Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
Over at the Weekly Standard, a few paragraphs by Andy Ferguson:
I was interested in Diane Sawyer’s brief obituary on her ABC evening news show. It centered on the notorious confrontation (on ABC TV) between Vidal and Buckley in 1968, in which Buckley countered Vidal’s accusation of Nazism with the vigorous insight that Vidal was “queer”—not high on the list of Buckley’s scathing witticisms either. In recalling the event, Sawyer identified Vidal as the “celebrity novelist,” while taking special care to tag Buckley as the “arch-conservative.”
Why arch? The two tags make for a curious imbalance. For 50 years Buckley’s views were safely on the rightward edge of the American popular consensus; Vidal’s were shared by a tiny minority—cranks and ignoramuses in Hollywood, Manhattan, Northwest Washington, D.C., various college towns, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Yet it is Buckley who earns the ideological intensifier “arch.”
How could such an inversion take place...? Buckley was right, but in the wrong way; and Vidal was wrong, but in the right way. From the 1950s, before Ike had even left the White House, Vidal was announcing that the right-wingers had seized the Republican party from the sensible members of a generation before; a generation later, the right-wingers had seized the party from the sensible members of a generation before; and so on, for half a century. In his world “the generals” were always two ticks away from declaring war and imposing martial law; the theocracy would be arranged before the decade was out; he saw the dying embers of capitalism; and the dark curtain of fascism was falling even as you were reading his words.
Try keeping that up for 50 years! No wonder he was a hero to the Personages [of the mainstream media]. For them too every day is Groundhog Day, bringing fresh news from the day before about what won’t happen tomorrow. His career must stand as a great reassurance. If you’re wrong in the right way, all will be forgiven, until everyone forgets that there was ever anything to forgive.
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Dec '10
Re: Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
As I watch the original exchanges, I will link to them.
Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.
May '10
Re: Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
Prager: "Being liberal means never having to say you're sorry" (when you prove to have been wrong, but in the right way). Gore will be Exhibit A soon.
Jun '10
Re: Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
Is there a better irony detector and articulator than Andy Ferguson?
He's so good he gives me an inferiority complex.
Dec '10
Re: Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
Interesting, given the description by Ferguson, that the actual exchange had Vidal clearly calling Buckley a "crypto facist Nazi", whereas Buckley's response was practically under his breath, as he led into far more salient critiques.
Re: Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
tabula rasa: Is there a better irony detector and articulator than Andy Ferguson?
He's so good he gives me an inferiority complex. · 52 minutes ago
He gives me one, too--and we've been pals for 30 years.
Aug '10
Re: Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
Reaching for an allusion reflecting my feelings about this , it felt like asking Nordlinger whether Diane Sawyer was goosing Vidal or Fidel and if we would see the difference ?She continues to jerk us around as she plays grab 'em with the world's worst actors . You really start to miss Oriana . How fitting that Vidal is now mostly defined by his trying to climb Mt Buckley , sitting on his cumulus, smerkin.
Edited on August 6, 2012 at 9:03pmJun '12
Re: Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
Vidal was an arrogant, bloviating gasbag.
May '12
Re: Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
Who is Diane Sawyer? Sawyer, Barbara Walters, that lady from Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, Katie Couric ... aged out models in an endless Leg Show (there's a magazine that's way more honest about itself than they are about themselves).
Apr '12
Re: Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
From Andy Ferguson:
I'm sorry, but I've always thought this was one of Buckley's all-time best witticisms, and I still chuckle about it today.
If someone called me a crypto-nazi in a like manner, under like circumstances. I'd have bypassed the witticisms and gone straight to the sock in the jaw.
Vidal was a warped, twisted personality (of course). He spewed hatred and contempt everywhere he went, and I couldn't ever stomach reading his Jefferson series, or 1876. To use his own terminology, it would have been like trying to read a book by Hitler called "History of the Great Jewish People."
I still haven't forgiven him for what he did to Ben Hur.
Jul '11
Re: Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
I miss Buckley. Mr Ferguson is to be treasured.
Mar '11
Re: Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
Now, Mrs. Sawyer, isn't it true that what you meant by arch must surely have been that the late Mr. Buckley was playfully roguish and mischievous, that his wit was cunning, crafty, and sly?
Or did you mean arch in the sense that ought to come with a cape?
Mar '11
Re: Vidal versus Buckley: Ferguson Says it All
Peter Robinson:
Interesting to see that the media narrative hasn't changed - "arch conservative" translates as someone to the right of Marx - then as now.
Mr Goldberg could have put right Mr Vidal's misunderstanding of Fascism, also.