How does this never fail to happen? Write about someone, and later learn someone else has written about them as well. Only a heckuva lot better. But then again, they knew them personally.
Two postings back is a blog about Christopher Buckley, with references to his father, William F. Jr. Open Saturday's WSJ Weekend edition last night and come across a sizable Opinion piece, 'Bill Buckley's Lesson for Today's Conservatives.'
The piece is written by Neal B. Freeman, a name that rings no bells. No matter, Mr. Freeman is identified as the chairman of the Blackwell Corp. (still no bells) and someone who served on the board of the magazine 'National Review,' the conservative magazine that Mr. Buckley founded in 1955. Bells.
The online bio sketch for Mr. Freeman tells us he's 75 years old. Bill Buckley passed away in 2008 at 82. Mr. Freeman was Bill's hand-picked first producer of the PBS show 'Firing Line.' The Opinion piece is about the origins of that show that ran for 33 years, and how, if Bill were still around, how different the discourse would be if 2016 presidential candidates were to have to undergo Bill's scrutiny.
The piece is as elegantly written as William Buckley's speech. Obviously, the two of them were in simpatico with each other. It's not long into the piece that Mr. Freeman posits the hypothetical interview of Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump with Mr. Buckley, and who might come out on top. It is not however Mr. Freeman's goal to create mythical matchups pairing heavyweight champions from different eras meeting in the ring to settle who is the best. His are only examples to illustrate the point. No one today is like Bill.
Only slightly further into the piece is the recollection of the best example of what I will always conclude is the most self-effacing comment ever made, when Mr. Buckley is asked after his 1965 run for New York City mayor is certified to be a third place finish, what if he were to have won? "Demand a recount" was the quick reply.
You have to have been around for that election campaign to appreciate that remark. Perhaps because I was in high school and just starting to pay a bit of attention to the world did I find it so stimulating. Plus, I was surrounded by very liberal, all-male classmates. Mr. Buckley didn't really want to be mayor, but he did want the other candidates, John Lindsay and Abraham Beame, to be better at being candidates. Bill received 13% of the vote, not bad for a guy who didn't really want the job.
I can understand someone of Bill's background being steeped in books, lectures and academic pursuits, but I find it astounding and hilarious that in what is described in complete seriousness, Bill's asking Mr. Freeman at a press conference, "who is this Mickey Mantle they speak of?" That's like saying it's the first time they heard Robin Hood's name in Sherwood forest. Someone might have been right if they said Bill came from another planet.
Bill did talk in sentences that required a deep sea diver's breath control. They could go on. And on, and not qualify as run on. They were perfectly, if densely constructed by cantilevered words, commas, clauses and prepositions. Mr. Freeman tells us usually one of the first three sentences in an opening dialog of Mr. Buckley's show 'Firing Line' would be "undiagrammable to even Cleanth Brooks."
Who? It turns out a person with a first name of Cleanth is who you might expect: a literary critic of big renown in the mid-20th century, who was an American, first educated at Oxford. His appearance was total professor. He looks like he was put to bed as a child with elbow patches on his flannel pajamas. I get the feeling an A in his class would be something only Mr. Buckley could achieve.
My only disappointment with the Opinion piece is that Gore Vidal is not mentioned. Nowhere. This is like mentioning the boxer Willie Pep without mentioning Sandy Saddler. Perhaps it is because Mr. Freeman wasn't associated with that telecast, or does not see it as a proud moment when Mr. Buckley, hearing himself called a "crypto-Nazi" by Mr. Vidal, responds with a string of language that includes calling Mr. Vidal a "queer." That Mr. Vidal was a homosexual is not the point.
The exchange is on 'YouTube' and still gets hits, although both gentleman are now no longer with us. Bill would be proud of me because I did have to look up what that word "crypto" meant before Nazi. There was once a decent racehorse once called Cryptoclearance, but the definition of "crypto-Nazi" is a bit more elusive.
It turns out crypto basically implies "secret." So, cryptography is secret writing. And crypto-currency can be Bitcoin. And a crypto-Nazi would imply someone who keeps their copy of 'Mein Kampf' under their pillow.
But most of all, the Opinion piece is about how much Mr. Freeman must miss his buddy Mr. Buckley. Mr. Freeman is not the only one who misses Bill.
The room my wife watches one of the three television sets we have is opposite where I concoct postings like this. Her "TV" room, my "computer" room. Sound and light travel.
So, whenever I have to overhear, and unavoidably see the split-screen PowerPoint pomposities of Bill O'Reilly, I too miss the other Bill.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
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