Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal

The legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr. is not necessarily his 'National Review'; it isn't his devotion to the Buckley pere's hatred of FDR's New Deal, an act deemed a patrician's treachery to his class; it is the implosion of what his brother Reid concretes him as a revolutionary who ushered in the conservative revolution that we see in the impossible array of 17 candidates for the 2016 Republican nomination for the American presidency and the rise of Donald Trump. But, in 'Best of Enemies' trans-political make over is a glint in Buckley's eye as he faced the talented Gore Vidal as they 'commented' on the 1968 Republican convention in Miami and then the Democratic convention in Daley's Chicago. Who has read Buckley's apologia pro sua vita as spy for the FBI 'God and Man at Yale' today? Brilliant, effete, an amateur of the harpsicord,a seasoned sailor, he thought of himself the American heir to the little read GK Chesterton, in his affected speech. He could demolish in high disdain the arguments of his guests on 'Firing Line', guests like Norman Mailer, Allan Ginsberg and the like. Buckley was a man of the right--God, Country, Law and Order, who fought those critics of his values not necessarily in the name of freedom and humanity but in defense of older medieval values by attacking contemporary secular culture. And the embodiment of his distaste was the writer, playwright and commentator on things cultural and political Gore Vidal. ABC pitted these two 'aristocrats' of polished English as a wedge in the wall-to-wall coverage of the conventions by rivals CBS and NBC, at a time nightly television news was accepted more or less straight by the American people. From the get go, it was obvious that these two mavens of the Verb mutually loathed one another. Buckley shucking and sliding verbally, eyes popping, a supercilious grin on his lip as he flung mud at Vidal, not so much on what he said about the convention but for what he stood for. Remember, Gore Vidal had broken taboos for his 'Myra Breckenridge', about a transgendered man, light years ahead of the much admired Caitlin Jenner, a Republican. To Buckley, the writer of note was an enemy of God and patrician values and yes even to an elite education which Gore Vidal didn't pursue--he was a drop out who joined the Army during WW2, serving in Alaska where he wrote his much praised 'Williwaw'. Vidal was a 'revolutionary' in his own way; he published 'The City and the Pillar', which had a homosexual theme, that so exasperated the Old Grey Lady, the New York Times, which boycotted reviewing any of his books till decades later when they couldn't ignore his obvious talent. And in Gore, Buckley met more than his equal, so much so that until his death he wouldn't pronounce the V word. Buckley and Vidal were bellwethers; each had a finger on the rage and discontent of the times. And according to the talking heads, their 10 debates radically changed political discourse that now plagues our own day. 'Best of Enemies' is more than nostalgia, it is a palimpsest for the soul of the American soul. Buckley was an admirer of authoritarianism that Vidal was not. And it was to Vidal's credit that he pierced the supercilious armor of Buckley that, despite the adulation of his peers, rendered a life of hobnobbing with the rich and famous, the anti-Semites and racists, made him lose his 'cool' and restful nights of sleep. Even though he called Vidal a 'queer' (which wasn't a slur a half-century ago), Vidal suspected that he was a closet case, going as far as saying he was an incarnation of Myron Breckenridge. (For those who want to read about the conventions in Miami and bloody Chicago,Norman Mailer's 'Miami and the Siege of Chicago' is not a bad place to begin.

Turn back the clocks fifty years and we find the birthplace of today's angry, confrontational news programming. In the late sixties, standard operating procedure for network television reporting was straight, impartial, monotone and almost entirely fact-driven. ABC, at the time a very distant third to perennial front-runners NBC and CBS, gambled on rowdy, opinion-driven segments during their convention coverage and won... or did we all lose?

At the heart of it all we find the conservative intellectual, William F. Buckley, and his opponent / counterpoint, the liberal author Gore Vidal, who embark upon a series of fiery debates: one for each night of their respective parties' conventions. In retrospect, their early arguments seem downright civilized - both are eloquent, engaging, brilliant conversationalists and they make for a fascinating contrast - but as the routine bears on and the speakers' attacks grow more personal, the cordiality of their discourse deteriorates. Finally, after slyly baiting his hooks for several such confrontations, one speaker elicits a jolting moment of unguarded, contemptuous rage from his opponent and, knowing his battle won, smugly settles in to enjoy the moment.

It's difficult to get completely behind either man, really. Each spins a mesmerizing oral web, but they also fall into the trap of continually one-upping each other, and that betrays the spirit of the debate. Personally, I'd love to spend a dinner party with either, but wouldn't want to make a habit of it. Deeply interesting historical material that answers many questions about how we arrived at this era of brash 24-hour opinions and endlessly question-dodging presidential debates.

"You have to have a mind of winter to see nothing that is not there and nothing that is"

• Wallace Stevens 'The Snowman'

When debates becomes diatribe, mudslinging .... Two men: one was the first modern conservative intellectual who saw the ideological debates as cultural debates. And the other was an iconoclast, liberal, an apostate, writer against the grain.. An intellectual thinker and an intellectual writer..Year 1968, the Vietcong, Bobby Kennedy's assassination, struggling ABC network, the hippi era, the counterculture age and more.. It was not about right fighting the far left but it was about right fighting the one who is not quite far enough right... the most infamous political debate aired live on ABC ...during the concluding debate,Gore Vidal labeled Bill Buckley as a crypto-Nazi and in response Buckley called Vidal, "You queer,"!!!! This resulted into further antipathy that continued with denigrating personal polemic attacks in a patrician, languid style and heralded the future discourse.. it is scintillating, unsettling balderdash that would put you off the strokes.. a great watch ..

Most people who come to Best of Enemies knows what the state of news media coverage is, especially in the realm of cable news. It's been bad for a long time (there's a very brief excerpt of the time when Jon Stewart called out Crossfire for the very problems that can be seem sprouting up in the film in the end credits). But what's so great about Best of Enemies is how you see that the groundwork laid at the beginning for what's been twisted into the barking (less talking) heads in coverage of the daily events (let alone political conventions) is seen as relatively cordial and sophisticated. Sure, William F. Buckley Jr and Gore Vidal might not be everyone's idea of a good time with a glass of beer (though that depends on what class system rank you're in), but, perhaps except for one major outburst from Buckley - which haunted him for years (or he just became obsessed with it like a cry-baby, you decide) - they were so evenly matched as far as their scope of intellectual prowess that it boggles the mind.

Over the course of Best of Enemies we get to see what these two men were like, before the debates in 1968 and then after, and there's this monumental point of view (probably totally correct) that the directors give which is that TV changed things for the public so much that two people arguing about this or that could change things, like concretely in people's minds. But past it being of interest in a sociological or political science interest is the emphasis that these two men *really* did not like one another. Perhaps there was some unspoken level of respect, that sort of look of 'hey, let's give them a show' (and apparently after one of the tenser debates, Buckley leaned over and almost paid a compliment that that's what they did). But watching the scenes here I can't imagine anyone walking away thinking it was just an act, and yet at the same time I think there was an element of the theatrical; one of the revelations is that Vidal tested some of his retorts to Buckley on staffers or crew before filming.

The documentary may be borderline on too much context in a way - the talking heads from (the late) Christopher Hitchens and Dick Cavett and Buckley's biographer shine some light on certain aspects of their personalities (how personally Buckley took things, and how Vidal kept things under lock and key what he showed on his face). It can even be said there isn't quite enough of the debates in the film, and that's the one thing keeping it from being a 10 out of 10. But sometimes the best movies are never long enough, and this is a case where I could watch another 30 to 60 minutes of this story, especially as it's set in the tumultuous time of 1968 at Republican and Democratic conventions (the latter being when Chicago went into a series of riots). As long as the filmmakers keep the focus on these two men looking at each other and sniping in sardonic and totally dead-serious ways, the film works wonders. And you also get thrown into the mood of the period through music that almost has the buzz of technology, of TV electronic-waves and such.

If the medium is/was the message, then having two men argue at a time when there were only three channels with ABC hosting it had to do something different to compete with Cronkite and the like (and as one person says in the doc, argument is sugar ans we are the flies) made the message clear: conflict and drama makes for much more enticing (and perhaps simply easier) viewing than watching straight, down-the-middle factual news reporting. Who needs the facts when you got the paragon of the Conservative right (Buckley, by the way, has that sort of smile and grin that is both charming and kind of creepy) and of the intellectual, hardcore left (Vidal, with his books making him like an unofficial if sometimes controversial arbiter of history). Check it out - and ponder if either of these men could last a minute on Fox news or even CNN.

A well-constructed must-see documentary for anyone who is the least bit interested in the politics of journalism. Don't worry that you won't recall/aren't aware of the background. The filmmakers do an excellent job of setting the stage, and an even more impressive job of avoiding the actual political issues in order to focus on the medium. If you want to know how we got where we are, start at the beginning. This is the genesis of punditry and personality-driven journalism. This is not to say that this little slice of evolution is necessarily bad. As the film points out, prior to 1968 the presentation of news was quite static, with little, if any, chance for anything out of the mainstream to make it out of the studio. Now the genie has been loosed from the bottle, and he has truly been feeling his oats for the past several years. It's up to us to rein him in, give him focus, and pray that we can find some common ground before the growing political mitosis reaches the point of no return.