Sheldon Richman on the passing of William F. Buckley Jr.:
Looking over his rich biography, I can’t help but take away the impression that one of his goals in life was to make the pro-liberty, anti-state movement safe – unthreatening to the establishment. …
The primary consequence of his long career (which included a stint in the CIA) was to seduce budding radical libertarians into an insipid “hip” conservatism that functioned largely as a defender of big business and the intrusive national-security state.
To be fair, Buckley did speak some truth to power in his last years, though not when his dissent could have made a real difference.