This is from the piece that Joseph Lieberman wrote at National Review Online regarding the death today of William F. Buckley:

I think it most fitting to end with a quote from President Reagan on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of National Review in 1985. Reagan said that when he picked up his first issue of National Review, he received it in a plain brown wrapper. Later on, he still anxiously awaited his biweekly edition, but no longer in a plain brown wrapper. But this is what Reagan said of Buckley: "You didn't just part the Red Sea. You rolled it back, dried it up and left exposed, for all the world to see, the naked desert that is statism. And then, as if that were not enough, you gave the world something different, something, in its weariness, it desperately needed — the sound of laughter and the sight of the rich, green uplands of freedom."

I've only been reading National Review for five years or so. In that five year period, Buckley's magazine has raised my standards as a reader. Turn to practically any page of any issue of the National Review and you'll find ideas that are worth considering and writing that's worth reading. The National Review is concise, clear, thoughtful, sometimes profound, and frequently funny. It has been the barometer of conservative thought in America since 1955. I don't know of a better publication.

National Review was Buckley's baby. Over the last few years, and particularly since the death of his wife last April, Buckley wrote less and less frequently for the magazine. He died today at the age of 82. I'm sure that his distinctive voice will always have a presence in the style and thought of those he influenced, in the pages of National Review and elsewhere.

Labels: Media, News, Politics