My evening (or was it afternoon?) with William F. Buckley

I met the great man only once, and it was an odd experience. Michael Kinsley roped me into appearing in a "Firing Line Debate", which he, Kinsley, was chairing; presumably I was being asked because somebody else had dropped out. I was to speak on Buckley's team in favor of the proposition that the budget deficit was a bad thing, or words to that effect. This was back in 1992. In those days a lot of conservatives thought that big deficits were wrong, whereas most liberals thought they mattered not at all and that concern about them was just a ruse for cutting public spending and grinding the faces of the poor.

I had never watched "Firing Line" and I knew Buckley only by his writings and reputation; an innocent foreigner, I did not realise that the debate was essentially just a platform for him to perform. Mike, I recall, kept everybody else to a strict time limit--cutting me off in mid-sentence--in order to give Buckley all the time in the world to orate, with operatic pauses that seemed longer than my entire contribution. At one point, I recall, he read at some length from a sarcastic review I had written of a book by Robert Kuttner, one of our opponents, asking Kuttner exuberantly in conclusion: "What do you think accounts for such animadversion?" What a strange approach, I remember thinking. And surely not terribly effective: Kuttner was entitled to reply, "Why should that be any concern of mine? Ask Crook why he got my book so wrong."

Did we--well, Buckley, I mean--win? Was the motion even put to a vote? I can't remember. It turns out there's an archive of these programs, but this one, unaccountably, is not available for download or purchase. (The synopsis quotes me, I am surprised to see. But did I really say that?)

I came away liking Buckley very much, but resolving not to take part in any more of his debates, for or against. He seemed a charming as well as brilliant man, with a constant twinkle in his eye. National Review says he was "sweet and merry". The one time I met him, so he was.

Comments

Animadversion. Even in his passing, Mr. Buckley still makes me reach for the dictionary.

I would just like to add that a few of the Firing Line programs at the Hoover Institution Archives are available for download. They were interesting, indeed.

Additionally, the website asks for one's opinion on which programs to digitize. My first instinct was to vote for all. However, out of admiration to the only columnist who cares to write about policy this election cycle, I voted for your's Mr. Crook.

By the by, how is Mr. Kinsley doing?

Posted by Luis A. del Valle | February 28, 2008 2:02 AM

Thanks Luis. Commenters like you should be put on retainer. It was the word "animadversion" that stuck in my mind: strange, the things one remembers. I don't think Mike would mind me telling you that he is thriving at the moment. As you may know he has Parkinson's Disease--something he has written about once or twice--but a while back he decided to undergo a new implant procedure, which has helped a lot. In fact he describes the results as a kind of miracle.

Posted by Clive Crook | February 28, 2008 8:07 AM

Apropos of nothing here, except that I linked to it through your Buckley post, I appreciated your October 2007 article on the "nontrivial" concept of comparative advantage. You reference Bhagwati to say, "Suppose, however, that the country had previously been collecting some monopoly profits on its exports." I'm a dedicated free trader, but I think there might be more here than you make of it in the article. My own (completely unscientific) theory is that we in the United States (and no doubt in industrialized countries more broadly) have been collecting a premium on a large part of our economic output simply because the rest of the world wasn't prepared to compete - in other words, we were enjoying an effective monopoly. Now that the rest of the world - particularly China and India - have raised they're game, we're no longer able to collect those premiums and this is contributing to income inequality in our country, even while it improves income equality on a global basis. Tough situation for Americans in the short run, but a positive development for humankind.

Posted by Patrick | February 28, 2008 5:10 PM