic is a mensch-about-town who has lived in Davis since  1984. He has a garage filled with books, bikes and Pandora’s boxes, and owns two canoes with one broken paddle between them.