Very intelligent, highly intellectual, articulate, and a pleasure to read, event though I disagreed with him more often than not. His debates with Chomsky were a delight, a meeting of two sharp minds with highly divergent views, dealing with each other in a respectful forum. The kind of conservative I wish there was more of.

  Although his reasoning and arguments were consistently specious, he certainly had a higher  intellect than the infestation of right-wing pundit-sociopaths we have currently. Of course, there was always a reptillian quality about him that could be unnerving; when he'd raise his eyebrows at a guest and smile that gelid, rictus-like grin, I always thought he might be better off auditioning for the mad-doctor role in a Hammer horror film than discussing politics with the likes of Norman Mailer or Noam Chomsky. Ironically enough, Buckley took up the cause of murderer Edgar Smith in NJ for decades. Smith, a brilliant psychopath, murdered a teenaged girl in Mahwah who refused to have sex with him. He was convicted and sentenced to death, all the while protesting his innocence. Smith was eloquent and wrote several books while on Trenton's Death Row protesting his conviction, evidently convincing Buckley. I recall reading an interview with Truman Capote done in the late 60's in which the interviewer asked Capote about Buckley's "cause". Capote sneered and remarked (and I'm paraphrasing), "Of course Smith killed the girl. Bill should know better." Smith was able to obtain his release in the early 1970's and moved to California. In 1976 (I think) he attempted to abduct another girl. Thankfully, she was able to escape and alerted the authorities, and Smith was arrested by the police. He confessed his guilt, and also told them, "And I'm also guilty of killing that girl in Mahwah." He was sentenced to life imprisonment (I've read that, although in poor health, he still consistently challenges the legal system and authorities). Buckley wrote one article at the time about his ill-fated association with Smith, and I don't believe he ever mentioned it again (at least to me he didn't; I sent him an email once about it and he never responded). Not to say that he's to be condemned for an error in judgement; Norman Mailer made a similar error when he advocated the cause of imprisoned killer Jack Henry Abbott. Still, considering that his political opinions were as "sound" as his advocacy of Smith's innocence, I still say he should have gone for an acting job as Colin Clive's mad grandfather in an updated version of "Frankenstein" (Rush Limbaugh could have played his demented assistant Fritz...only in the updated version he's a drug-addicted pus-bag as opposed to a hunchback).

Wrote about fifty books, founded the National Review at 29, and fathered a political movement.  I don't think his intellect is debatable.

In fact, William Buckley was an intellect. Myself not being an intellectual, reading and watching Buckley was educational for sure. There were some classic debates against Liberal icons Gore Vital and Norm Cromsky, I felt that Buckley won some of those exchanges, I've debated Loerke on a few occasions, how many times did we go off on a tangent, what happened to Chomsky was a debate tactic. The question of whether the United States was and is an imperial power is a exhausting discussion. When it comes to brilliance, WB was a very bright man who spoke three languages, was an accomplished pianist and a very good debater. How can you not admire a guy who sailed out to international waters so he could smoke a joint.

Buckley helped to build an image of '60s idealists, such as those who advanced the causes of civil rights and peace, as scruffy and uncivilized. That falsification of the '60s did, in a sense, reveal Buckley's true talent, though anyone who listens to him today should be able to see through that falsity. While Buckley was -- as his questions on Firing Line revealed -- incapable of grasping a complex idea, he could certainly turn a good sentence or two, which endeared him to those uneducated neanderthal conservatives whose ideas were identical to his own but lacked expressive refinement. My theory is that Buckley learned more from Sigmund Freud than anyone else: he had a smart way of persistently missing the point in order to pursue little detours that had nothing to do with the subject. For example, he once quizzed Noam Chomsky for about twenty minutes on how he regarded himself, preventing Chomsky from talking about the real-world issue he was there to talk about: Vietnam. I'm sure that Freud would have agreed with Buckley in thinking that the hippies just hated their dads. Insulated from reality, Buckley never said much to impress me. Though not brilliant, Buckley was just smart enough to make us believe he was.

Loved him as the smart and erudite gremlin in Gremlins 2. (I know... that was Tony Randall.) Pretentious, but certainly very intelligent.

Damn smart. . .decent writer. . .strong use of the language. . .don't agree with everything he says, but Bucks has a strong intellect. . .

Very bright indeed. He uses obscure words and convoluted grammar because he is a pompous ass, like most heirs of great inherited wealth (his father was a wealthy oil baron) and was educated in exculsive European and Ivy Schools in the 40s, just before the 'Plebian invasions'.

He uses big words, but probably not as bright as he thinks he is.

I once took exception to his argument that because his opponent did not want to stop smoking pot that pot was therefore addictive. I haven't studied him in depth but I truly feel that his halting, apathetic moan does neither proves nor enhances his arguments. BMcNee

Probably the best conservative intellectualism had to offer, which may explain his leftward turn late in his life.