Power Of Invective Poem by gershon hepner

Although we love the power of invective,
considering messages when words are kind
and decent overwhelmingly defective,
we should avoid it if we aren’t frontlined.
Far better to use captivating charm
than curse the darkness of the wits that, dull,
aren’t sharp enough to understand the harm
they do themselves by living in their skull.

Inspired by William Kristol’s tribute to William Buckley, among who claims to fame was his program “Frontline”. In the NYT on March 3,2008 (“The Indispensable Man”) , Kristol describes the Buckley-inspired political button Kristol had worn while in school, “Don’t let THEM immanentize the Eschaton, ” and the dinner that Buckley had with Larry Perelman a days before he died:
Perelman was scheduled to play Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations Wednesday night, so he joined Bill for dinner the evening before to discuss the performance. They resolved the issue of how Perelman would handle the repeats in the Diabelli to their mutual satisfaction. They talked about music and politics and friends, to the accompaniment of a recording of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, Bill’s favorite. It’s fitting that Bill’s last evening was filled with music and graced by friendship, both of which gave him so much joy. It’s fitting that he spent it with someone who had sought Bill out because of his uncompromising defense of freedom, the lodestar for his political and intellectual efforts. It was a fitting end to an admirable life.
In The Weekly Standard,3/10/08 (William F. Buckley Jr.,1925-2008: What he fought for”) , Kristol wrote:
Many of the tributes have emphasized his charm and civility, his generosity and decency-all qualities he had in spades. But Buckley was also a fighter. From the beginning, he wasn't deterred by the extraordinary odds against him. Early on, he beat back crude attempts to deligitimize his efforts. And after he had established enough of a beachhead that frontal assaults against conservatism couldn't succeed, he parried subsequent efforts to weaken his forces or blunt their effect. Buckley fought through to victory-to as great a victory as was possible. He preferred to use his rapier-like wit, but he could pull out the heavy artillery when he needed to. In a letter to Willmoore Kendall, the philosopher Leo Strauss once referred admiringly to Buckley's 'great power of invective.' Buckley, in one column, could combine captivating charm with ferocious polemic-and this combination was a source of his lasting appeal to the young.


3/3/08