Buckley and Posner

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon Jan 20 10:42:17 PST 2003


Jim Farmelant wrote:


> Even
>Judis in his Buckley bio, details Buckley's failed effort to write
>a book offering a coherent philosophy for the right. That effort
>failed because Buckley simply was lacking in any such coherent
>philosophy.

One of his triumphs as an ideologue was to finesse the right-wing split between the free marketeers and the traditionalists. Most people on the right don't like to talk about how capitalism undermines Trad Vals - and how most religions find callousness towards the poor and the commodification of everything to be problematic, even sinful. Buckley managed to hold both camps together (as Reagan did). Writing that book would have required Bill to explore the contradictions, so it's no wonder he never wrote it.

Doug



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