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William F. Buckley died today at the age of 82.

When I was an undergraduate, I read “God & Man at Yale,” his first treatise on the role of the university in shaping public discourse, morality and conscience.

The book was published in 1951, little more than a year after his graduation from Yale. It was his first shot over the bow of liberalism as it had evolved in the post-New Deal era. There would be many others. As a student in the mid-1970′s, however, it seemed to me that his prescriptions had little effect on academic life.

But that was Bill Buckley – always something of an anachronism with his patrician speech (he was actually a Catholic) and high-falutin’ vocabulary. Along with politicians like the Kennedys or artists like Mailer and Dylan, Buckley, founder of “The National Review,” host of the popular “Firing Line,” was a fixture of a very seminal age.

In time, his work and influence would be felt when conservatives finally came into their own with the election of Ronald Reagan on 1980.

American conservatism has come a long way down since then. An individualist in the vein of Ayn Rand and a believer in the power of free markets, I’m not so sure that Buckley was totally comfortable with the rise of the religious right, corporate corruption, the politics of fear and the unchecked power of the executive branch.

He took a lot of positions that he eventually changed. A foe of voting rights during the civil rights struggles of the 60′s, he later repented of that view. He also admitted to trying marijuana – just the once, mind you – on his yacht, beyond the territorial waters of the US.

And that was his special charm: as much as he valued tradition and orthodoxy, he could still learn a thing or two.