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March 19, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details
JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel
March 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America?
JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review March 4, 2008 / 27 Adar I 5768

Buckley lives

By Kathryn Lopez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | When larger-than-life William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the magazine I love and the movement I am devoted to, died while working in his study Feb. 27, he left behind a thriving conservative movement.


You might think I'm crazy for using the word "thriving." I don't blame you. After all, didn't Newsweek just announce with a "There Will Be Blood" cover that right-wing, talk-radio hosts are devoted to destroying the Republican nominee for president? Didn't conservatives just fail in an overhyped quest for "the next Ronald Reagan"? Aren't some popular, right-leaning op-ed writers going for the jugular, admonishing political and ideological teammates to "grow up," quit the "temper tantrum" and just support John McCain for president?


Sure, that's all true. It's not always a happy family on the right side of the political spectrum. But those vital signs do not indicate a stagnant movement.


On the contrary, the Republican presidential primary (which, for all purposes, has been over since Mitt Romney dropped out at the beginning of February) was bursting with conservative life. As I was trying to wrap Christmas presents, colleagues were eagerly calling and asking, "Did you hear what Rush said today?" The king of talk radio was criticizing McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for their statist tendencies, while praising Fred Thompson and ultimately embracing Romney for his conservative policies and uplifting rhetoric about American exceptionalism. Rush Limbaugh may not have "won" in the end, inasmuch as McCain wasn't his preferred candidate, but he also wasn't playing a game with a scoreboard. He was reflecting on conservative principles. He was doing what he does every day; he was applying his basic political philosophy to real-life politics.


He was asking himself, "What would Bill Buckley do?"


In a conversation with Limbaugh a few months back, talking about issues long and short term, he told me that that's exactly the question everyone who calls himself a conservative should be asking. Not because we're unrealistically deifying our now-deceased friend and mentor, as some have accused us of doing with Ronald Reagan, but because Buckley was a founder, practitioner and teacher of this thing we call conservatism. His speeches, columns, magazine and books sought to answer one central question. What is Right here?


Buckley was never a Republican Party man so much as he was a conservative, always thinking about fundamental principles. So if Republicans in general, or one Republican candidate in particular, veered off course, it was his role to point that out; to criticize, publicly or privately; to offer guides for the practical application of that philosophy. In other words, what Limbaugh routinely does on his radio show. It's what writers at National Review do from their laptops. It's what thinking conservatives do and debate -- on a blog site, at a think tank or inside a conservative Capitol Hill office.


Conservatives are forever accused of being backward. We are supposedly anti-science because we've opposed human cloning and federal funding of research that destroys human embryos. We're accused of being anti-sex because we encourage personal responsibility, self-respect and fundamentals like marriage. In truth, we can't stop thinking about tomorrow -- what consequences may arise from our decisions today. We're trying to do what Buckley did. As he wrote in his publisher's statement in the first issue of National Review, we're "standing athwart history, yelling 'Stop!'"


Buckley has inspired three generations of conservatives, now with a string of proven, historic results under our belts. We've got our issues, sure. We've got policy battles, even among ourselves on the Right, but we're alive and kicking. And the words that Buckley wrote in the first issue of National Review are as true today as they were then: "We offer, besides ourselves, a position that has not grown old under the weight of a gigantic, parasitic bureaucracy, a position untempered by the doctoral dissertations of a generation of Ph.D.s in social architecture, unattenuated by a thousand vulgar promises to a thousand different pressure groups, uncorroded by a cynical contempt for human freedom. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaves us just about the hottest thing in town."


So don't mistake the death of a legend with a rich legacy as the end of conservatism. For those of us who read, listened and learned from William F. Buckley Jr., there is work to do. He did what his talents and beliefs required of him, and so must we. Miles have gone by for conservatism, but there are miles to go yet.

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