Jonah, re Alvin Felzenberg on the “void Bill Buckley left,” I agree there’s plenty of funny guys around. What I think Mr. Felzenberg is getting at is an urbanity and wit that gave him a luster way beyond politics. See here, for example: Bill with Brigitte Bardot.
I’m not sure who the 2013 equivalent of Bébé is, but I can’t see whoever she is being thrilled to be photographed in a nightclub with you or me or even John Podhoretz. And, in some vague unquantifiable way, I think that’s a bit of a loss. You notice that the lefties don’t mind Rush being on his own show or turning up on Fox News, but they go bananas when he judges Miss America or does a guest shot on “The Family Guy.” They want a world in which the price of avowed conservatism is exclusion from the broader culture: Bill Buckley cocked a snook at that, very stylishly, for half-a-century.