The post was a response to someone calling Buckley civil when he was not entirely civil. He was no more civil than most public figures of his time.
Every human has some admirable quality. There is no great distinction in that. No one said WFB had no admirable qualities only that his despicable ones rode roughshod over any of his nicer qualities. I'll debate that he had "many good and admirable qualities" when compared to most people I know. Given some difficult to imagine metric of "good and admirable qualities" I should imagine WFB would be positioned in the lower ranges. He was a first class asshole and I'm glad the fuckers dead.
He was no more dangerous than Coulter or Bennett or any other right-wing loon. Only their access to the media gives them the power to be dangerous and as Coulter demonstrates one need not be particularly eloquent to merit media attention.
John Thornton