Buckley / Vidal Buckley vs. Vidal

The Historic 1968 ABC News Debates
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-942531-11-1
Verlag: Devault-Graves Digital Editions
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 165 Seiten

Conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal author Gore Vidal exploded onto the political scene during the presidential conventions of 1968 when they debated 11 times on ABC News as a part of the network's convention coverage. Their debates were fiery and combative and they infamously blew up at each other during their penultimate debate in Chicago. The debates, the subject of the new documentary film 'Best of Enemies,' have not been shown or transcribed in their entirety since the original airings in 1968. Devault-Graves Digital Editions exclusively brings you the complete, uncensored transcripts in all their highly readable glory. The book also features an eloquent and informative introduction by one of the directors of 'Best of Enemies,' author Robert Gordon. Fans of Buckley and Vidal will not want to miss the delicious vituperation on display. Students of debate will find no better guide to the art of the verbal fencing than Buckley vs. Vidal.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Buckley, William F.

Vidal, Gore

Leseproben

Debate One — Republican Convention Saturday, August 3, 1968 Miami Beach, Florida (Two days prior to convention) Editor’s Note: Most of the debates begin with a brief introductory statement from each speaker that was shown as a tease early in the newscast. The debates begin with an introduction from moderator Howard K. Smith. Howard K. Smith: … and two of the nation’s most prominent and probably opposing commentators, Mr. William F. Buckley Jr. William F. Buckley Jr.: My own notion, having got here just a little while ago, is that what the Miami Convention already proves is that the overwhelming amount of power happens to lie in the hands of conservative Republicans who are proving that the disaster of 1964 didn’t have any strategic effect. Howard K. Smith: And Gore Vidal. Gore Vidal: To me the principal question is, can a political party based almost entirely upon human greed nominate anyone for president for whom a majority of the American people would vote? Howard K. Smith: [For ABC News’ convention coverage for this presidential election] two of our nation’s most decided commentators have joined us this year. They are Gore Vidal, a former Democratic candidate for Congress, but better known as an author, of among many other things a play about a political convention, and William F. Buckley Jr., a former conservative candidate for the mayor of New York, but better known as a columnist, commentator, and editor of the National Review. Mr. Buckley, who of the potential candidates do you think is, if I may steal a title from Mr. Vidal, the best man? Buckley: Oh … I’m not prepared to say. I think that several of them are highly qualified to be a good president. I think what you really mean to ask me, but are too shy, is who do I like most? … Howard K. Smith: (laughs) Buckley: … to which my answer is that as a conservative I am very much fetched by the programs of Mr. [Ronald] Reagan and also of Mr. [Richard] Nixon. I think that Mr. Nixon has convinced the majority of the delegates that he is the best man in the light of his experience. Given also the fact that his experience coincides with his commitment to a series of policies which they endorse. Howard K. Smith: Can Mr. Vidal assess those candidates for us? What do you think of? Vidal: Well, I would come, I think, to a very different point of view. To me, none of them is really the best man, with the possible exception [of] Nelson Rockefeller. I cannot possibly imagine Richard Nixon as the President of the United States. I think he is essentially the “hollow man” that we always discussed. I think we’re living in revolutionary times in which new programs are needed. And that you’re going to need somebody who can rally the young people of the country. The Negroes, the ghetto, the poor are angry, restless. This is a terrible time, and here you have a man who when he was in Congress he voted against public housing, against slum clearance, against rent control, against farm housing, against extending the minimum wage. He was against … rather dubious about the 1954 Supreme Court decision bill. He said, “I am opposed to pensions in any form as it makes loafing more attractive than working.” And now today he offers us a program for the ghettos, which he’s made much of, and what is it? Well, he is going to give tax cuts to private businesses that go into the ghetto and to help the Negroes. Now, in actual fact, private business is set up to make private profits. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not in the business of philanthropy. So they’ll get their tax cut and we’ll have nothing in the ghetto probably but the rising expectation of what is now revolution. So I would say that as far as Mr. Nixon goes, I think he is an impossible choice domestically. Buckley: Uh, may I comment Mr. Smith? Howard K. Smith: Please do. Buckley: Yeah, it seems to me that the earlier focus of (pregnant pause) Mr. Vidal here on human greed — you do remember? — he said that he found himself wondering whether a party that was devoted to the concept of human greed could ever hope to get a majority of the American people to vote for it. Now the author of Myra Breckinridge is well-acquainted with the imperatives of human greed. Howard K. Smith: (laughs) Vidal: I would like to say, Bill … (crosstalk) … If I may say Bill … before you go any further, I would like to say that if there were a contest for Mr. Myra Breckinridge, you would unquestionably win it. I based her entire style polemically upon you, passionate and irrelevant. Buckley: That’s too involuted for me to follow. One of these days perhaps you can explain it … Vidal: You follow it. Buckley: My point is that the number of people who are voting for the Republican Party agree that there are certain ways of doing things which are different from other ways of doing things. For Mr. Vidal to give us the pleasure of his infrequent company by coming back from Europe where he lives in order to disdain the American democratic process and to contemn a particular party as engaged in the pursuit of human greed requires us to understand his rather eccentric definitions. Is it greedy, really, for people to suggest that what matters to poor people is that they have houses? [It was] Senator Bobby Kennedy, not Mr. Nixon, who first suggested a tax rebate for businesses engaged in this kind of pursuit. Is it really greedy to want to preserve our freedom? Have the Republicans been greedy by being prepared to support a war which kills American youth and uses up 30, 40 billion dollars a year? It may have been wrong, but greedy would strike me as very wrong-headed. Vidal: Well, by and large, however, it is a party which is based upon business interests. It represents only 27 percent of the people of the United States. Somebody once pointed out Republicans are not a party, they’re a class. It is a class of, by and large, small businessmen with very strong views about not weakening the moral fiber of the poor who now number 30 million people. And by and large I quoted for you Mr. Nixon’s record in the Senate, which was not terribly helpful as far as programs for the poor goes. They do believe, however, Republicans, in spreading the money around amongst themselves. They get, through big business, they get far more subsidies than the poor do. As a matter of fact we have a situation in the United States where they believe they should have socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor. The rich are subsidized and the poor, alas. I think our military budget is something like 75 billion dollars — and I agree entirely about the horrors of the war with Mr. Buckley — we are bound to agree on something — and only 2 billion dollars is spent for poverty programs, which all Republicans, to a man in the House and Senate, have been opposed to. Buckley: The thing about the poverty programs and, of course, the thing about the democratic system is that there ought to be a party free to discuss that which is wrong in a particular concept. And it is widely acknowledged by a lot of people, many of them Democrats, that the poverty program hasn’t worked. It’s certainly acknowledged by poor people who are victims of the rather comfortable rhetoric of Mr. Vidal. The principal contributions that have been made for the elimination of poverty in America have been made by millions upon millions upon millions of people who have not sought political favor who work hard enough to create a surplus. Which surplus is distributed during the past four or five generations in this country resulting in the fact that we have the luxury of being able to focus on those who are poor in our midst as though we can do something about it, which is something that no other country less occupied with human greed has the luxury … Vidal: The nice thing about the Republican Party is that every four years after denigrating the poor amongst themselves, referring to them as freeloaders, “They don’t want to work,” and I have many quotes here from Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon on the subject, and making fun of the minority groups with lovely little remarks like, what was one of the headings in the National Review when Adam Clayton Powell got nabbed? The headline was “The Jig Is Up.” Well, this sort of kind of pleasantry which you get in the Republican Party — I should say in the right-wing all over the United States. And then every four years you get this sort of crocodile tears for the poor people because they need their vote. Well, I don’t think that they’re going to vote for any of your candidates unless by some terrible accident the Democrats get split hopelessly at Chicago, which could well happen, and Eugene McCarthy’s people do not vote. In which case I think Richard Nixon might very well become the next president and I shall make my occasional trips to Europe longer. Buckley: Yes, I think a lot of people hope you will. (all laugh) As a matter of fact, Mr. Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who is a member of your party, not mine, reminds you of your promise to renounce your American citizenship unless you get a satisfactory party in November. Vidal: Now, now, Bill, that isn’t quite what I said. I said it would be the morally correct thing to do if the war did...