Firing Line mock episode with William F. Buckley and Christopher Buckley

[1Victorinus]

No one is on Buckley's level. Let's pray to God that someday soon a new William F. Buckley will arise.

[guygregorymiller]

You must ask yourself why America has spiraled downward after his death.

[travisblindsay]

This was a great video to watch. WFB was one of the conservatives that galvanized my interest in and study of conservatism.

The most interesting part of the interplay between WFB and Christopher to me was Christopher's seeming resentment towards his father. It wasn't outright resentment, mind you, but rather veiled. Chris has come out as an atheist since his dad's death and I can see some of that long simmering resentment coming out in this Firing Line "episode."

[WhenLilacsLast]

The tragedy for a William F Buckley admirer was that for the longest time he would enthrall you with his wit and charm until his inner virulence would suddenly raise it's ugly head, shattering the outer mask of suavity, and you'd be left painfully ambivalent. For instance here he regales you and then abruptly makes that distasteful joke about the nuclear destruction of civilian Japanese lives.Elsewhere he compares stem-cell research to nazi eugenics and advocates creationism.Troubling.

[ColdCypher]

@WhenLilacsLast LOL! How elegant, how passionate, how cultured. Such sophisticated prose. When Lilacs Last. Such a name should communicate the nature of a very deep and thoughtful individual who clearly has an extremely fine tuned asthetic sense and appreciation for the finer things in life. Go read Dostoyevskys "The Idiot" and offer the bohemian hordes one of your world class critiques. LOL!!!

[mainsqueeze1977]

@WhenLilacsLast

"Elsewhere he compares stem-cell research to nazi eugenics" ... and righfully so!!!

[xtrmsprts]

i wonder why bill chose to have his hair dyed with such a dark hue for his age. next to him chris is letting it go with his grays...add the bad resolution which shrouds bill's cavernous wrinkles and we have two guys who could be brothers. the only thing that gives it away is bill's deteriorated voice

[greatbookie]

Buckley has a child --

Satan has a child.

I don't have a child.

Life is unfair.

[greatbookie]

The name Goldwater represents

the very essence of Conservatism:

either ur-ine or you're-out.

[WhenLilacsLast]

Christopher Buckley seems far more agreeable than his sly old man. I think his satire was an offshoot of having grown up under the tutelage of a stringent,backward, narrow-minded and bigoted father. His moral superiority to William F. was evident when he endorsed Obama in '08. William F ,celebrated as he was, spent his life surreptitiously planting polemics for people to trip on and explode.

[lsnows]

This guy was the last true Right-wing intellectual in the US. Ever since then, the Right in the US has since been in a steady degeneration into anti-intellectualism. Somebody please fill this void!

[stevevandien]

@lsnows George Will? Thomas Sowell? Kate O'Beirne? Ramesh Ponnorru? Victor Davis Hanson? Veronique de Rugy? Andrew McCarthy? Charles Krauthammer? S.E. Cupp? Michelle Malkin? Deroy Murdock? Kathryn Jean Lopez? Jonah Goldberg? William Bennett? Bill Kristol? Charles Murray? Max Boot? Please explain how these right-wing writers are anti-intellectual. In detail.

[lsnows]

@stevevandien Okay, you're right. There are many out there, but unfortunately the conservative movement in its current incarnation marginalizes thinkers like the ones you mentioned. What Buckley did like nobody does today was to bring intellectualism to the mainstream of the American right. The right has somewhere along the line abandoned thinkers like these. The tea party movement can't get enough of Sarah Palin, but you never hear of Kate O'Beirne or George Will as keynote speakers there.

[stevevandien]

@lsnows I tried to post a reply here, but You Tube wouldn't let me. May I post it on your site?

[stevevandien]

@lsnows I tried to post a reply here, but You Tube wouldn't let me. May I post it on your site?

[thebig1]

@lsnows Thats because George Will and Kate O'beirne are not TRUE CONSERVATIVES...they are more moderate but not conservative.

[FAHayek89]

@stevevandien Anti-intellectual? Probably not. Most of them do not write at the level of Buckley, however? There are some exceptions on your list (George Will, Thomas Sowell when at this best, etc.), but I would not claim Malkin as an intellectual equal to Buckley, Russell Kirk, Wilmore Kendell, or Frank Meyer - not even close. Most of the writers you mention do not think on the higher theoretical/philosophical/hist­orical political level that the early three did.

[acmna]

@FAHayek89 Charles Krauthammer, Niall Ferguson, Nick Gillespie(Libertarian, but still), David Friedman, and as the other guy pointed out George Will and Thomas Sowell are all on Buckley's level. Sowell and Charles both, in my opinion, surpass Buckley. So, I wouldn't say that the right is "anti-intellectual" or that Buckley was the last "true intellectual" of the conservative movement.

[DoNotBeHighandMighty]

@lsnows

Ron Paul? Maybe not an "intellectual" but a very bright man who knows what he believes and has great integrity.

[xtrmsprts]

@lsnows hitchens tried. 

[Alexdurrant7]

@lsnows It seems that all the right is left with now is Ann Coulter.

[DCUPtoejuice]

@lsnows Absolutely! Back when, thanks to WFB, argument followed a logical framework and did not eternally deviate and degenerate.

[Freethinker7718]

Two brilliant minds. I also enjoyed very much the Hitchens/Buckely, Jr. discussion.

[DermochelysCoriacea]

This is very funny!

[jeffhegarty]

With two very funny men.