R.I.P. William Buckley

Don't know. Never heard you speak.

 

I really don't think hondo's serious, folks.

 

Frankly, Buckley and Vidal BOTH sound like fops.

 

Pretty much.

 

Frank I feel like that when I read your posts. You seem like you might have more in common with Buckley then you realize.

 

I was waiting for Wilbon to appear and call them both knuckleheads.

 

Wow. Good grab, Frank.

Saw that when it happened.

"Shut up you old queer or I'll sock you in the goddam face and you'll stay plastered"

 

It's old fashioned and anachronistic but one of the reasons I liked both these guys so much was they spoke in complete fucking paragraphs. Not sentences. Paragraphs.

Vidal was queer as a three bob note but geez, the man could talk intelligently about pretty much everything.

I remember watching Firing Line with my father and we'd both be yelling at the TV. Good times.

 

Never been a Vidal fan, but there's no denying his brains or his capacity to entertain.

 

I read your posts and I donate to the help-adult-illiterates fund.

 

Put aside the partisanship for a few posts.

Buckley's death - and Mailer's not long ago and soon, inevitably, Vidal's - marks the end of a brief age in which we actually had public intellectuals in the United States. They engaged and fought one another in running firefights in newspapers and magazines and on television. They argued about ideas, not just ideologies. They debated important issues as if they mattered. They didn't condescend to their audience by dumbing themselves down, or by tarting themselves up. They spoke as they wrote, and brought to bear every rhetorical weapon they possessed. They were witty and erudite, sharp as serpent's teeth, and understood what made for great incendiary theater, if not always great real world policy. They spoke in sentences, not soundbites.

Take a quick YouTube tour of Mailer, Vidal and Buckley and you'll see how degraded and small the debate in this country has become. Read them.

As much as I opposed the fundamental premise of Mr. Buckley's politics, I am saddened by his death, and will miss very much his voice in our national chorus.

 

thanks for your kindness.

now take the board out of your ass and tell your shirt man to lighten up on the starch.