William F. Buckley may have died before completing that final column his son said he appeared to be working on, but in death Buckley was vibrantly declarative. While Buckley is said to have husbanded the conservative zeitgeist of at least three decades, the reactions to his passing elucidate the begrudging insularity of today's conservative ethos-or, rather that of self-identified conservatives. Indeed, when the standard-bearers of the Right were faced with the inconvenience of eulogizing their erstwhile comrade, they culled (cherry picked, if you will) Buckley's challenge to their most dogged positions on the paramount issues of today: Iraq and Iran.

The discordance between Buckley's conservatism and today's movement has been widely noted, and that incongruity is indeed put into focus with his passing. And it would not have been surprising to see the opinionati of the Right suitably downplay Buckley's dissenting opinions. But a graceful downplaying of Buckley's defections eluded them. Instead, it has delivered a whitewash. Such disregard of Buckley's positions, which he clearly arrived at with reticence, is difficult to justify. And yet Buckley (had he been able to observe the epilogue to his final chapter) may have viewed such mischaracterization with aplomb, humor or the almost mournful detachment with which he seemed to view the world in his final years.

Neo-what?

Buckley eventually delivered blunt criticism of President Bush and the Iraq War. And while it is true that he came to conclude that Bush was not a conservative, at other times he demurred on that point, elliptically saying that Bush failed to adhere to conservative precepts but was himself a conservative.

Buckley's hand wringing on that score may have been beside the point. It is true that some conservatives today have held that the Iraq war and the zeal that prevailed in the run-up to the invasion represent only a fringe of the Right, namely the neoconservatives, which Buckley was straightforwardly critical of. In an interview with Bloomberg in March 2006, he said

The neoconservative hubris, which sort of assigns to America some kind of geo-strategic responsibility for maximizing democracy, overstretches the resources of a free country.

But it would appear, conversely, that the true luminaries of the Right have become the fringe group, conversing with and animating each other, arriving at incisive commentary on foreign policy that is then disregarded by the mainstream right-and the left. Such conservatives may be prominent, but they do not seem to be penetrating culturally beyond their eclectic constituencies.

And while the neoconservatives as a group, and as individual members, have lost considerable prestige given the ongoing failure in Iraq, many of their ideas remain trenchant to many Americans today. The conflation of neoconservatism and still-ascendant American nationalism continues to have a broad, almost pop-culture appeal. And that conflation characterizes today's rank-and-file Right, rather than the more salient observances of realists and others on the hazards of expending the nation's superpower collateral.

The Whitewash

The National Review is not only one of the leading megaphones of today's Right, it is also the magazine that Buckley founded and of which he remained stalwartly proud up to his last days, despite the probing of many interviewers to the contrary. Yet in the final years, Buckley also revealed a seeming mournfulness about the change of the guard at the magazine, by equating the advent of a new editor with the inevitability of death-a statement that was open to interpretation.

Importantly, the magazine that purports to have been much in thrall with Buckley's ideas failed to reflect his significant positions on Iraq, Iran and neoconservatism in its remembrance of him. While Buckley ruminated about potential failure in Iraq as early as 2004, it was his column of February 24, 2006, titled (unequivocally), "It Didn't Work," that has generated much commentary. "One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed," wrote Buckley, and added:

Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.

He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.

Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.

And in a July 22, 2006, interview with CBS's Thalia Assuras, Buckley asserted: "If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced [in Iraq] it would be expected that he would retire or resign." In the same interview, Buckley also took exception with some of the more alarmist assertions on Iran, rejecting a preemptive air strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. He said: "If we find there is a warhead there that is poised, the range of it is tested, then we have no alternative. But pending that, we have to ask ourselves, 'What would the Iranian population do?'"

Importantly, The National Review's online retrospective of Buckley is bereft of any of his signature dissent, even though the magazine's own editor, Richard Lowry, has parted company with the mainstream Right on some aspects of the Iraq campaign. In its "WFB Chrestomathy, The briefest Tour," by NRO Staff, it says: "Many collections have and will be compiled of the late William F. Buckley Jr.'s writing. Here is a brief and somewhat random starting point, review, or diversion for the fan or newcomer, focusing on his writing on the academy, where it all started, and the Cold War, which he helped end."

But the reader can be forgiven if NRO's chrestomathy seems something other than altogether random. After quoting Buckley generously under the subheads "Higher Education" and "Cold War" it offers an "Other Topics" subhead, in which it provides its only quote by Buckley on Iraq and a few lines from an interview with Playboy on the durability of dogmas. That solitary quote on Iraq reads:

Syndicated column, September 14, 2001:

‘The word to Saddam Hussein should be: We are coming into Baghdad. We will arrive in force, together with Pakistani and Egyptian and Russian military units. Your aggressive war of 1990 and your shelter of terrorist units ever since make you an enemy.
From now on, enemies who are associated with terrorist activity will not cohabit the globe with the United States of America.'

Indeed, NRO does not in that space highlight any of the deceased's subsequent, and therefore more significant, positions on Iraq, the Bush administration or neoconservatism. And importantly, in an online discussion on Wednesday at washingtonpost.com, John Miller, national political reporter for the National Review, characterized Buckley's positions on Iraq: "I believe it's fair to say that WFB supported the invasion of Iraq and began to have misgivings about the result that led him to reconsider the whole enterprise-but that he also supported the troops surge. Last year, he made a personal contribution to the presidential campaign of John McCain."

While Miller's portrayal may not be factually inaccurate, he does seem to be soft-pedaling Buckley's characterization of Iraq as a failure. And the last statement seems like the rhetorical equivalent of kicking up sand. Just what was the significance of a personal contribution to McCain and how does it relate to his beliefs on Iraq? Miller does not elaborate.

The Right should accurately describe the spirit, tone and diction of Buckley's late writings on Iraq and other important matters, not because they render him unimpeachable but rather because they are a critical element of his body of work. Although he erred on civil-rights legislation-to his deep and stated regret-he corrected his position on Iraq earlier than many of his brethren. Still, even if Buckley is appropriated, or misappropriated, by the right, he may not have taken it too badly. He was cordial, even to a fault. Even when he revised his positions on Iraq and indicted Bush's performance there, he rather curiously said Cheney was misled by the CIA on WMD in Iraq-the same Cheney that put pressure on the agency to legitimate intelligence that was uncorroborated. One wonders of this was due to some personal bonhomie between the two. And Buckley acknowledged in his eighth decade that he took most pleasure in writing his works of fiction, not politics. May he rest in peace, and his dissent continue to pique and enliven.

Editor's Note: John Miller issued a correction on his comments about Buckley, which are quoted above. The correction makes our case stronger because Buckley never supported the surge.

Ximena Ortiz is a senior editor at The National Interest.