We lost a very good man…

Rest in Peace, Tony Snow.

May God bless all that went into the making of such a decent, warm, kind, dedicated and consistent soul, and may His hand be with all those who loved you, and struggle with the loss that will be your absence.  Until that day on far shore, Mr. Snow…Godspeed!

“When hearts, whose truth was proven,

Like thine, are laid in earth,

There should a wreath be woven

To tell the world their worth;”

-Fitz-Greene Halleck

The passing of a hero

Wow. Lot’s of talk of heros lately.

I lost a personal one in Mr. Buckley.

When I was in college, way back in the “me” decade of the 80’s, I don’t think I could have gotten through it without him.

Here I was, a PR student in a journalism school; a republican amongst protest-pining democrats, yearning for days gone by, and growing longer in tooth. Myself,  a “country boy” who knew very little about “big city” ideas and so-called “progressiveness”.

I was no progressive; but I knew (and still know) right from wrong.

Had it not been for “Up from Liberalism”, I don’t know if I’d have made it (well, I would have, but completely alone against the world).

His work was reminder to me that another world did still exist. A world outside that prison.

Buckley is and was an American hero.

His command of the English language, his viper-fast wit and his incredible vocabulary is legendary, and in my own, small mind, rivals only Winston Churchill. Buckley “might” argue that point, of course; but as a writer myself, from the standpoint of sheer mechanics and unrivaled command, there were few I respected so as Churchill – Buckley was one of those few.

With quick wit and iron consternation, he was a pillar for the conservative cause and a real hero among mortal men who seem forever unerring in their vast challenges to God, and those who follow Him.

I’ve been data mining a bit this evening and have seen posts that say such things as “the end of an era”, and that there is, to quote the rock stars, “a bad moon rising” in the political arena.

There can be no doubt that extreme strife is ahead. It always looms.

I think it a testimony to Mr. Buckley that the conservative cause is alive and well. His paper and his columns were always there, and we were and are, one and all, conscious of them.

He paved the way for the Limbaugh’s, the Coulter’s and the Crowley’s of today’s loyal opposition who are of this ilk we bear.

We are still strong, but we owe a tremendous debt to William F. Buckley.

To pay that debt, we must carry this conservative mantle, and carry the S.O.B. at its highest staff.

As conservatives, let us make certain that the spirit embodied by Bill Buckley endures, and endures for ever and a day.

Like Buckley to Vidal, I sincerely hope we will continue to give those libs absolute and utter hell at every turn of their impudent screw.

Rest well, bro. Buckley. May you and God discuss these mortal men and “Yaleys” over dinner and brandy on this day, and those many, many days to come!

“Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder’d”