JOHNNY CARSON - WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY DEAD AT 82

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY DEAD AT 82

Conservative commentator William F. Buckley, who hosted TV's Firing Line from 1966 to 1999, died Wednesday at age 82. His body was found slumped over the desk in the study of his home in Stamford, CT. The cause of death was not immediately determined, although he had reportedly been suffering from emphysema and diabetes. Three years before Buckley shut it down, Firing Line became television's longest running program with a single host, beating out the Tonight show with Johnny Carson. Controversial and iconoclastic to the end, Buckley infuriated fellow conservatives in recent years by his condemnation of the Iraq war and his expressions of scorn for President Bush, who, he said, lacked an "effective conservative ideology."

28/02/2008