Ira and Bill

Huffington Post in 2011: Former American Civil Liberties Union head Ira Glasser remembers William F. Buckley, Jr. An excerpt:

One more thing must be said, and it was his most attractive quality: he was, on a personal level, an uncommonly kind and gracious man, and a good and loyal friend. I cannot say I was his intimate friend, but in the years I knew him, I saw him on a great many occasions, as a dinner guest, a travel companion, a debating colleague and an adversary. I was there at many a salon, where he enjoyed a social evening of good food, drink and spirited discussion. I saw him with peers, and I saw him with employees. I saw how he behaved with me, and how he behaved with my wife. He was, unfailingly, kind, graceful, and attentive. As imperious as he could be -- and relished being -- in his public persona, that is how unassuming and sensitive to others he was privately. I have known more than a few people in my decades of public life who took exemplary positions on the abstract questions of human rights, but were terrible people privately. Buckley was the opposite: I deplored many of his public positions and thought their consequences cruel and insensitive; but in private he was wonderful and decent and generous to those around him. He was, therefore, a good friend, in a way I never imagined was possible when we first began our series of public policy debates over 30 years ago. I shall miss him.