DEBOUCHING.(The Talk of the Town)(Buckley)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 15-NOV-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

The driving directions to the Buckley residence overlooking Long Island Sound, in Stamford, include a caveat--the Buckleys being Yale people--for those travelling from New Haven: "You will need to turn left on debouching from I-95." It's a small, slightly anachronistic touch, and one that illustrates nicely the contrast between the mannered, Blue State conservatism of the author, William F., and the gruff, Red State conservatism of the recently reelected President, George W., another Yale man.

Make no mistake: despite his public misgivings about the Iraq endeavor, and about the growth of (big-"G") government during the current term, Buckley was for Bush. Now seventy-eight and in the retirement phase of his career (he recently relinquished his ownership stake in National Review, the opinion journal that he founded in 1955), Buckley was in Manhattan on Election Night to host a small gathering--"the people who were there are well renowned and disparate"--at his East Seventy-third Street town house, as he has...

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