History better watched than read
The PBS/American Masters documentary “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley” was released last Friday, April 5. It was a major contribution to my understanding of the evolution of the Republican Party and the conservative movement over the last sixty plus years. It documents the importance of the work of one man in shaping a movement—a movement over which he ultimately lost his influence.
The name William F. Buckley, Jr. was familiar to me. I was vaguely aware that he was educated at Yale, a prolific conservative political writer and commentator, and the founder and editor of “National Review,” the intellectual flagship of the conservative movement. I had a vague sense that Buckley was responsible for the intellectual underpinnings of American conservatism, such as they were. What I did not understand was that, thanks to Buckley’s origins, his formidable intellect, his rapier wit, his skill in debate, and a keen sense of politics, he managed lend a veneer of legitimacy to racist and classist views.
“The Incomparable Mr. Buckley” runs roughly an hour and forty minutes—time well spent. It is available to stream on PBS until May 3rd. It can also be found on YouTube. I found myself in passionate disagreement with most of Buckley’s premises, and it was easy to identify among these premises many arguments still relied upon by Republicans today—but I also found myself fascinated by Buckley’s ability (mostly) to pointedly disagree while still not being disagreeable. Within the documentary video coverage of Buckley’s encounters with James Baldwin and with Gore Vidal were especially revealing.
William F. Buckley, Jr. lived from 1925 to 2008. Parts of the documentary are narrated by his son, Christopher Buckley. Particularly delicious for me is the notation in Christopher’s wikipedia entry that in late 2008, even though he was, at the time, also writing articles for the National Review, he had an endorsement published in the Daily Beast titled “Sorry, Dad, I’m Voting for Obama.”
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry