If you want to comprehend how dramatically US politics has deteriorated over the last fifty years, just try to imagine a televised debate like this taking place today.
While this waa going on the police were beating the shit out of people in the streets and all was hell was breaking loose in Chicago... Nothing has changed
Buckley eventually proved many of Vidal's misquotations wrong, but in the larger sense, Vidal was right about the Vietnam War. In an interview with Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution in 1998, Buckley conceded that the Vietnam War was a mistake.
Glad that he was able to recognize that and admit it publicly. Even if it was too little too late it's hard to imagine republicans conceding anything today
I enjoyed Buckley wriggling and squirming in the face of Gore's hard facts and casualty numbers and civilian percentages -- before casually discussing mass murdering civilians and bombings in a casual tone, and saying this was a "legitimate military mission". While these guys have SIMILAR vocal affectations and superficial style -- To the best of my knowledge : Buckley was a paid-up TV Network sponsored mouthpiece and spokesperson for western industrial global-expansion interests : Whereas Gore was a largely independent freelancing mouthpiece and spokesperson for human interest stories and truthful correspondence with the public on public matters. This is a world of difference. When Buckley took a couple of cheap personal shots in this, Gore shrugged it off and continued on discussing facts and policy, and was not distracted by petty personal gripes. This seems to be his style through all the videos I watch. I find it admirable.
Your knowledge is poor . The Nixon Foundation says that Buckley’s support in 68’ was not just beneficial but crucial. When Nixon did win Buckley then introduced him to his friend Kissinger . How’s that for influence? Btw did you ever listen to Solzhenitsyns address at Harvard in 78 when he asked the so called pacifists , the anti war movement, if they could hear the moans of the 30 million people who they abandoned in Indo China.? Abandoned to brutally suffer.
Excellent and, in my opinion -of course - accurate comment. Vidal quite easily ‘out-debated’ Buckley here. Although the verbose Buckley usually lost a debate when up against a clearly superior intellect (see: Chomsky, Hitchens, Baldwin, etc).
@@Ken-vn7mxWhy? NATO is a defensive alliance that deters war. Notice that Putin is invading Ukraine and has control of Belarus, Kazakstan, and Chechnya, and he’s active in Syrian civil war. But he won’t touch NATO states b/c he doesn’t want war with Europe and US.
"It is no business of ours to give them a Pearl Harbour" -Gore Vidal kills it! Gosh! Why haven't I seen this before. I thought Chomsky vs Buckley was interesting. This is how debates are done. How far public debate has fallen.
Almost everything has been democratized, so almost everything has gone down. TVs are in the homes of every one these days and so everything has to be digestible for the majority, yet there are differences in people and issues are complex, no matter how uncomfortable this truth is; it must be recognized. Unless we're willing to say that what matters most is the education of the public rather than their comfort and approval then public intellectual discourse will be subpar.
@@mpcc2022 That's not exactly why media has gone down. It is due to Bill Clinton's consolidation of media companies down to 6-7 giant corporations controlling everything we read and watch. We do not have independent media anymore. That's the issue. The giant corporations are spewing propaganda from both pro-Democrat and Republican side.
It wouldn’t have been a Pearl Harbor, it would’ve been a threat of a declaration. As is typical, Vidal also conflates discussions of the sort concerning China when they chose to get involved in the Korean War when they had not been attacked, versus the Vietnam conflict, where they were assisting North Vietnam’s attacks into South Vietnam.
@4:11 Apart from the bit about supporting Ho Chi Min against Mao Zedong Gore Vidal sets out here the exact policy the Kissinger and Nixon pursued to exploit the Sino-Soviet split: breakthrough with China and detente with the USSR, and playing each off against the other.
Shallow observations: 1. Seersucker in Chicago just seems wrong in a way I can't quite articulate. 2. Dammit Buckley, either sit on your jacket or unbutton it! Pat ought to have schooled you on this!
It wouldn’t have been a Pearl Harbor, it would’ve been a threat of a declaration. As is typical, Vidal also conflates discussions of the sort concerning China when they chose to get involved in the Korean War when they had not been attacked, versus the Vietnam conflict, where they were assisting North Vietnam’s attacks into South Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh won the Vietnam War by fighting a war against occupation. Unlike the North Vietnamese who killed Americans, the South Vietnamese never killed any Russians or Chinese on the ground (unlike Korea) and they saw no liberty or freedom in killing their fellow Vietnamese. JFK only preached what Ho Chi Minh practiced, i.e. "...it's their war to fight, they have to win it." Common sense dictates that while it's possible to train and supply fighters, you lose the incentive and initiative if you let someone else fight your battles for you. Nixon's eventual policy of Vietnamization bears this out but was simply too little, too late.
Ho Chi Minh won because the South surrendered after the US politicians gave up on them. The US was already gone and pulled out but were still supplying the South with weapons and equipment. Also, despite the massive commitment of American forces and resources, Vietnamese on both sides did the most fighting and dying. The United States attempted to swing the balance in favor of the South but was never in a position to decide the ultimate fate of Vietnam. When Nixon gave a speech to the nation announcing that the Paris Peace Accords had been initialed by the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, the Viet Cong, and the Accords would be signed on the 27th. What the United States and South Vietnam received in those accords was victory. At the White House, it was called "VV Day," "Victory in Vietnam Day." The U.S. backed up that victory with a simple pledge within the Paris Peace Accords saying: should the South require any military hardware to defend itself against any North Vietnam aggression we would provide replacement aid to the South on a piece-by-piece, one-to-one replacement, meaning a bullet for a bullet; a helicopter for a helicopter, for all things lost -- replacement. The advance of communist tyranny had been halted by those accords.
Then it all came apart. And It happened this way: In August of the following year, 1974, President Nixon resigned his office as a result of what became known as "Watergate." Three months after his resignation came the November congressional elections and within them the Democrats won a landslide victory for the new Congress and many of the members used their new majority to de-fund the military aid the U.S. had promised, piece for piece, breaking the commitment that we made to the South Vietnamese in Paris to provide whatever military hardware the South Vietnamese needed in case of aggression from the North. Put simply and accurately, a majority of Democrats of the 94th Congress did not keep the word of the United States. On April the 10th of 1975, President Gerald Ford appealed directly to those members of the congress in an evening Joint Session, televised to the nation. In that speech he literally begged the Congress to keep the word of the United States. But as President Ford delivered his speech, many of the members of the Congress walked out of the chamber. Many of them had an investment in America's failure in Vietnam. They had participated in demonstrations against the war for many years. They wouldn't give the aid." And JFK was right. It was their fight. US should have never deployed there, Ho Chi was actually was pro America until we invaded them. He admired the US Declaration of Independence and envisioned creating and implementing a Vietnamese version once they drove out the French. Ho sought US support but was pretty much ignored. Despite several entreaties no support was forthcoming. Had we never had Ngo Dinh Diem assassinated, invaded, ignored the whole red scare, and just helped the cause by telling France to stop continuing their colonialism there. Ho Chi would have had never turned to China or Russia for aid. It doesn't really matter all that much since Vietnam has been an ally of the US for quite some time now.
for that one debate, that is correct. no colour is available. and besides they don't necessarily store these videos in optimum environments - with no heat and moisture. for them to be this good is actually amazing.
As Gore Vidal smiles he knows the obvious winning feeling where an opponent has surrendered his position through name calling. It is all that Buckley has left proving nothing.
@@CharlesDickens111 ?? He smiled because he knew that Buckley prided himself in out debating people through rational deconstruction of his opponents positions. Gore Vidal knew he'd riled Buckley up so much that he resorted to angry abuse - Gore Vidal knew he had broken the image Buckley liked to portray to the public, and it really bothered Buckley for years afterwards.
@@zeddeka This is exactly right. Vidal successfully pricked Buckley's bubble and Buckley was bothered by this one moment where Vidal had bested him in public, for the rest of his life.
Gore is epitome of a LIBERAL who sneers and smiles, twists and speculates! A liberal who arrogantly thinks his bs is winning over a debate - and OH the idiots who agree with Gore! Youre destroying this great nation!
He was hoping for a negotiated settlement. That the North Vietnamese would grow tired of the bloodshed and seeming immovable American will, which would then hopefully convinced them. But the propaganda war was arguably already irreparably lost.
Fred Freddy add Eldridge Cleaver to that list (actually Cleaver didn’t gut Buckley but he certainly held his own and didn’t take any of his big syllable bullshit).
Ponder the significance of the Attorney General trying to placate the leading voice of the right . Therein lies the difference between Vidal and Buckley-their influence!
@@roughhabit9085 First off, you do not make it clear what Attorney General you are referring to (Ramsey Clark, Bill Barr, MerrIck Garland ?). Hence, the incisive and illustrious character of your comment cannot be fully appreciated.
Conversations like this, however greatly performative in their wordsmanship and delivery, are why the rubes among us were generally repelled by politics and political nuance until it was so greatly dumbed down in the past decade, decade and a half; it was simply too far over their heads to jump into, it required too much attention, thought and investment in facts to understand. Now the bar for entry into any “political” conversation is to frivolously claim “both sides are the same” (a supremely lazy take on things), or to call one’s opponent a pedophile at the beginning and roll around in the mud after that. Totally different story.
Yup, unlike the democrats republicans learn from their mistakes ironically, especially making sure to never allow another Nixon downfall type scenario, control the narrative (FOX news), attack, Gaslight Obfuscate Project
6:00 to 7:25 Too bad they hated each other so viscerally. This was very elegant and gentlemanly badinage, and I might have almost believed that they were otherwise good friends ardently believing in the fundamentals that characterize the opposite ends of the political spectrum.
Buckley was right about the Russians and the Chinese. I understand that now looking at modern American far-left and far-right united in appeasing dictators.
I admired Gore Vidal a great deal, and could listen to him for hours. He clearly had a superior intellect compared to the pompous, verbose and lizard-like (with that dart tongue) Buckley. Buckley had an incredible vocabulary, but when debating against a Vidal, or Hitchens, or Baldwin his shortcomings became obvious.
Interesting to see these 2 cats go at it, in their own way. Like Ali - Frazier, but with words, somehow each, impressive.. btw, WFB had real hair, but here he looks like he's sporting a toupe.. Both of these guys were complex and talented men, but, I don't know, I think Vidal was the more unforgiving of the two, he was very bitter and a harsh human being to the end, something must have happened to him to make him that way.. In any case God will sort it all out now, as both men will need to face Him, as we all will..
While the ideology Buckley shilled has ultimately come to roost in the global embarrassment the U.S. has devolved into by 2017, perhaps more unfortunate is the devolution of those who have since carried his mantle. Buckley may have been a disingenuous, arrogant fop, but he was eloquent, intelligent and occasionally charming. Instead of continuing in that tradition, his successors have opted for the route of knuckle-dragging, lowest-common-denominator chest-thumping. Sad. Meanwhile, it seems that everyone in the comments carrying on as though Vidal falls anything short of lapping Buckley on style and points is obviously doing so out of an ideological prejudgment. Wherein he could be espousing the virtues of corporate welfare and deregulation, these people would automatically disregard him simply for being framed as taking the "liberal" position in the debate. Perhaps the greatest tragedy in the dumbing down of right-wing discourse is that it validates absolutism. Fun fact: 10 out of 10 psychologists agree that "all-or-nothing", "black-or-white" thinking is unequivocally contraindicative to emotional well-being or personal growth.
i don't think gore had that aspiration but buckley certainly thought he could win debates by bringing up vidal's sexuality just like you did here. vidal's dislike of robert kennedy not yet dead one season is all i need to question his "profound intelligence".
@@marcyfan One of Gore's few good points was a disdain for the modern day Borgias of Massachusetts. And since Bobby was the most ruthless, outside of Old Joe, it's not surprising he'd have no use for RFK. Neither of these two gents were out of this world intelligent. But I'd say Gore had it over WFB in the intelligence department. WFB being a popularizer of other's originality. He admitted to writer and literary critic , Hugh Kenner, that he did not have the faculties to do truly original work, and he showed some self awareness in admitting that. In fact, WFB was disgusted with himself for falling into a pi$$ing match with Vidal. He withdrew from public appearances for months and was depressed about the whole matter. Vidal had been baiting Buckley for years prior to this, in television, newspaper and tv interviews. In 1962 Jack Paar gave GV almost a full week on his show to tear Buckley apart. Paar only relented and allowed Buckley a rebuttal for an hour after a public letter writing campaign forced his hand.
Would y’all just speak normally. Is this what intellectualism was in the 60’s? I hate Trump , but can you imagine Donald Trump on “firing line”? “Look at this guy. Looks like a rat. I know words too. I have the best words. You’re a loser Bill.” And I would agree with trump.
Well thanks to the US we in Europe and much of Asia are ( with ups and downs free country’s and we can’t thank the States anoug! That guy Videl is like a spoiled hippie brad.
Two men known for their transatlantic accents and love of their own voice.
Mdriver1981 Don't forget the seersucker suit...
The transatlantic accent is the accent of choice for those who love their own voice.
But Vidal did it with real class . Buckley did it to sound like he had some class .
@@fancifulrat , is this a serious remark?
Colin Montgomery No , just a throw away remark . I wish there was someone as intellectually honest as Buckley defending conservatives today.
Obsessed with the level of intelligence, acumen, brilliance, and wit.
8:09
9:56
'Buckley vs. Vidal: When Debate Became Bloodsport'
By Michael M. Grynbaum - July 24, 2015
nytimes.com
10:01
'It seems that the environment agenda was not - directly - included in this discussion room...'
If you want to comprehend how dramatically US politics has deteriorated over the last fifty years, just try to imagine a televised debate like this taking place today.
imagining the moment where buckley calls Vidal a queer and threatens to sock him in the mouth
@@hithere640 One of the greatest moments on live television ever! 😀
@@hithere640that sour little twerp has to resort to violence because his arguments are trash
While this waa going on the police were beating the shit out of people in the streets and all was hell was breaking loose in Chicago... Nothing has changed
@@hithere640Conservatives have always been disgusting like that, now they just have to hide it more
I love history, and politics this is a great time Capsule of a fascinating period of both subjects I wish we had such intellectual debates today
_This_ is a real debate. Not the fake quasi-interviews that are called debates today.
Act Free, WELL SAID!!
It’s laughable to refer to our candidates as part of the national debate ; they’re neither representative nor debating.
It’s actually just boiler-plate punditry dressed up in the most flowery language by annoying quasi-intellectuals.
This is theatre lol
Totally agree.
I got here bc of a “you queer” short but I’m glad I followed through
If I had Buckley's voice I would never shut up either.
I would not, either.
You mean that practised, arrogant mewling? I preferred Vidal’s voice ... it was his.
@@fifthbusiness1678 Vidal’s voice is mind-numbing.
Because you’d want to sound like a pompous ass too?
I wish Buckley narrated nature documentaries
Buckley eventually proved many of Vidal's misquotations wrong, but in the larger sense, Vidal was right about the Vietnam War. In an interview with Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution in 1998, Buckley conceded that the Vietnam War was a mistake.
Glad that he was able to recognize that and admit it publicly. Even if it was too little too late it's hard to imagine republicans conceding anything today
I enjoyed Buckley wriggling and squirming in the face of Gore's hard facts and casualty numbers and civilian percentages -- before casually discussing mass murdering civilians and bombings in a casual tone, and saying this was a "legitimate military mission". While these guys have SIMILAR vocal affectations and superficial style -- To the best of my knowledge : Buckley was a paid-up TV Network sponsored mouthpiece and spokesperson for western industrial global-expansion interests : Whereas Gore was a largely independent freelancing mouthpiece and spokesperson for human interest stories and truthful correspondence with the public on public matters. This is a world of difference. When Buckley took a couple of cheap personal shots in this, Gore shrugged it off and continued on discussing facts and policy, and was not distracted by petty personal gripes. This seems to be his style through all the videos I watch. I find it admirable.
Agree completely
Your knowledge is poor . The Nixon Foundation says that Buckley’s support in 68’ was not just beneficial but crucial. When Nixon did win Buckley then introduced him to his friend Kissinger . How’s that for influence?
Btw did you ever listen to Solzhenitsyns address at Harvard in 78 when he asked the so called pacifists , the anti war movement, if they could hear the moans of the 30 million people who they abandoned in Indo China.? Abandoned to brutally suffer.
Ironic how the left is the one now pushing for NATO expansionism. :)
Excellent and, in my opinion -of course - accurate comment. Vidal quite easily ‘out-debated’ Buckley here. Although the verbose Buckley usually lost a debate when up against a clearly superior intellect (see: Chomsky, Hitchens, Baldwin, etc).
@@Ken-vn7mxWhy? NATO is a defensive alliance that deters war. Notice that Putin is invading Ukraine and has control of Belarus, Kazakstan, and Chechnya, and he’s active in Syrian civil war. But he won’t touch NATO states b/c he doesn’t want war with Europe and US.
I’ll never forget the time when Gore Vidal called William F Buckley a “Cryptonazi”
"i'll sock you in the face and you'll stay PLASTERED"
Cryptonazi: sounds like a current term with a different meaning
Two high end intellectuals breaking down a convention. Today, you get Maddow or Hannity.
Come for a debate, it ends in a boxing match between two blue bloods!
"It is no business of ours to give them a Pearl Harbour" -Gore Vidal kills it! Gosh! Why haven't I seen this before. I thought Chomsky vs Buckley was interesting. This is how debates are done. How far public debate has fallen.
Almost everything has been democratized, so almost everything has gone down. TVs are in the homes of every one these days and so everything has to be digestible for the majority, yet there are differences in people and issues are complex, no matter how uncomfortable this truth is; it must be recognized. Unless we're willing to say that what matters most is the education of the public rather than their comfort and approval then public intellectual discourse will be subpar.
Buckley got him on the Monroe Doctrine, however.
@@mpcc2022 Amen
@@mpcc2022 That's not exactly why media has gone down. It is due to Bill Clinton's consolidation of media companies down to 6-7 giant corporations controlling everything we read and watch. We do not have independent media anymore. That's the issue. The giant corporations are spewing propaganda from both pro-Democrat and Republican side.
It wouldn’t have been a Pearl Harbor, it would’ve been a threat of a declaration. As is typical, Vidal also conflates discussions of the sort concerning China when they chose to get involved in the Korean War when they had not been attacked, versus the Vietnam conflict, where they were assisting North Vietnam’s attacks into South Vietnam.
They have better English accents than me, and I'm English!
I love how these gentlemen talk.
@4:11 Apart from the bit about supporting Ho Chi Min against Mao Zedong Gore Vidal sets out here the exact policy the Kissinger and Nixon pursued to exploit the Sino-Soviet split: breakthrough with China and detente with the USSR, and playing each off against the other.
Gore Vidal made me think that there was another option to the governmental propaganda. End of story.
His propaganda?
Great Gore Vidal, one of the best minds of the 20th Century
Shallow observations:
1. Seersucker in Chicago just seems wrong in a way I can't quite articulate.
2. Dammit Buckley, either sit on your jacket or unbutton it! Pat ought to have schooled you on this!
Seersucker in Chicago is completely wrong, and that tie is wrong no matter where you’re wearing seersucker
TommyM3 Damn right!
For such a refined gentleman he sure dressed…. Rumpled.
Buckley had to know he was the villain
Vidal’s Metternich policy suggestion is actually quite interesting.
I long for the days when people on TV could reasonably presume that their audience would know about The Congress of Vienna and Prince Metternich.
It wouldn’t have been a Pearl Harbor, it would’ve been a threat of a declaration. As is typical, Vidal also conflates discussions of the sort concerning China when they chose to get involved in the Korean War when they had not been attacked, versus the Vietnam conflict, where they were assisting North Vietnam’s attacks into South Vietnam.
Indeed. Typical Democrat bants.
Ho Chi Minh won the Vietnam War by fighting a war against occupation. Unlike the North Vietnamese who killed Americans, the South Vietnamese never killed any Russians or Chinese on the ground (unlike Korea) and they saw no liberty or freedom in killing their fellow Vietnamese. JFK only preached what Ho Chi Minh practiced, i.e. "...it's their war to fight, they have to win it." Common sense dictates that while it's possible to train and supply fighters, you lose the incentive and initiative if you let someone else fight your battles for you. Nixon's eventual policy of Vietnamization bears this out but was simply too little, too late.
Ho Chi Minh won because the South surrendered after the US politicians gave up on them. The US was already gone and pulled out but were still supplying the South with weapons and equipment. Also, despite the massive commitment of American forces and resources, Vietnamese on both sides did the most fighting and dying. The United States attempted to swing the balance in favor of the South but was never in a position to decide the ultimate fate of Vietnam.
When Nixon gave a speech to the nation announcing that the Paris Peace Accords had been initialed by the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, the Viet Cong, and the Accords would be signed on the 27th. What the United States and South Vietnam received in those accords was victory. At the White House, it was called "VV Day," "Victory in Vietnam Day."
The U.S. backed up that victory with a simple pledge within the Paris Peace Accords saying: should the South require any military hardware to defend itself against any North Vietnam aggression we would provide replacement aid to the South on a piece-by-piece, one-to-one replacement, meaning a bullet for a bullet; a helicopter for a helicopter, for all things lost -- replacement. The advance of communist tyranny had been halted by those accords.
Then it all came apart. And It happened this way: In August of the following year, 1974, President Nixon resigned his office as a result of what became known as "Watergate." Three months after his resignation came the November congressional elections and within them the Democrats won a landslide victory for the new Congress and many of the members used their new majority to de-fund the military aid the U.S. had promised, piece for piece, breaking the commitment that we made to the South Vietnamese in Paris to provide whatever military hardware the South Vietnamese needed in case of aggression from the North. Put simply and accurately, a majority of Democrats of the 94th Congress did not keep the word of the United States.
On April the 10th of 1975, President Gerald Ford appealed directly to those members of the congress in an evening Joint Session, televised to the nation. In that speech he literally begged the Congress to keep the word of the United States. But as President Ford delivered his speech, many of the members of the Congress walked out of the chamber. Many of them had an investment in America's failure in Vietnam. They had participated in demonstrations against the war for many years. They wouldn't give the aid."
And JFK was right. It was their fight. US should have never deployed there, Ho Chi was actually was pro America until we invaded them. He admired the US Declaration of Independence and envisioned creating and implementing a Vietnamese version once they drove out the French. Ho sought US support but was pretty much ignored. Despite several entreaties no support was forthcoming.
Had we never had Ngo Dinh Diem assassinated, invaded, ignored the whole red scare, and just helped the cause by telling France to stop continuing their colonialism there. Ho Chi would have had never turned to China or Russia for aid.
It doesn't really matter all that much since Vietnam has been an ally of the US for quite some time now.
Ho Chi Minh was a Socialist SonofaBish 🔴🔴🔴
True master debaters.
Definite mass debaters.
for that one debate, that is correct. no colour is available. and besides they don't necessarily store these videos in optimum environments - with no heat and moisture. for them to be this good is actually amazing.
In 2021 they would interrupt this with 3 commercial breaks
that's as good as the quality can be ... these are 2nd generation from the original ABC tapes.
It's great to view this debate, sound is grand. Thanks.
As Gore Vidal smiles he knows the obvious winning feeling where an opponent has surrendered his position through name calling. It is all that Buckley has left proving nothing.
Rules that are now the premise that the Internet relies on.
I think he smiled because he liked the recognition of his identity (i.e. a queer). I've often seen Greeks smile when called "wog" for instance.
@@CharlesDickens111 ?? He smiled because he knew that Buckley prided himself in out debating people through rational deconstruction of his opponents positions. Gore Vidal knew he'd riled Buckley up so much that he resorted to angry abuse - Gore Vidal knew he had broken the image Buckley liked to portray to the public, and it really bothered Buckley for years afterwards.
@@zeddeka This is exactly right. Vidal successfully pricked Buckley's bubble and Buckley was bothered by this one moment where Vidal had bested him in public, for the rest of his life.
Gore is epitome of a LIBERAL who sneers and smiles, twists and speculates! A liberal who arrogantly thinks his bs is winning over a debate - and OH the idiots who agree with Gore! Youre destroying this great nation!
Back when at least delegates voted on platforms
Wow Vidal calling out the Dulles brothers, I wonder if he knew Buckley worked for Capitalisms Invisible Army , or if that was revealed later...
Buckley knew the war was lost at this point. He couldn't bring himself to admit it.
He was hoping for a negotiated settlement. That the North Vietnamese would grow tired of the bloodshed and seeming immovable American will, which would then hopefully convinced them. But the propaganda war was arguably already irreparably lost.
I think Gore was a little rattled by that letter! He tried to play it off as best he could. Funny stuff.
Yes, I think so, but Gore recovers well, and hold his own here against the formidable WFB who most were intimidated by (except Gore)....
@@fredfreddy6182 and chomsky, who gutted buckley on firing line.
Fred Freddy add Eldridge Cleaver to that list (actually Cleaver didn’t gut Buckley but he certainly held his own and didn’t take any of his big syllable bullshit).
Perhaps they should have refrained from talking about Bobby Kennedy. He was just assassinated 2 months prior.
Raulbikcube You should know by now that good taste is not an American tradition.
Actually, since he hated Bobby Kennedy so much, it probably only made him angry
Didn't Vidal have familial ties to the Kennedys?
Jackie Kennedy is Vidal's stepsister. Vidal pissed RFK off in 1961(?), so Vidal cut ties with his stepsister and the Kennedy's
Still doesn't surpass "Cuz you'd be in jail".
The reveal of the paper was brilliant
@D W: Vidal to Buckley: "It's been fun inspecting your correspondence."
Ponder the significance of the Attorney General trying to placate the leading voice of the right . Therein lies the difference between Vidal and Buckley-their influence!
@@roughhabit9085 First off, you do not make it clear what Attorney General you are referring to (Ramsey Clark, Bill Barr, MerrIck Garland ?). Hence, the incisive and illustrious character of your comment cannot be fully appreciated.
These two are so funny, such characters.
Conversations like this, however greatly performative in their wordsmanship and delivery, are why the rubes among us were generally repelled by politics and political nuance until it was so greatly dumbed down in the past decade, decade and a half; it was simply too far over their heads to jump into, it required too much attention, thought and investment in facts to understand. Now the bar for entry into any “political” conversation is to frivolously claim “both sides are the same” (a supremely lazy take on things), or to call one’s opponent a pedophile at the beginning and roll around in the mud after that. Totally different story.
Yup, unlike the democrats republicans learn from their mistakes ironically, especially making sure to never allow another Nixon downfall type scenario, control the narrative (FOX news), attack, Gaslight Obfuscate Project
9:49 Interesting change in expression for Vidal.
Vidal knew the Empire would crumble at the hands of the Republican Party. Visionary.
Really Mr Lindsey....is that why the democrats open border policy is undermining our national security..???
Somehow I wished that Dean Martin or Willie Nelson just passed through and lightened things up!
So things are more or less civil and that's the time he decides to bring out the letter?
A shameful period of American history and tragic too.
The 68 Republican nominations?
But not as embarrassing as the last four years have been for the United States.
@@elizabethkeenan7063 every year in this country has been embarrassing
6:00 to 7:25 Too bad they hated each other so viscerally. This was very elegant and gentlemanly badinage, and I might have almost believed that they were otherwise good friends ardently believing in the fundamentals that characterize the opposite ends of the political spectrum.
As usual, Gore Vidal was correct regarding the misguided and costly Vietnam War and Bill Buckley was out to lunch.
Vidal understood it. Country always comes before class.
Buckley was right about the Russians and the Chinese. I understand that now looking at modern American far-left and far-right united in appeasing dictators.
buckley reminds me of the bully from the karate kid
you mean adults who can speak?
actually Vidal was the one who was "playing for the other team"
Buckley was too but was too afraid to leave the closet.
8:10 is he..... Talking about the crusades???????
I admired Gore Vidal a great deal, and could listen to him for hours. He clearly had a superior intellect compared to the pompous, verbose and lizard-like (with that dart tongue) Buckley. Buckley had an incredible vocabulary, but when debating against a Vidal, or Hitchens, or Baldwin his shortcomings became obvious.
Lord have mercy. Buckley & Hitchens.
You'd need the phrase "can you get to the point man!" with these two wafflers
This debate proves how much we've declined as a nation. They don't make Buckleys anymore. Brilliant mind.
Buckley is way too impressed with "serious" people.
And to think this was only 8 years ago.
1968 was not eight years ago
Buckley referring to a gay man as 'insufficient' was no accident.
It’s in 1968 ffs
Oh stop it with your WOKE bs
pontification.
I love Gore Vidal, but I love the Congress of Vienna, too! The ballgowns were beautiful, everyone ate, drank, had a good time. Just saying.
This is rich
Interesting to see these 2 cats go at it, in their own way. Like Ali - Frazier, but with words, somehow each, impressive.. btw, WFB had real hair, but here he looks like he's sporting a toupe.. Both of these guys were complex and talented men, but, I don't know, I think Vidal was the more unforgiving of the two, he was very bitter and a harsh human being to the end, something must have happened to him to make him that way.. In any case God will sort it all out now, as both men will need to face Him, as we all will..
Vidal was bitter because he was proven right .
Vidal won't recognise the Celestial Court and stand aloof.
Buckley will aid the heavenly guards drag Vidal to the mouth of the shute down to Hell.
@@dukadarodear2176 "...shute (sic) down to Hell."? Well shute yo mouth!
I liked Buckley, but to show a supposed letter from the recently murdered Bobby Kennedy seems tacky.
Wow I'm 2 minutes in. Does this get good at all?
"Not since the Dreyfus case"
Brilliant! Call Buckley out on his anti-Semitic tendencies.
Wonderful how they bring us from here and now to the brink of history as with the Dreyfus case.
Didn’t know Seinfeld was that old lol
Buckley was wrong. The war was lost. At least Vidal could admit it.
Gore Vidal, btw, was a gay lover of Clay Shaw.
Support veitnam thats exactly US is right now
Buckley looked gayer and crazier than Vidal, that's for sure.
lol, you're right
Perhaps that's evidence there isn't a gay look?
Buckley lost his cool. Gore wone
Buckley got bodied by Gore !
Not entirely. With respect to the larger question of the Vietnam war itself, yes. With respect to his misquotations of Buckley? No.
While the ideology Buckley shilled has ultimately come to roost in the global embarrassment the U.S. has devolved into by 2017, perhaps more unfortunate is the devolution of those who have since carried his mantle. Buckley may have been a disingenuous, arrogant fop, but he was eloquent, intelligent and occasionally charming. Instead of continuing in that tradition, his successors have opted for the route of knuckle-dragging, lowest-common-denominator chest-thumping. Sad.
Meanwhile, it seems that everyone in the comments carrying on as though Vidal falls anything short of lapping Buckley on style and points is obviously doing so out of an ideological prejudgment. Wherein he could be espousing the virtues of corporate welfare and deregulation, these people would automatically disregard him simply for being framed as taking the "liberal" position in the debate. Perhaps the greatest tragedy in the dumbing down of right-wing discourse is that it validates absolutism. Fun fact: 10 out of 10 psychologists agree that "all-or-nothing", "black-or-white" thinking is unequivocally contraindicative to emotional well-being or personal growth.
Of course, you have no 'ideological prejudgment'. Right.
Shut the fuck up hahaha
I find left wing discourse to be more patronising tbh
GV failed to bed WFB hence his ire.
i don't think gore had that aspiration but buckley certainly thought he could win debates by bringing up vidal's sexuality just like you did here. vidal's dislike of robert kennedy not yet dead one season is all i need to question his "profound intelligence".
@@marcyfan One of Gore's few good points was a disdain for the modern day Borgias of Massachusetts. And since Bobby was the most ruthless, outside of Old Joe, it's not surprising he'd have no use for RFK.
Neither of these two gents were out of this world intelligent. But I'd say Gore had it over WFB in the intelligence department. WFB being a popularizer of other's originality. He admitted to writer and literary critic , Hugh Kenner, that he did not have the faculties to do truly original work, and he showed some self awareness in admitting that.
In fact, WFB was disgusted with himself for falling into a pi$$ing match with Vidal. He withdrew from public appearances for months and was depressed about the whole matter. Vidal had been baiting Buckley for years prior to this, in television, newspaper and tv interviews. In 1962 Jack Paar gave GV almost a full week on his show to tear Buckley apart. Paar only relented and allowed Buckley a rebuttal for an hour after a public letter writing campaign forced his hand.
Would y’all just speak normally. Is this what intellectualism was in the 60’s?
I hate Trump , but can you imagine Donald Trump on “firing line”? “Look at this guy. Looks like a rat. I know words too. I have the best words. You’re a loser Bill.” And I would agree with trump.
Well thanks to the US we in Europe and much of Asia are ( with ups and downs free country’s and we can’t thank the States anoug! That guy Videl is like a spoiled hippie brad.
@martin
Them gosh darn hippie brads!
Your English is as bad as your judgement. Didn't you learn how to form plurals at school? Or your spelling, for that matter.
You’re.....in Europe AND much of Asia?
Ewww.... no.
Gore Vidal was right ! We lost