William Buckley Interviews Norman Mailer on Firing Line (1968) Part 6

[slapdashhumanist]

mailer is just talking shit! castro a great man? oswald didnt do it? orgies of killing releasing postive emotions? most conservatives are horse jumpers? this is nonsense. he seems so impressed with castro's rebellion, and it's just not that unusual or impressive. and that crap about boldness and men like him and buckley sort it out afterwards... don't admire any change or revolution, admire the ones that make things better. i know guys on crack that make more sense that mailer does here

[mrdarcyme]

Well,.. at least he didn't threaten to smash him in the g#d#mmed face...

[OneBigRetard]

The ending is perfect.

Buckley has that grin showing that he knows he has squeezed out a perfectly contained quotable sentence in which to end on and Mailer has that laugh indicating that he is aware that he has just provided it and recognises that Buckley is satisfied with it. The professional host and the professional guest.

Wondrous episode of a wondrous show. What happened to US TV? (not Drama which is obviously in the latter stages of the ultimate golden era)

[OneBigRetard]

'We don't know Oswald...'

Easiest way to see wishful thinking in somebody. The JFK case is about as simple an open and shut case could be. Yet those on the left NEED the myth that something else killed him. It is a great example of one of those things which reveals the lack of serious reading and the abundance of a desire for the world to fit ones views rather than the reverse.

[scottyboi76]

Mailer Proves he was wrong when he said we couldn't beat Communism.....One word........Reagan.....

[xtrmsprts]

Not Mailer's best day. He kinda looks a little sick, sleep-deprived. Still he did a good job, Buckley ambushed him on his show with his partisan audience and crypto-nazi gaurds ;P

[loggats]

@xtrmsprts Mailer fans are scary.

[pumkinpi2]

Good to see these two brilliant men cliffhanging each other's ideas, with more than just conviction, tot intellectual honesty as well.

[TomMichaels101]

I'm only in my late 30s, so I don't have a good intuitive sense of this: Would Mailer's Romanticism have seemed as hackneyed and boring in 1968 as it does to a viewer today? It seems so lame and cliched now, but I'm just wondering how it would have been processed at the time. Would it have struck the typical watcher as novel and exciting?

[Aaronthegreatest]

@TomMichaels101 I would venture to say yes...I'm younger than you are, but judging by the time period, as well as the artists and intellectuals of the time period who were his peers, it was probably something pretty novel.

[tom6612]

These Firing Line reruns are great. They remind you how lame 99 % of TV is today. Thanks so much for the upload.

[RedUncle]

excellent interview! I loved the tension - thanks for uploading!

[lanser87]

What a great interview. It's nice to see people reason with care.

[bapyou]

Imagine BIll O'Reilly interviewing Norman Mailer. "You're a far left loon!" And that's as far as O'Reilly would be able to take it.

What's up right-wingers? How come all of your present-day spokesmen are now morons on O'Reilly's level? Buckley's thoughtful, reasoned curiosity is as far from today's average right-wing pundit as Mailer is from Abbie Hoffman.

[CARDUELIS999]

@bapyou O'Reilly is a right-winger? OH, you watched that episode. Watch another. O'Reilly believes that there's a man in a little office who controls world oil prices.

[Myndir]

@bapyou Buckley, Friedman, Buchanan and so on were part of a generation of conservative intellectuals who, while I think they were wrong on many things, were very thoughtful and were keen to debate with the left, perhaps because they knew- as we all should know- that there is always a possibility that they were wrong.

[bapyou]

Roosevelt loathed DeGaulle. Had Roosevelt lived, the US would have never gotten involved in Vietnam.

[dogterd]

joe flaherty did a great impression of Buckley on the old SCTV comedy show.. . of course they called the sketch "Firing Squad".... one of the funniest sketches they ever did on that show.

[ahbevegede]

thanks for posting!

[ridewave444]

Hmm Mailer was more high strung than I was aware of.

[sd62t833]

ride,

you should see his interview with gore vidal

lol

[dnggitg]

Mailer's voluble flow clearly evinced his genius, but I was impressed with Buckley's ability to patiently and open-mindedly (apparently) listen to Mailer and wait for an opportunity to make a telling point. Unlike the televised pundits of today (the few I've seen, at any rate), Buckley conveyed the impression of being eminently reasonable and civilized.

[MetrazolElectricity]

@dnggitg @dnggitg Yes, he did convey that impression.Some people are good at convincing the hoi polloi.Hitler did a marvelous job of convincing the germanic populace that his direction led them to idyllic pastures of physical and spiritual progress.Bill had honed the art of argumentation and was adept at conjuring seductive fallacies. Mailer, being an author of vitality and agility, is quick to say too many things and therefore,open himself to Bill's bloodthirsty right-wing neuroses.

[Aaronthegreatest]

@dnggitg Mailer's 'voluble flow clearly evinced his genius'? Since when has volubility ever been characteristic of anything other than garrulousness? Personally, I think that Norman got destroyed in this debate--in the early segments, the two were on equal ground, but in the final two, Buckley was actually showing mercy to someone he had on the ropes.

We do agree that Buckley was impressive though; sadly, he seems to have been the last of a now mythical breed of conservative intellectuals.

[hotstixx]

well,mailers abundance of ideas/genius clearly left buckley floundering at times.perhaps if he(buckley) spent less time persuing just the right affectation,he might have offered more.

thanks for posting-wonderful.

[macsm]

Excellent. Thanks for sharing.

[drdent7]

Firing line was a great show. Unfortunately I only started watching it the last 2-3 years it was on.

[pobaldy66]

yeah, buckley was aging, the show declining, when, it seems to me, a sober discussion of social issues were needed most, or as much as ever. he was at his prime through the early, maybe mid-80s.

[KevinTMcGing]

Thank you for posting these videos.

[klimes86]

Wonderful discussion!

[DermochelysCoriacea]

I want to be just like WFB.

[RadioFreeWisconsin]

Why the Left can love Castro, but loath far less repressive dictators like Batista and Pinochet is the height of absurdity.

[tabber87]

I love the look of subtle exasperation on Buckley's face a minute in.

[jaygatsby12]

Thanks for posting this. I think Mailer was right about 1950s Cuba. Not that a country going from a grade of a "F" to "D+" is all that impressive but it is progress of an uninspired kind.

You don't have a copy of a Firing Line with Christopher Hitchens, do you?

[CEHitchens33]

No, I wish but you can find transcripts of the shows he was on online.

[jamespowell1969]

@jaygatsby12 You are right - slavery went from F to D+ too - doesn't make it right. The mistake some on the left made was to back the Cuban State. The Left were supposed to be anti- state and pro democracy. Castro did rule a state.

[SwastikaEyes2009]

Thanks for this mate....Superb:)

(Boy, was Mailer wrong about Castro, lol)