I certainly don't blame any conspiracy, either, but, rather, a uniform desire that Rand should go away, or, perhaps, has already gone away, without the need for much consideration.

(edit.: And let's not forget Rand's influence on Rush Limbaugh, for what it's worth, either.)

However, I do believe in lazy reporters.  I bet these tributes and obits can be traced back to one or two op eds. 

A lot of the tributes and obits to Buckley state that Rand was "drummed out" of the conservative movement by Buckley in 1957(!)

Rand never considered herself a conservative -- and better than half don't even get this -- and they all make it sound as if her influence was thereby snuffed -- and all by Buckley proclamation. However, AFTER the infamous Chambers review of Atlas Shrugged, no less a conservative than Ronald Reagan described himself as an "admirer" of Rand in his personal correspondence in the 1960s, and, in office, would go on to appoint men like Martin Anderson and Alan Greenspan to important positions.

Represented exactly what Rand was warning about at the time.  Conservatives cannot stop collectivism, because at the heart of their religion altruism is the core value.  I think he disliked her because she made his irrationality so evident.  He prided himself on being the defender of reason, which is hard to do when this damn Russian keeps pointing out the fact that his philosophy is irrational and eventually leads to collectivism.  People like WFB will never be able to defend capitalism, and as long as they try, and are associated with capitalism, they will hurt the cause of capitalism.  Because of him, capitalism is associated with segregation and authoritarianism.  Did he help our cause?  Not in the slightest.

Cool name there, Lord Algernon, but I suspect Buckley only lusted after and envied her many enthusiastic, young admirers.

I'm just done watching that too. I cheered when the current editor of National Review said "libertarians" hate that Chambers review to this day.

I also loved the bit about Reagan's 10 pages of handwritten notes under Buckley's bedroom door on some obscure point of monetary policy.

"Freedom. Faith. Family." Ferk!!

His obsession with Rand is interesting indeed. One has to wonder if Buckley didn't secretly lust after her. It has often been said that hate is not the opposite of love. Clearly Buckley's resentment of Rand may have simply been the fact that Rand never would have touched him even if he was the last man on earth.

Interestingly enough, I just came up with this theory. I wonder why I didn't think of it sooner.

"Hey Bill, do you get excited by Rand's Russian accent?" "Do you take photos of her into the bathroom?"

Peter Brimelow had a good assessement of him.

http://www.vdare.com/pb/080228_buckley.htm 

I don't agree with the web site on some issues, but he writes from a great deal of personal experience. He goes into some shady financial dealings within the family (no surprise). He also suggests that Buckley may have taken to drinking later in life. A lady who used to work for FEE also suggested to me that Buckley was a drunk.

Buckley was born rich and never held a real job. He wasn't that smart and used big words to hide that.

Whatever can be said is that his impact on the US was nothing worthwhile. Have taxes decreased since 1955? Has spending decreased?

Just listen to Fox News Channel's "tribute" to Buckley, "Right from the Start," which includes the story of how WFB soo wisely "beat back" Ayn Rand's influence -- and they were explicit about this -- in order to gain wide political acceptance.

They ignore Rand's influence on the pre-Buckley Right, and they don't make it clear that Rand was never originally "part" of any "conservative" movement, and never wanted to be -- but their commentator did admit that NL had once implied that Rand -- the most consistent and passionate advocate individual liberty ever had -- was a totalitarian. (We saw in the link below how Buckley himself threatened violence when he was the victim of the same kind of attack.)

Well, if his death is the occasion to slam Rand around, then my gloves are off, too.

The man was the one of the most overrated intellects of our time -- a lush -- and the lowest order of slime.

Discovered this post and my opinion about this posturer has changed. As Edward Cline rightfully comments, " A Destroyer is gone" and furthermore...

This was the respect Buckley showed for Rand after she died.

She was an eloquent and persuasive anti-statist, and if
only she had left it at that, but no. She had to declare that God did
not exist, that altruism was despicable, that only self-interest was
good and noble.

In short, his animus for Rand was based
essentially on her refusing to relegate reason in the role of
handmaiden of theology, on her divorcing reality from mysticism, on her
“anti-statism” integrating an “eternal vigilance” against any tyranny
over the mind of man as well as over his body. Let no one doubt that
Buckley understood Rand’s philosophy to the core, that he feared it,
and chose as his weapon against it the Toohey-esqe tactic of snickering
laughter. For that reason alone, he should be damned and no respectful
esteem granted him.

Earlier in that article, he remarked that the “philosophy she sought to launch” is dead.

He
was wrong about that philosophy. Objectivism, or a philosophy of
reason, is making progress in the culture. It is alive and well, as
William F. Buckley is not.

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.- - Robert Green Ingersoll

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And, on the other hand, didn't he also want to legalize pot?

Scratch a "conservative"...

Dec 3, 2007:

"Half a year ago my wife died, technically from an infection, but manifestly, at least in part, from a body weakened by 60 years of nonstop smoking. I stayed off the cigarettes but went to the idiocy of cigars inhaled, and suffer now from emphysema, which seems determined to outpace heart disease as a human killer. Stick me in a confessional and ask the question: Sir, if you had the authority, would you forbid smoking in America? You'd get a solemn and contrite, Yes."

As I wrote on another thread about Buckley becoming so sensitive when called by Gore Vidal a "crypto-Nazi":

"Well, National Review had already done much the same thing to Ayn Rand. 'To the gas chambers go!' Vidal's argument was no better than Chambers' or Buckley's [was then].

But it summoned from Buckley what he regarded as a responsive 'ad hominem,' viz: 'queer.' (Had Buckley had that drink thrown in his face when he called Vidal 'a goddamned queer,' yet?)

"Yeah, just like 'Nazi.'"