Lee Edwards
Introduction of William F. Buckley Jr.

40th Gala National Meeting,
The Philadelphia Society
April 30, 2004

            Is it possible to say anything about Bill Buckley that has not been said before?  Well, Did You Ever See a Dream Walking? or Airborne? Racing Through Paradise? At Cruising Speed--or perhaps on Overdrive?

            Then you've had a glimpse, however fleeting, of our keynote speaker.

He's a polymathical man: Saving the Queen, Searching for Anti-Semitism, Rumbling Left and Right, Unmaking a Mayor, Tempting Malachey, Inveighing as he goes.

He's a 24/7 man: with Elvis in the Morning, at Execution Eve, On the Firing Line for more than a quarter of a century.

He's fond of High Jinx and Stained Glass, and ready for Marco Polo If You Can....imagine it.  

He's a faithful man, often found with A Hymnal, murmuring Nearer, My God.

He's a Redhunter with a Jeweler's Eye, on the lookout for McCarthy and His Enemies.

Spytime is his kind of time, filled with strange and mysterious passwords like See You Later, Alligator and Mongoose, R.I.P.

 He's a conscientious man, proposing Four Reforms, revealing what the Governor Listeth, keeping a United Nations Journal, expressing Gratitude to our Country.   

He's perpetually plotting--a Last Stand for Tucker, a first fall for Blackford Oakes, une histoire pour Henri Tod, all, alas, Brothers No More.

He's a restless man, sometimes in Nuremberg, sometimes on an Atlantic High, sometimes waiting for a WindFall or the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Yes, he's come a long way from God and Man at Yale, but ever ever Up from Liberalism.

Reflecting that Happy Days Were Here Again, our speaker asked the quintessential existential question: Who's on First?

One thing is for certain: He's always Getting It Right, for the Right Reason, and with the Right Word.

How important is Bill Buckley to the modern American conservative movement? Let me borrow from Lech Walesa, who was once asked how crucial the Voice of America and other American media were to the existence of Solidarity. Walesa replied, and I say the same thing about Bill and American conservatism: 

Would there be the earth without the sun?

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow conservatives, the incandescent William F. Buckley Jr.