William F. Buckley, Jr. On A Liberal Democrat President

As part of my recent memorial post to William F. Buckley, Jr., I found and embedded several vintage Buckley video clips from 1968.

The occasion was his, and Gore Vidal's employment as conservative and liberal, respectively, commentators for the Democratic Party's nominating convention for that year.

In addition to the two clips which I found for the prior post, there is an additional one from the set. This clip continues each commentator's views, this time, as explained by ABC's Frank Reynolds, on how the candidate of the 'other's' party would govern as President.



Isn't Buckley still more or less describing liberal Democrats? Chilling, no?

And didn't Vidal off-handedly sniff that Nixon might be a 'statesman?' Which, in fact, is exactly that for which the former cold-warrior became known- opening China and, to some extent Moscow, to the West.

It took the former anti-communist bulldog, Nixon, to credibly thaw relations with the two major Communist powers, despite Vidal's doubts.

Yet Buckley's characterization of a hypothetical Humphrey Presidency isn't all that different than what one might expect from Hillary or Obama today, is it?

Scary.

The Second "Super Tuesday" Results

It's been a while since I've commented on the Presidential campaigns. This morning, in the wake of last night's significant election results, seems a propitious time to revisit them.

If you are a conservative and/or notionally Republican-leaning, all is right with the world today.

McCain won convincingly, Hickabee has finally faced reality and conceded, and the Democrats will remain at each other's throats until Labor Day.

Hallelujah!

Truly, it can't get any better than this. Confusion to the liberals, while the conservative-to-moderates can coalesce and see the clear differences between the ever-more-left-moving Hillary and Obama and the centrist-conservative McCain.

If Obama had managed to win Texas and Ohio, or either one, he might have driven Hillary out and begun to swing into general election mode. As it is, both will push each other further left to try to cinch their party's nomination.

In the meantime, the fights over the Florida and Michigan delegations, plus the now-important, secretive 'superdelegates,' will put the Democratic Party on display before the American electorate as pandering, inwardly-divided and craven. Both candidates will be trying to out-grovel the other as they pander to the extreme left of their party.

Meanwhile, McCain can finally be recognized by the sitting President as his party's candidate. Party-level fundraising, with the assistance of President Bush, can begin. McCain has seven months to prepare for the final month of the general campaign.

Hard as it is to believe, the Democrats may actually be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, again, this year. You'd have thought, last summer, that it was a cinch that a Democrat would be sitting in the Oval Office at this time next year. Heck, most of Wall Street thought so, judging by their rush to back Hillary and Obama.

Not now.

Instead, many financial service firm leaders are watching in dismay as their pet liberal candidates now turn on American business, the better to garner extremely liberal votes.

As one Fox News Network guest pundit opined a month ago,

"If the Democrats can't win the White House this time, they should fold up their tent and close down their party."

Well said.

My First Memory of William F. Buckley, Jr.

It's been a week since the death of William F. Buckley, Jr.

As a conservative, I would be remiss if I did not write something in his memory. This is a week late simply because I've been so busy with other matters.

In the intervening week, many media sources, especially mainstream print and network, have produced and aired/printed exhaustive treatments of Mr. Buckley's full and amazing life and influence on modern, post-WWII American politics.

Thus, I'll make my own small contribution a personal one.

Growing up in downstate Illinois about the time Mr. Buckley founded National Review, I, of course, had little knowledge of him in my pre-school years. However, as a late pre-teen, I was treated to live coverage of the Democratic National Convention being held just upstate from us, in Chicago, in 1968.

My very first awareness of Mr. Buckley came from his stint as the conservative half of the original 'Hannity & Colmes' team during that convention. ABC hired Buckley and Gore Vidal to represent conservative and liberal views, moderated, if you can call it that, by then-news anchor Howard K. Smith.

Originally, for this post, I expected to write about the exchange still etched in my memory. Then, I thought....YouTube!

And, what do you know, but to my wondering eyes appeared the clip of the very 3 minutes or so of my first memory of the late Mr. Buckley in action. Good thing, too, because I was off in my memory by four years. I thought this interaction occurred in 1964. But the content is just as I recalled.

So, without further introduction....

Buckley v. Gore at the 1968 Democratic National Convention on ABC



Note the era of conservative suits and somewhat restrained manners. Until, that is, Gore calls Buckley a 'crypto-Nazi.' Then Buckley lets loose on the live feed with words for which, today, he'd probably be called on to recant.

Ah, for the simpler times of old.....

As a further tribute to Mr. Buckley, here is a clip of him espousing his views on the necessary qualifications for the Oval Office occupant circa 1968. I think Buckley is still on target today, as well.

Additionally, this clip portrays Buckley behaving quintessentially. The verbiage, mannerisms and delivery are just classic.

Like Reagan, he'd been gone from the public scene for a while before his death. Never the less, I'll still miss him, as well.

Buckley on Presidential Qualifications for 1968





Still makes sense, doesn't it?