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The tributes to William Buckley, founder of post World War II conservatism in America, who died Wednesday at the age of 82, continue to roll in. Herewith are four, viz., George Will, Kathleen Parker, Rich Lowry and Linda Chavez, themselves formidable conservative journalistic commentators, who exemplify the influence of the formidable Buckley intellect, wit, sophistication and public spiritedness.

I recall my first exposure to Buckley in his protest of the widely acclaimed visit of Nikita Khrushchev to the United States in 1959: "Please, Mr. President, Don't," read the newspaper advertisement, addressed to President Eisenhower, and signed by dozens of conservative luminaries. The next exposure was actually reading National Review two years later, and telling the manager of the conservative bookstore where I first found the magazine, how "biased" that publication was. Little did I know what Buckley was up against and what the stakes were for America and the world. It is hard to imagine anyone who came to understand the importance of conserving what is best about America and the West not to have been influenced for the better by the rather impish young man who personified conservatism more than anyone else. Over the years, NR came to be not only a source of information and instruction on public affairs but one of consolation in defeat and celebration in victory. It was immensely valuable to this young conservative in his college years to be able to recommend "Firing Line" to friends who were inclined to think that all conservatives were Neanderthals. Those were bragging rights!

Perhaps someone else has mentioned this and I missed it, but I especially enjoyed and appreciated his big hoax in 1970 on the poohbahs of the journalistic world, particularly the New York Times and the Washington Post, in "The Pentagon Papers They Didn't Publish." In contrast to "The Pentagon Papers" they DID publish, which disguised liberal prejudices about the war in Vietnam in the garb of purloined government documents, Buckley's operation wrote perfectly plausible accounts of what government insiders COULD have said. So convincing was it that former Secretary of State Dean Rusk actually said that he COULD have said the things NR said he did. When asked where he got the "documents," Buckley admitted that they were created ex nihilo, thereby arousing the all-too-familar faux liberal outrage over ethical lapses. (How do moral relativists show their moral outrage?) The purpose of NR's version of The Pentagon Papers, Buckley said, was to demonstrate that one could prove just about anything with the artful use of government documents. Has anything of that sort happened since which has not shown the wisdom of the observation, most notably, the recent revised intelligence estimate of Iran's nuclear capability?

Buckley was right about the issues that mattered in our age: about the menace of the Soviet Union in the Cold War; about the evils of statism and socialism in the democratic republics of the West; of the calamity brought about by the decline, indeed, the war upon, our Judeo-Christian heritage. By the same token, as Buckley was a good influence on America, so, in my opinion, was America a good influence on him. Experience is often a great teacher, as it was for Buckley and other conservatives, many of whom, too much in thrall to states' rights, failed to recognize the evil in racial segregation, on the one hand, and charmed by libertarianism, the legalization of recreational drugs on the other. European influences were strong from the beginning, who equated conservatism more with the old than the good, with the past than the present. Standing athwart history yelling "Stop!" had, and has, its rhetorical value, but it tends to define conservatism by what it is against more than by what it is for. To be against liberalism across the board was, at least in part, a mistake, for the liberals were right about civil rights and conservatives were wrong. Were it not for the excesses of federal civil rights enforcement, and especially the morphing from "no discrimination" to racial preference in hiring, admissions and contracting, not to mention the influence of the former liberals who came to be called "neo conservatives," it is not clear that Buckley would have backed off his romanticism of the Old South.

As for Buckley's libertarianism, that is, ironically enough, the flip side of his anti-liberalism. Rather than examine the question of recreational drug use from the standpoint of moral virtue and the public good, Buckley repaired to a version of the moral autonomy doctrine that he often attacked in the libertarian excesses of the United States Supreme Court in free speech and free press cases. Every father can be forgiven for favoring his own, but the widespread youthful indulgence of marijuana, which included his son, Christopher, seems to have been a factor when he endorsed legalization, a decision which lost him more than a few subscribers in the 1970s.

Buckley's difficulties stemmed from his confusion of idealism with principled politics. He rightly suspected pragmatism of deadening the moral sensibilities, but the practical wisdom that is indispensable to statesmanship (evident in Ronald Reagan) is neither unprincipled nor simply pragmatic. Buckley once praised abolitionists as morally right about slavery, but he failed to understand that their idealism went so far as to write off the southern secession in order to avoid any moral taint with it. Sound familiar? (Think of liberal outrage over Guantanamo.)Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery in principle, refused to interfere with it where it existed because the Constitution did not permit it and his native conservatism ruled it out until, as he often said, circumstances (such as Civil War) permitted, even required, it.

Buckley's lack of enthusiasm for President Bush's decision to invade Iraq, and more broadly, a policy of supporting democratic governments over despotic ones, betrayed his worldly conservatism, even as his libertarianism recoiled at the military and political price it exacted. Bush's failure to translate a quick military victory into a lasting achievement for several years is enough to give any sober person pause, but the error was in the execution, not the objective.

One of a kind, Buckley impressed his countrymen with his moral and intellectual virtues, to which those who knew him well can attest. I met him twice in southern California, once at Harry Jaffa's 65th birthday party and another time at a Hillsdale College event. His immense charm and gift for friendship made anyone feel perfectly comfortable in his presence. Part of us died with him. He is irreplaceable.