The American Spectator

The Nation's Pulse

(Page 2 of 2)

br> THE SPECTACLE EVOKES sorrow and pity to this day. I will indulge in a preposterous bout of speculation and presumption here. I had brilliant friend in college, too, and we were separated shortly thereafter, and I never saw him again. For me, and, I think, for Buckley, our friends were therefore preserved in the glittering amber of eternal youth.

For William F. Buckley, who died week before last, I think that memory served him well as he appointed successors to carry on his life's work with National Review. In 1997, Buckley chose the-then 28-year-old Rich Lowry to be editor of NR. Lowry describes himself as "young, inexperienced" at the time, in his Editor's Note to the memorial edition to WFB of National Review.

Indeed he was. He had graduated from the University of Virginia in 1990. At college, he had edited a monthly conservative magazine. He joined NR in 1992, as his bio notes, "after finishing second in a National Review writers' contest." He became the magazine's articles editor, then moved to Washington, D.C. to cover Congress.

I thought at the time -- greatly presuming, as I have said -- that something about Lowry reminded Buckley of his great good friend Bozell. Buckley himself was, throughout his life, perpetually youthful. It does not have to be so.

But how good it is, no matter the reason, that Buckley turned his enterprise over to a man of about the same age and achievements as himself when he started what Lowry calls "his dear magazine." Long may it wave.

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Catholicism, Books, Law