[Peace-discuss] My comment on Jim Dey's article

[David Green]

Vidal wasn't a liberal; he was a leftist. Liberals got us into the Vietnam War. Vidal is described by Dey as "bomb-throwing." He opposed the Vietnam War, which dropped more tonnage on South Vietnam than was dropped in all of World War II. Buckley is described by Dey as supporting "small government." He supported the Vietnam War, which cost at least $1 trillion in 2015 $. Vidal is described as "smug." Maybe so. But you might like to check out the Oxford debate that Buckley had with James Baldwin in Britain on youtube. Dey states that these interviews "defined" them for the rest of their lives. Maybe in Dey's mind; not so much in the real world. In a book of interviews called "I Told You So," this question and answer are contained: Questioner 2, cont. Also, I was wondering if you had a comment on the recent passing of Buckley’s wife, Pat Buckley, who died a few days ago.  A. I liked her. She was very nice. Long suffering. When I was speaking in West Virginia in Charles Town, the capital of the state, to an audience about like this, someone asked a question from the audience: "When Buckley called you what he did on television, why didn’t you belt him one?" I said, "I’ve done many wrong things in my life—but I have never decked a lady." Also from that book:  In ‘68, I connect up with the mainstream of the radical movement. I do three things in ‘68. One is Myra, which is sort of sending everybody up, including the sexual revolution, and I’m sending up the ‘60s types, too, because I’m not taking them too seriously. Then my debates with Buckley during the Democratic National Convention, which, of course, the whole country watches. Though I thought Mayor Daley and Abe Ribicoff more exciting.13 Then I was caught in the Chicago police riot. The night Humphrey was nominated was the night that I was obliged to discipline Buckley. The next day, Marcus Raskin and Jules Feiffer and a bunch of us founded the New Party as a vehicle for Gene McCarthy. After we had gone to all the trouble to get the party’s names on a couple of dozen state ballots, he torpedoed it. I just saw Marcus in Washington last March and he said, "You should have been our candidate." I said "I thought so too, but I was waiting for you to ask." He said, "Well, we didn’t," and I said, "No, you didn’t." We could have launched a real party at that moment.  http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/columns/2015-09-15/jim-dey-spending-questions-and-frenemies.html
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