Ben Domenech is succinct at RedState.

This is a sad day, but it is to me something similar to the passing of the late President Reagan. Buckley, like Reagan, was a giant, but for both men, their passing seemed more a completion than a tragedy. Both men had been absent from their conservative constructions for some time, and their creations suffered because of it. The Republican Party had been less than it was before Reagan passed, and it remains so. The intellectually honesty and optimistic enthusiasm which should accompany conservatism had been missing from the GOP, just as I think it had been missing from National Review.

Nothing can right itself without a good physic; for that, we can hope. And we can soldier on, without that particular greatness but with our own visions.