William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008)

It is one of those headlines or emails that comes across your screen and feels like a punch in the gut.  I was aware that his health was failing but you just don't think about losing someone like this until it happens.  And then it hits you that the world is somehow different.  It feels like the end of an era.

WFB, as he was often known, changed the face of American conservatism and politics like few others.  And like millions of others it was his writing, persona, and magazine that lead me to conservatism.  I own all of his books and have read them all excepting his last (Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription)

His range was remarkable.  He wrote political polemics; syndicated columns; unique memoirs; books on sailing, language, and faith; and novels.  He singlehandedly changed the perception of what conservatism could be.  And in the process changed America.

RIP.