Panelists will discuss the continuing impact of Buckley's thought and the future of American conservatism.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum caused a stir last month when he labeled college campuses "indoctrination mills" that enforce a strict adherence to "politically correct left doctrine." For conservatives, Mr. Santorum might as well have called the sky blue. But from the way liberal pundits pounced on his remarks, you'd think he had said something profoundly indecent.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg likes the Indian Health Care Improvement Act and other ingredients of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare.” Why, she asked toward the end of three days of hearings, shouldn’t the court keep the good stuff in Obamacare and just dump the unconstitutional bits?

On Saturday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry got into the race for the GOP presidential nomination, and within 24 hours, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty got out. Perry didn't exactly chase Pawlenty out of the race; the Iowa straw poll (in which T-Paw finished a distant third) did that. But the two developments are closely related. They're linked by the fact that Barack Obama is very beatable.

William F. Buckley Jr. greatly influenced modern conservatism and will be missed dearly.

If the Endangered Species Act were applied uniformly to all of the species in the US that are potential candidates for its reach, Congress would swiftly repeal it. The act's potential costs are often too high to enforce aggressively.

Conservatives, being conservatives, have a soft spot for the good old days, but those who pine for the way things were fail to grasp that in the ways that matter, the good old days were not perfect.