The Pot and the Kettle

Tim Cavanaugh | June 29, 2004

On the subject of Bill Buckley's retirement, I couldn't help noticing this bit of angsty romantic hoohaw from a rival editor:

Not everyone shares this assessment of Mr. Buckley's work. Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, called Mr. Buckley's sometimes baroque style "genially ridiculous."

Mr. Wieseltier added: "It is a kind of antimodern pretense, but of course he is in fact a completely modern man. His thinking and his writing have all the disadvantages of a happy man. The troubling thing about Bill Buckley's work is how singularly untroubled it is by things."

Now I'll admit to feeling a little fondness for Buckley as a figure, but it's true that his writing style can be amusingly mannered. (My favorite figure being when he throws an ellipsis into the middle of a sentence to let you know that his quill is stayed while he cogitates and percolates.) And I've made a successful lifelong habit of never trusting anybody who uses the word "athwart." Still, as a comment on the occasion of the old man's retirement, isn't this pretty gauche?

More to the point, who the hell is Wieseltier, who edits the most boring cultural page outside the old Pravda, who keeps dinosaurs like Jed Perl and Stanley Kaufman on the range, whose magazine is a laughingstock, and whose own essays read like five-page throat clearings (best read aloud, I've always found, in the fake "old man" voice Joseph Cotten uses for his nursing home scene in Citizen Kane), to be calling Buckley ridiculous?

Comments

|6.29.04 @ 1:15AM|#

"The troubling thing about Bill Buckley's work is how singularly untroubled it is by things."


... says much more about Mr. Wieseltier than it does WFB.

And come on now, it's not like Buckley makes up words or deliberatly obfuscates, he merely enjoys the usufruct afforded by owning a dictionary!


;)

|6.29.04 @ 1:38AM|#

ahem, singularly in this case refers to being beyond the norm or the ordinary.

i assume, of course.

|6.29.04 @ 1:49AM|#

Random Reason trivia: For a while in the '70s, there was a science fiction column. (Might have extended into the '80s.)

Larry:

"New Republic is still the best political magazine out there--"

What?? They often feature obnoxious foreign and domestic advocacies, which might still be ok depending on your pov, but they also tend to be bitchin� poorly argued, which is never ok.

|6.29.04 @ 2:12AM|#

I was a big WFB fan, starting in the late 60's. At the time, I didn't know what libertarianism was, and NR-style conservatism was my introduction to it. Buckley was a family friend of the likes of Frank Chodorov, and the "fusionist" ideas of Frank Meyer were influential at the magazine. Some of the venom aimed at those of us in the L camp by the RepCons is doubtless motivated by their anger that the Cold War coalition between conservatives and libertarians broke down, first over the insufficient committment to the free market the GOP'ers have evinced at least since the Nixon administration, and later with the crumbling of The Main Enemy, the USSR. We aren't in lockstep over the Iraq war, and now it seems WFB isn't either. Perhaps that might convince some of the frothier National Greatness types that qualms about the war don't make one objectively pinko?

Buckley has sometimes used the libertarian label to describe himself, and on some issues he's right there with us. Such as:

http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley200406291207.asp

Kevin

|6.29.04 @ 2:36AM|#

Buckley's volume "Up From Liberalism" is pretty libertarian.

|6.29.04 @ 2:37AM|#

Holy Crap! I had no idea about this; I wouldn't have guessed it from someone who was so progressive about denouncing antisemitism:

http://www.atrios.blogspot.com/2004_06_27_atrios_archive.html#108847504203298145

|6.29.04 @ 3:03AM|#

joe,

Yep, that's pretty shocking. You can find stuff like that from that period from both right and left. There are those quotes from people supporting integration having hissy fits over being accused of supporting interracial marriage!

Also, there is some book by a liberal author that is dedicated to"Little Black Sambo". Can anyone find this?

|6.29.04 @ 3:08AM|#

joe,

Sounds pretty conservative to me for that time.

Take anything out of context as much as you like.

I wonder what Gore Sr. thought of the "negro revolt"?

Oh wait......

Tim Cavanaugh|6.29.04 @ 3:14AM|#

Kudos to Atrios for digging up that old AmRen story. That is a completely amazing document, more amazing still for its good-ol'-days lamentation. Shanep, the historical context argument just doesn't hold up here: This was not mainstream stuff even then.

|6.29.04 @ 3:52AM|#

My! How times have changed. Now, gays are the only group left that NR feels free to beat up on (e.g. every other column by John Derbyshire).

|6.29.04 @ 5:06AM|#

Rick, shanep

Compare to Barry Goldwater, who argued entirely from the states rights/limited judiciary position, and felt no need to discuss the inferiority of the negro race.

|6.29.04 @ 5:53AM|#

joe,

I wasn't defending any contentions of "the inferiority of the Negro race." I don't believe it. My point was that this kind of thing came out of the left as well.

Dave Weigel|6.29.04 @ 12:02PM|#

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln ...

You're right, though. In his prime, Buckley had Joan Didion, Gary Wills and Whittaker Chambers writing real think pieces for the magazine, and long articles by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Wieseltier seems to tilt in the exact opposite direction, publishing stuff that's either completely obvious or without a news hook. What the hell was that "God bless athiesm" cover about, anyway?

Jesse Walker|6.29.04 @ 12:06PM|#

Random National Review trivia: For a while in the '60s, Theodore Sturgeon wrote an NR science fiction column.

|6.29.04 @ 12:17PM|#

I made it a successful lifelong habit of never trusting people who simultaneously wax nostalgic about a conservative icon and cheerily wave the (white?) flag at inevitable Republican victory while using the word "gauche."

More correctly, I will have made it a successful one-time application of said habit come November.

|6.29.04 @ 12:27PM|#

I always enjoy reading Buckley simply because of his style of writing. I wouldn't attempt to emulate it - and, truly, am incapable of doing so - but find it interesting, amusing, and, dare I say, unique.

He is just as much fun when observed in person. If you ever have a chance to see the series of debates he did with folks like Galbraith (sponsored by Harvard and Public Television I think) you should. Not being nearly as bright as those guys I would always get the eloquently spoken personal jabs very late.

Fun stuff that I find elegant, however outdated, and especially given our modern day "F-U" rhetorical stylings.

|6.29.04 @ 12:30PM|#

New Republic is still the best political magazine out there--practically the only decent one, in fact. And writers like Kaufman have a no-nonsense, transparent style (if often poor taste). NR also have the best guest writers, and demand the best work from them, not the stuffiness you find when they get a big check elsewhere.

|6.29.04 @ 12:35PM|#

TNR's political/current events pieces are as good as their cultural/movies section is bad.

Last week's edition was full of pieces by notable hawks giving serious thought to how they were, and were not, wrong about the invasion. I don't recall many other political opinion mags honest and decent enough to publish that kind of soul searching.

aix42|6.29.04 @ 12:37PM|#

(best read aloud, I've always found, in the fake "old man" voice Joseph Cotten uses for his nursing home scene in Citizen Kane)

When can we expect a streaming audio link?

|6.29.04 @ 12:38PM|#

Maybe that's the next step for the kind of personalized printing we used for the June cover: quarter The Atlantic's back of the book and graft it on to TNR's front of the book.

|6.29.04 @ 12:47PM|#

I would guess Buckley might ask Leon: Why is it particularly troubling to be "singularly untroubled" by "things?" What "things" must one be troubled by?

eponymous|6.30.04 @ 2:27AM|#

Slippery Pete,

TNR not a laughing stock? I thought Shattered Glass was pretty funny but I don't think TNR was laughing with me at that one. This despite my appreciation for the deceased Michael Kelly.

joshua,

As for Buckley not meeting the Clinton standard for soulfulness, your imagination betrays you.

|6.30.04 @ 3:58AM|#

If you want to read racist statements by a prominent lefty, just look into some of the evil writings of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. Truly creepy stuff.

Kevin

eponymous|6.30.04 @ 7:29AM|#

should wfb be annoyed or flattered that this detractor barely adapted 'amiable dunce' into 'genially ridiculous'?

|6.30.04 @ 9:19AM|#

I don't dispute, Rick, that racist ideology was ubiquitous in America at one time. Look at that great Progressive idealist, Woodrow Wilson. Ick.

But the left has never taken a stand based on that racism, and has often worked to oppose it, while it was one of the prime forces behind the American right for most of the 20th century.

|6.30.04 @ 10:37AM|#

Calling TNR a "laughingstock" is ridiculous. Tim, you may not agree with TNR's editorial positions, but it is a serious magazine taken seriously by serious people. It has five hundred times the influence and prestige of a certain other magazine I could name.

I assure you that, as a simple matter of mathematics, far more people laugh at what they read in Reason than what they read in TNR. That's because - for one reason - far more people, you know, read it.

I tell you this as a subscriber to both. You're making a fool of yourself.

|6.30.04 @ 10:45AM|#

I mangled my words, but you get the gist.

|6.30.04 @ 10:47AM|#

I mangled my words, but you get the gist.

|6.30.04 @ 10:51AM|#

I agree with the last post. To boot, Buckley lacked, lacks, and always will lack a tragic sense of life, something that's imagined to be the generative moral core of conservatism. He's a dandy, and the fact that no one calls him out on this indicates that the people who read his magazine are misinterpreting rigorous thought for posturing decadence. This is why, momentarily laying politics aside, I'll take today�s TNR over NR any day. It�s a matter of intellectual heft. Reason, by the way, still has a long way to go in this category.