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My high school threatened to withhold my diploma if I didn't return my overdue copy of The Governor Listeth (along with Milton Friedman's Free to Choose) to the school library. Buckley was an enormous influence -- even if he obviously didn't immediately teach me the importance of respecting my school library's property rights -- and his death is a great loss to a conservative movement that needs more wit, sophistication, and independence. It's an even greater loss to the many conservatives, young and old, who felt his influence more directly. The task falls to them (us?) to conserve what he built.

UPDATE: The Associated Press has a nice obituary.