Nails Wm. F. Buckley as the fraud he always was (spoilers)

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Yes, by comparing him to the Nazis, a tactic now considered the most juvenile sort of ad hominem attack and essentially the equivalent to admitting defeat in an argument.

Truly a vanguard, Gore virtually codified into law the debate tactic the Democrat party would use for the next 40 years. Because it doesn't matter if your political philosophy is absolute gibberish, so long as you can get the other guy to lose his temper by calling him Hitler, you've 'won'!

Bravo, Mr. Vidal! Bravo!





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Death is the road to awe.

Odd that the word "queer" would be considered a slur when the homosexual community uses the term extensively. Ever hear of "queer studies"? This so-called "documentary" was propaganda from start to finish. I doubt even Vidal himself would have found it illuminating.

Buckley was no fraud. Vidal did not refute any of Buckley’s points. Failing to do so Vidal’s strategy was to attack Buckley personally to provoke a reaction, which he certainly did. As if disciplining a school boy Vidal told Buckley to be quite then called him a Crypto-Nazi. This was untrue. At that point Buckley lost his temper. Referring to Vidal as a queer, which was true, he threatened to punch him in the face. Vidal, an excellent writer, couldn’t have written the scene any better. This is what Vidal wanted. On the other had Buckley regretted what he said and it seemed to eat at him till the day he died.
But what was Buckley gaff? That he lost his temper regardless of what he subsequently said? That he called Vidal a queer? That was true, but in the day not a polite thing to do. While Vidal’s sexuality was not well publicized I don’t think he was outing him. I think it was calling Vidal “you queer” that struck the nerve. Would having said “you c**ksucker”, or “you a**hole” or simply “you idiot” have the same sting? This was only the form of address. What followed was “I will punch you in the face and you will not get up”, or something to that effect. To me that was the more egregious part of what Buckley said.

How dare you call Buckley pompous when you describe his vocabulary as "baroque" and spell facade with a ç. If Vidal had really, heroically, as you describe, expose Buckley for being an "intellectual fraud" then why did Buckley continue to be known as an intellectual? Buckley could be underwhelming in debates, sometimes his vocabulary seemed to compensate for in-depth knowledge, but that's why he was an editorial writer and a television host and not a college professor. I think he's still an intellectual, not like Chomsky but like Hitchens - and that people expect him to be a Chomsky and then use their distorted interpretation to somehow dismiss his 30-something books, his Yale degree, the three or four languages he spoke fluently, and his hundreds of interviews with academics and intellectuals. (Buckley filmed over a thousand episodes of Firing Line, he knew SO many people, but I think it's hilarious that many people on this board think they know better because they watch a few debates on Youtube where his points aren't very in-depth and decide that they're better than him.)

I don't think Vidal did a particularly better job than Buckley, I think that both of them made jabs and ad hominem attacks that aren't particularly impressive. But Vidal gave the appearance of someone who was calculating and clever when really, all he had done to ""expose"" Buckley was call him a crypto-Nazi and let the drunk man have his say. Not much more classy than Buckley calling him a queer.

I don't think Buckley is a "fraud." Buckley isn't regarded as some great, influential intellectual on the right. He is regarded as influential, but more because he was one of the few people that held up the right wing banner, to whatever extent he was classical liberal "right wing," at a time when it was on the run post-FDR. You basically had Buckley and his National Review, and Ayn Rand and her movement. And outside of that, it was just a bunch of liberal-lites. But Buckley isn't regarded as being some Milton Friedman or Chicago school type among those on the right. Only the D.C. elitist circles see him as that, probably because he's still kinda "safe" in their eyes.
But Vidal isn't regarded as being intellectual or influential by anybody, at least not politically. He's just a joke. Today the rest of the country either laughs or looks with horror at the college types who have adopted his views on sex and morality. And you never here his name mentioned anywhere outside of the William F. Buckley context. His books are no longer read, his movies aren't watched.

Agreed!