The Buckley Family | Newsweek Books

Mum, Pup and Christo

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There is no self-pity in their son's book, however, and Buckley has pulled off what eludes many writers: he has written candidly but not unkindly about people whose vices and virtues he sees clearly. A line of Bill Buckley's about Henry Kissinger is useful here. How, Buckley used to wonder, could Kissinger be an enemy to both the left and to the right? It is a good but uncharacteristically weak observation of Buckley's: as he well knew, the most interesting and most consequential of men tend to elude easy categorization, inspiring strong feelings in all quarters. Parents, not just statesmen, are like that, too. They can be infinitely various, alternately the best and worst of people.

MAY 7
"Dives didn???t go to hell because he was rich; Dives didn???t realize that his wealth was his opportunity. It was his opportunity to bridge the gulf that separated him from his brother, Lazarus. Dives went to hell because he passed by Lazarus every day and never really saw him. He went to hell because he allowed his brother to become invisible. Dives went to hell because he maximized the minimum and minimized the maximum. Indeed Dives went to hell because he sought to be a conscientious objector in the war against poverty. "
This quote by Martin Luther King pretty well describes the life and attitude of William F. Buckley. For all the glitter and stardom, Buckley made a conscious attempt to ignore the Lazarus outside of his gated community of sycophants and admirers.
He opposed Civil Rights legislation. He applauded the brutal regime of Augusto Pinochet, even though Pinochet overthrew a democratically elected government in Chile. Even though the apartheid regime of South Africa brutally murdered Stephen Bantu Biko, a civil rights activist, Buckley found nothing wrong with making South Africa a port of call on one of his famous round-the-world tours on a personally-chartered gas-guzzling Concorde SST jet. (The fuel-inefficient Concorde eventually met its final demise on the runaways of Roissy-Charles DeGaulle airport in 1998.) Presumably, the South Africa gave all of the folks in Buckley's tour a ''white-is-right"high that lasted the rest of the trip.
Like the Bingley sisters in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, William F. Buckley felt "entitled" to think well of himself and meanly of everyone else.
The wreckage of Buckley's modern conservative movement is all round us. Billions of the world's population survive on less than $ 2 a day. According to an article in the current issue of Newsweek, the going wage rate in many parts of India - 25 cents a day - a driving young men into gangsterism. (The same applies in Mexico and Somalia.) We face a massive financial crisis in this country, caused by the laissez-faire attitude of Buckley economics. And at the time I am writing this, Los Angeles has 90 plus temperatures and a wildcat fire is burning large areas of Santa Barbara, just two symptoms of global warming. Unless we do something to stop the carbon emissions - there will be Buckley legacy to discuss because there will be no planet.
I can't help but think of Martin Luther King's quote once again, and I can't help wondering if Dante would have added a 10th ring to the Inferno just to accommodate Buckley and his hyper-rich, hyper-greedy friends.

I did reluctantly admire William Buckley until I learned that he had left his illegitimate grandson out of his will. "I intentionally make no provision herein for said Jonathan, who for all purposes . . . shall be deemed to have predeceased me," Buckley's will says. Buckley's estate, worth tens of millions of dollars, was left to his only son, Christopher and Christopher's two older children. The boy, Jonathan, is only eight years-old. Apparently, he had the audacity to be born in the Buckley family without permission.

Christopher Buckley agreed to pay $3000 a month for child support, but he refuses to have anything to do with his youngest child. Jonathan's mother is forbidden to have any direct contact with Christopher.

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Posted By: JimProbst @ 05/11/2009 3:19:12 PM

I find it significant that the Editor of Newsweek finds this an "Important" book. Not entertaining, or well-written, or mildly enlightening, but Important. To me this seems to indicate a rather limited, parochial, and (in my opinion) inflated view of the value of the East Coast elite class. It does make me wonder about other editorial decisions he may have made. (On the other hand, I liked the recent Cat Stevens story.)
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Posted By: Mwalimu @ 05/07/2009 6:35:13 PM

MAY 7
"Dives didn???t go to hell because he was rich; Dives didn???t realize that his wealth was his opportunity. It was his opportunity to bridge the gulf that separated him from his brother, Lazarus. Dives went to hell because he passed by Lazarus every day and never really saw him. He went to hell because he allowed his brother to become invisible. Dives went to hell because he maximized the minimum and minimized the maximum. Indeed Dives went to hell because he sought to be a conscientious objector in the war against poverty. "
This quote by Martin Luther King pretty well describes the life and attitude of William F. Buckley. For all the glitter and stardom, Buckley made a conscious attempt to ignore the Lazarus outside of his gated community of sycophants and admirers.
He opposed Civil Rights legislation. He applauded the brutal regime of Augusto Pinochet, even though Pinochet overthrew a democratically elected government in Chile. Even though the apartheid regime of South Africa brutally murdered Stephen Bantu Biko, a civil rights activist, Buckley found nothing wrong with making South Africa a port of call on one of his famous round-the-world tours on a personally-chartered gas-guzzling Concorde SST jet. (The fuel-inefficient Concorde eventually met its final demise on the runaways of Roissy-Charles DeGaulle airport in 1998.) Presumably, the South Africa gave all of the folks in Buckley's tour a ''white-is-right"high that lasted the rest of the trip.
Like the Bingley sisters in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, William F. Buckley felt "entitled" to think well of himself and meanly of everyone else.
The wreckage of Buckley's modern conservative movement is all round us. Billions of the world's population survive on less than $ 2 a day. According to an article in the current issue of Newsweek, the going wage rate in many parts of India - 25 cents a day - a driving young men into gangsterism. (The same applies in Mexico and Somalia.) We face a massive financial crisis in this country, caused by the laissez-faire attitude of Buckley economics. And at the time I am writing this, Los Angeles has 90 plus temperatures and a wildcat fire is burning large areas of Santa Barbara, just two symptoms of global warming. Unless we do something to stop the carbon emissions - there will be Buckley legacy to discuss because there will be no planet.
I can't help but think of Martin Luther King's quote once again, and I can't help wondering if Dante would have added a 10th ring to the Inferno just to accommodate Buckley and his hyper-rich, hyper-greedy friends.
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- Report Abuse
Posted By: bjsassy @ 05/07/2009 12:14:46 PM

I did reluctantly admire William Buckley until I learned that he had left his illegitimate grandson out of his will. "I intentionally make no provision herein for said Jonathan, who for all purposes . . . shall be deemed to have predeceased me," Buckley's will says. Buckley's estate, worth tens of millions of dollars, was left to his only son, Christopher and Christopher's two older children. The boy, Jonathan, is only eight years-old. Apparently, he had the audacity to be born in the Buckley family without permission.

Christopher Buckley agreed to pay $3000 a month for child support, but he refuses to have anything to do with his youngest child. Jonathan's mother is forbidden to have any direct contact with Christopher.