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Last Wednesday was Feb. 27 and before the day was over I was aware of two things: William F. Buckley Jr. died that day, and it was the 40th anniversary of Walter Cronkite's influential Vietnam commentary. And contemplating their use of words made me think of how much things have changed in the last 40 years.

Cronkite rarely gave commentaries, which is one of the reasons his Feb. 27, 1968, editorial had impact. In that message, he said the war was stalemated and called on the U.S. to enter negotiations "not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could."

This is the kind of language he used: "To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion." Note that he did not insult anyone, did not question anyone's motives.

William F. Buckley lived a more politically rough and tumble life than Cronkite, but he too contributed to elevating the public dialogue. He founded his own influential magazine, National Review, and the extremists of the Ayn Rand and John Birch stripes were both unwelcome within its pages.

While he could be pretty rough on the attack, he also became less so as he grew older. Luke Boggs in the Atlanta newspaper this week wrote about a critique he got from Buckley of some of his articles: "He also evaluated my overall approach, suggesting that I may have been more persuasive in a piece denouncing animal rights activists if my rhetoric hadn't been as extreme. It was advice I took to heart." It is a technique that the Rush Limbaughs and Al Frankens have never learned.

Buckley was a McCarthyite in the 1950s, and though he never recanted, he came to be dismayed by those who refused to concede that gains by the communists could be accounted for other than by subversion in high places.

There were those who poked fun at his literate use of language, but I thought he showed respect for his readers by not simplifying his message into monosyllabic words. More important, his words were not usually used for personal attacks and ad hominem arguments. He believed that complex arguments not only could be made to the public, but had to be--"making distinctions" was one of his favorite terms. Sweeping denunciations with broad terms served little purpose and were intellectually dishonest.

For instance, he was opposed to, and saddened by, abortion, but he deplored the use of the term "murder" for the procedure, not only because an essential distinction was not being made but because it froze dialogue between opponents: "Surely, as [Catholic philosopher] John Noonan points out, even Catholics must begin to use a word different from 'murder,' even as we use an assortment of words to distinguish between, say, what an assassin does to his victim, and what a drunken driver does to his."

One of the best examples Buckley set was by treating those he opposed, from John Kenneth Galbraith to Dick Gregory, as good people. (Liberals like Jeff Greenfield and Katrina vanden Heuvel returned the admiration.) Once, discussing a note he had sent to liberal columnist Pete Hamill praising a Hamill column, Buckley wrote, "What is the point in denying his talent? I was not engaged in guile. I have never understood the point in disparaging the skills of your adversaries." It's a useful lesson in this day of members of Congress who do not work together, of commentators like Franken and Ann Coulter who believe personal insult is essential to political criticism and whose venomous attacks have cheapened us.

A substantial wing of the conservative movement, bewitched by the notion that anything goes to win and by intellectually brutal discourse, has veered away from the conservatism Buckley represented. Like Barry Goldwater, Buckley became unfashionable in inflexible conservative circles.

Buckley matched their aversion, believing (for instance) that George Bush is not a conservative and supporting John McCain as an antidote to the self described conservatives who came to dominate the movement. Jacob Heilbrunn wrote of Buckley this week, "But it is conservatism that is marooned by his death."

As in the case of Martin King, Buckley's eulogists are already at work filtering out some aspects of his career. The magazine National Interest has shown how even Buckley's National Review is rewriting his record to elide his criticism of new rightist policies. May they fail.