A true leader in the raising of conservatism in the mind of modern America, William F. Buckley, Jr., died today at the age of 82.

His story is impressive, and his death brings to mind the dearth of true intellectuals currently involved in the formation of political thought on a wide scale. He stated it much better.

“I am, I fully grant, a phenomenon, but not because of any speed in composition,” he wrote in The New York Times Book Review in 1986. “I asked myself the other day, `Who else, on so many issues, has been so right so much of the time?’ I couldn’t think of anyone.”