William F. Buckley was a twentieth-century man with the manner, caste of speech, and political perspective of someone suspended in an Anglophiliac universe of the past, except that his brand of conservative ideology became a dominant force in American political life during the second half of the century he inhabited.

Buckley is widely credited with inspiring and even leading the GOP ascendancy that culminated in Ronald Reagan’s presidency, characterized by right-wing optimism and Newt Gingrich’s nastier style of congressional combat. He was the unquestionable founder of modern right wing rhetoric in the National Review and a succession of books. His brief was so successful that liberals were intimidated into abandoning their own identity, settling instead for being called progressives, the better to match the cadences of Buckley’s conservatives.

But beyond his political impact, the defining fact of Buckley’s life and work was his persona, particularly his ability to make friends among social circles he disagreed with in a spirit that found amity in dinner party debating. His was a generation of intellectual polymaths such as John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and his death probably ends the era in which bonhomie was considered an asset in high-level discourse. As befits the breadth of his talents, Buckley’s writing range also included fiction and memoir. It was his political journalism in print and on the air, however, and an extensive schedule of public lecturing that secured his prominence

One of the best tributes to Buckley came from Stephen Colbert, whose persona on The Colbert Report is based in part, he says, on Buckley. Colbert tells his guests in pre-broadcast conversations that he is not actually a right-wing blowhard but that he is merely impersonating one. What makes Colbert’s satirical edge so effective is that his quickness and wit with words is more like Buckley’s style than any of the oafish right-wing broadcasters he is also channeling. Colbert aired a clip from an April 1969 episode of Firing Line which captured that spirit. Buckley was engaged with linguist Noam Chomsky, who was energetically comparing the United States in Vietnam to Hitler in Central Europe. With a wink, a smile, and a quip, Buckley dismissed the notion. That exchange was followed by a series of quick takes from Bill O’Reilly’s show in which he ordered a succession of guests to shut up and get out.

And therein lays the melancholy aspect of Buckley’s legacy. He was an artifact of a relatively genteel sort. He was literate, good-natured, and personally gracious. I was invited on Firing Line when Buckley visited Vietnam in 1972 and was always flattered that he greeted me by name thereafter on the rare occasions when we met. Notwithstanding his inexcusable early avowal of McCarthyism and his opposition to the Civil Rights movement, Buckley’s approach to the great political issues of the era was reasoned rather than fulminating. He can be credited for making all sides of an argument better by requiring that the people in it defend their point of view. There are some Buckley acolytes around: George Will, Richard Brookheiser, David Brooks, and Rich Lowry come to mind.

But the dominant voices of the Buckley succession are bombastic, aggressive, and mean—O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter, among many others. They are despisers, whose vituperative name-calling regards alternative viewpoints as stupid, venal, or treasonous. The #1 bestseller on the New York Times bestseller list for March 9 is a quintessential example of the genre: Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. It has sold about 50,000 copies in its first two months. Among his chapter headings are “Adolph Hitler: Man of the Left”; and “Brave New Village: Hillary Clinton and the Meaning of Liberal Fascism.” His argument, as summarized in the Washington Post’s review is that “fascists and liberals seek to use the state to solve the problems of modern society.” Goldberg is an editor at the National Review Online. His mother, Lucianne Goldberg, made her name (and gave his a career boost) as the literary agent who urged Linda Tripp to tape her conversations with Monica Lewinsky. As vice-president of his mother’s agency, Goldberg once wrote, he did his time “in the trenches of Clinton’s trousers.”

William F. Buckley is getting a splendid send-off as befits a long life of creative activity, discernible impact on the world around, him and extensive personal outreach. But in passing judgment on his influence, it is also fair to single out the sour side of what he leaves behind: a right-wing culture that tends to be as coarse and leaden as his demeanor could be buoyant. Buckley was excellent at what he did, giving unfortunate cover to others who followed with a spirit that was distinctly and consistently malevolent.

Peter Osnos is Senior Fellow for Media at The Century Foundation. Sign-up to receive Osnos’ columns weekly by email here. Read past columns here.