The collected controversies of William F. Buckley
LinkBuckley famously smoked marijuana — after sailing his boat outside the U.S. territorial limits, where it would no longer be illegal. Finally at the age of 78, Buckley wrote an editorial for the National Review decrying the war on pot.
"Legal practices should be informed by realities," Buckley argued, citing 700,000 pot arrests each year, 87% of which involved only possession of small amounts. "This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10-15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone."
But would America ever rise up and demand a change in marijuana laws?
It is happening, but ever so gradually. Two of every five Americans, according to a 2003 Zogby poll cited by Dr. Nadelmann, believe "the government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and make it illegal only for children". The Dutch do odd things, but here they teach us a lesson.Buckley's position was unexpected, but it offered an honorable example of his real commitment to intellectualism. He began his essay by writing that "Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great."
His son said Buckley died "with his boots on," according to BBC News — writing at his desk. "If he had been given a choice on how to depart this world," the National Review wrote, "I suspect that would have been exactly it. At home, still devoted to the war of ideas."
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Great article. I would love to see that hissfest between Mr. Buckley and Gore Vidal. Also, lots of quotes to use in future BB wrangles.
well, unless somebody suddenly appeared alongside his boat in international waters offering him some marijuana, he having never arranged to go out there to meet the guy, let alone perhaps actually acquiring the marijuana in the US and carrying it out there himself, then he in fact did break the law.
If you're a liberal who smokes pot, you're a stoner.
If you're a conservative blowhard who smokes pot, it shows a real commitment to intellectualism.
Good to know.
He was so bright, articulate and well informed it's hard to fathom how he became a regressive conservative?
because he was a rich spoiled brat?
I've been resistant to reactionary ideas for decades, but Buckley was the one Conservative whose opinions I would always give an ear and careful thought to. I usually (not always) disagreed with him, but at worst I would have the Conservative argument in the clearest form in which it would ever appear.
His spy novels are worth reading even if you hated his politics. The man could spin a yarn.
Here was Buckley in the late 1950s:
"The central question that emerges... is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes--the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the median cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists."
Thanks for bringing some clear evidence in, Joe. Based on that one statement, I fall on the intelligent, selfish, spoiled brat side of this debate.
To compound Joe's observation, there's this classic on what's to be done about AIDS victims:
"The objective is to identify the carrier, and to warn his victim. Someone, 20 years ago, suggested a discreet tattoo the site of which would alert the prospective partner to the danger of proceeding as had been planned. But the author of the idea was treated as though he had been schooled in Buchenwald, and the idea was not widely considered, but maybe it is up now for reconsideration."
...And that's Buckley in 2005. Glad to see that those twenty years offered so much opportunity for sober reflection upon one's earlier opinions. Why on earth would anyone think to compare the forced tattooing of a minority group to the practices of the Nazis?
I think that we have to consider the possibility that he was a closet queen. It was a big conservative motivator in that era and he is awfully fastidious.
It's an indication of how far to the right that the left has moved that the current "left" is falling all over itself admiring Buckley. All I can remember from those years is what a heinous person he was. Barry Goldwater has had the same revisionist treatment: in today's context, he looks rational and is being promoted as a great man. Let me assure you that at the time he was not. Too bad Nixon couldn't have hung on long enough to have been rehabilitated, too. The modern left would have loved him.
Nixon was rehabilitated post mortem, a testament to a press on its way to the total contemptible estate it occupies today
The left is falling over themselves admiring Buckley?? No one that I know admires him. Oh! you mean media whores like Joe Kline and Andy Sullivan? Don't make me laugh.
WFBuckley gets pwnd by Chomsky
Lincoln and Buckley
"Negro equality! Fudge!! How long, in the government of a God, great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagoguery as this."
Christ, what an asshole.
Antinous - here's the debate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYymnxoQnf8
I've rarely enjoyed a political debate as much.
oh yeah - and you'll see it's "pro-war crypto-nazi"
good video, I'd like to have attended his demise.
Robert Anton Wilson should have lived to write his obituary,
Thanks, and great name. Now where's my Sharpie...?
I'd like to have attended his demise.
I believe that you mean hastened.
#8
Selfish and spoiled perhaps but intelligence is lacking in that response.
###
Yeah, it's really more than a little disconcerting to see so many moderates and 'liberals' --and now BoingBoing!--rushing to posthumously rehabilitate this guy. But anyone who's trying to cast him as some sort of honorable, decent intellectual is either unfamiliar with or actively trying to rewrite history: he was none of those things. The WFB of the 50s and 60s was an ardent segregationist and McCarthy supporter who was more than happy to made common cause with the John Birchers. A YouTube search for him and Noam Chomsky turns up a funny video from 1969 of the two on WFB's show Firing Line, in which Chomsky proceeds to wipe the floor with Buckley, whose pro-Vietnam War arguments come across shockingly callow and ill-informed. Not surprisingly, that was the last time he let Chomsky or anyone else who might make him look bad on the show, which ought to dispell once and for all the myth of Buckley the honest intellectual. In fact, he remained as predictable and doctrinare as conservative as you could want for the rest of his life, moderating his positions only when the changing attitudes of the times threatened to make them look monstrous. One commenter made a good catch citing Buckley's little remark about AIDS from 2005, but that's just a whitewashed recycling of the same crap he'd been saying since the mid-80s. I find this line from 2005 particularly rich: "Someone, 20 years ago, suggested a discreet tattoo the site of which would alert the prospective partner to the danger of proceeding as had been planned." I don't know who that "someone" is but here's Buckley again, writing in the NYT in 1986: “Everyone detected with AIDS should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals.” So either he's claiming someone else's idea for his own in 86, or realizes that what he's saying is so odious that it's safer to attribute the remark to a non-exist third party in 05, which has the convinent side-effect of making him look like he's standing up for others' right to free expression. Either way: slimeball till the end.
Yeah, it's really more than a little disconcerting to see so many moderates and liberals --and now BoingBoing!--rushing to posthumously rehabilitate this guy.
Mark gave a neutral, one-line intro to the 10 Zen Monkeys article and almost everyone on this thread has condemned Buckley. What are you on about?
Well, Antinous, his description of it as "a fun list of five controversial moments in the life of William F. Buckley" is mainly what I was on about, since any thing about Buckley that is really controversial could hardly be described as fun, e.g. the racism or anti-semitism. But but I'll retract it, since I don't really know how Mark felt about WFB and it's not fair to assume from one line what his feelings are. The article, though, is a case in point about the silly mythologizing of Buckley. I'd like to have seen a link to something that was more honest about the man in it's place.
Wow, I'd never actually seen Buckley speak.
Total closet case.
no
For the record, I found him odious, but fascinating.
So the best a number of you can come up with in responding to Buckley's controversies is "He's gay"?
I'd say that in a battle of wits you've come unarmed.
Not to mention the fact that the patina of homophobia doesn't exactly put you on some higher plane from some of Buckley's uglier sentiments.
I think Buckley was utterly fascinating, an American thinker who held himself like some kind of royalty. Compare him to Limbaugh or Hannity or (god save us) Glenn Beck, it's not even a contest. Yes, he was completely and utterly wrong, but he was considered, thinking and sharp. He didn't rely simply on cheap theatrics and shouting to carry the day. The fracas with Vidal was so notable because it was the exception.
I will miss disagreeing with him.
splendid, a cannibal who uses a napkin
@simplehuman
Saying he may have been closet/gay is not homophobic (though it might be an insult to the gay community)
It is merely a possible explanation of his attitudes and behaviors, and quite plausible considering the general groups he falls in.
(see Roy Zimmerman's take on repressed homosexuality amongst the conservatives)
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A quick story from my life.
Back in high school, I was a nice guy who refused to think bad things about anyone, and was completely non-violent to the point that some guys would come up to me and punch me to see if they could get me to decide otherwise. I may not necessarily have liked everyone, I sure did not hate anyone.
...until I met a skinny little kid that was half my height, and had a the blackest heart of anyone I know. His life's meaning became torturing me, enough so that one day - after 2 years of abuse - I picked the kid up over my head and threw him to the cement. Even after I had broken a few of his bones, he didn't stop.
I grew to hate him with a fiery passion, right up until I found out the other students had caught him fooling around with another boy at a boyscout camping trip the year he started making my life a living hell.
I could no longer hate him for his actions, instead I felt pity. Instead of coming out (which about 5 males of my graduating class had done by senior year), he decided to act like it never happened and let his little heart fill with rage and manliness. His new emergent bully attitude was proof to himself that he was as male as any "normal" student, or maybe it was just general repressed rage at believing he could not be himself.
--------------
Knowing someone's motivations allows you to see them in an entirely new light, if not exactly from their own perspective.
Can we just say..? finally and sincerely...
William F. Buckley was a piece of shit?
God rest his paltry soul?
Amen.
BTW, I kinda liked the civil rights movement, contards. Burn in hell. Well, even he thought Bush went too far... so, only a lesser plane of hell.. maybe...
Wait, what? We do "odd things?"
Buckley famously smoked marijuana — after sailing his boat outside the U.S. territorial limits, where it would no longer be illegal.
Interesting "reasoning" from someone who was supposed to be an intellectual. Trouble is, it's not just smoking marijuana that's illegal - merely possessing it is enough to get you a trip to the cross-bar hotel. So unless Buckley had the marijuana delivered to him after his boat left the US, (which is pretty unlikely) he still broke the law by possessing marijuana inside the US. He just - in typical conservative fashion - made up some bullshit spin trying to conceal his lawbreaking.
Intellectual? More like a bullshit artist.
Well, he sure did know how to use those fifty cent words. Who he thought he was impressing with all that seldom-used English is beyond me. Conservative memes take hold in a brain that is fearful of the future. The man was, if nothing more, a regressive, fear-saturated coward.
I'm no drug law expert, but was simple possession illegal when he pulled his stunt? When DID he pull that stunt, anyway? And did he intend it the way it is being spun, or did he simply go for a cruise for a little privacy before tok'n?
Nm Chmsky vs. Wllm F. Bckly
My "favorite" Buckley moment was in the aforementioned debate with Chomsky when, after casually threatening to punch Chomsky (all while Chomsky quite soundly "pwned" him), he walked off in a huff, shouting that he'd get Chomsky one day; or, as Noam recently wrote in an email response to a question regarding the debate:
"My main recollection was surprise at how little he seemed to know about particular issues, and how quickly he wanted to drop them when we began to go beyond general slogans.
"Although this was not on the tape, it's hard to forget the final moments as he walked off stage, in a fury, shouting that he'd have me back on again soon and teach me a thing or too. When I answered politely that I'd be glad to arrange it, he got even more furious. Of course I never heard from him again, or expected to."
Here's a link to the full question and answer, which concerns the debate's potential relevancy to contemporary policy actions:
http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2008/02/chomsky-vs-buck.html
Oh, and didn't he similarly threaten Gore Vidal, and then when questioned about it many years later, call him only a "fag," or something to that effect?
A Great American intellectual. Spot on.
Anyone know where this POS is buried so I can go dance on his grave?
It's a mistake to casually dismiss WFB as evil because he was wrong about a lot of things. Cheap and easy, but a mistake. He's still worth paying attention to because he was the origin of most of the ideas that formed the basis of the resurgent Conservative movement. That's tremendously significant, and dismissing the man out of hand throws away the opportunity to see how Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes came to power. I for one want to understand that. Not because I like it, or him, or the ideas, but because it's an important part of our political history. You can glibly toss that aside with a snide remark, but it's history, and it will either be learned or relived, as the saying goes.
And if Buckley gets so much as within spitting distance of the lights of Heaven, down from the Upper Planes shall descend our champion, Gary Gygax, vorpal sword in hand, to snicker Bill's snarky little head from its undead purchase upon his ill-defined neck.
"It's an indication of how far to the right that the left has moved that the current "left" is falling all over itself admiring Buckley."
Regardless of any action (or inaction), the perception with which you lead is indeed accurate. Viewed globally and objectively, one can see that the mainstream political debate in America exists within the spectrum of far-right to center-right, and, at times, moderate. Interestingly enough (though not surprisingly) this artificial concentration does not represent the opinions of the majority of Americans on most issues. While it is not longer as publicly espoused, one can be certain that elites like Buckley are fiercely opposed to that vulgar system of (true) democracy. If you can frame the debate, you can frame the boundary of resultant (recognized/authorized) opinion.
The Neo-Nazi / White supremacist community is making a show of its appreciation for the early work of Buckley's magazine (the National Review), in particular its forceful and consistent editorial opposition to issues such as integration, "race-mixing," civil rights, etc. The most vicious screeds were sometimes left unsigned, however Buckley's writing style leaves recognition far from difficult for those familiar with it.
Buckley on multi-racial democracy: "“Democracy’s finest bloom is seen only in its natural habitat, the culturally homogenous community. There, democracy induces harmony. Harmony (not freedom) is demo-cracy’s finest flower."
Here we find a position which typifies that of the powerful elite. In case it is not made clear in the above, the harmony of which Mr. Buckley speaks is a harmony of opinion, naturally the opinion formed and endorsed (allowed) by the elite.
It should be noted that is appears a majority of the aforementioned parties no longer care for Mr. Buckley, as he not only apparently forgot his white supremacist roots in recent times, he also, "gave NR [National Review] to the Jews."
Terri Gross repeated her interview with him after he died and in that interview she put him on the spot about the statements quoted above about race and the south. In the interview he justified what he said on the basis that many were illiterate and therefore incompetent to participate in our democracy. Its awfully convenient for him to plead for basing our laws on reality when it comes to pot, and then in that case ignore the very fact that it was one party denying the other education that caused them to be illiterate in the first place. I call this duplicitous, and cast my vote for the spoiled rich brat theory.
A few years ago, I posted that I almost missed the Buckley style of Republicans compared to the current crowd.
/Then I went and took several shots of whiskey and kicked myself in the ass for an hour.
//I find it interesting that of the five moments, all of which are very interesting, the one that made the front page was about marijuana. I'm reporting this to the DEA, BoingBoing! Hahahahaha! :D
Saying he may have been closet/gay is not homophobic (though it might be an insult to the gay community)
It is merely a possible explanation of his attitudes and behaviors, and quite plausible considering the general groups he falls in.
Absolute and complete hogwash.
The intimation that Buckley is "gay" or a "closet case" is based on his affected speech. How different is this from some homophobe shouting "fag" at someone for having a lisp? It's using sexual identity as a way of reducing someone. Those high-minded people are using sexual orientation as a slur. How different is that from Buckley himself calling Vidal a "queer" in the hopes of reducing him? It's hateful speech no matter how you slice it.
If WFB had sex with men or not doesn't make his arguments any more or less valid. The debate with Chomsky is solid, refuting his racist and xenophobic drivel is solid, but when you turn homophobic slurs to show him up you've sunk to his level and lower.
the final word: William who?
I simply don't think that saying he may have had homosexual tenancies is a slur, because we generally do not have negative thoughts about those of alternative sexuality (I don't, I'm assuming about the others).
I'm not even saying he had sex with other men. I'm saying thoughts about other men might have turned him on, and his inability to control his own desires led to some of his negative views and spewed hatred.
If I wanted to belittle the man, I would simply quote him, like so many others above already have.
It's a bit like the attitudes toward Reagan these days.
I always thought he went down in history as a bit of a disaster. Huge budget deficits, unemployment, homelessness, spending zillions of dollars on Star Wars, which to this day never came to fruition... and didn't he sell arms to Iran (officially an "enemy"), so kind of a traitor or at best a cynical manipulator?
Yet he's now held up as this sort of ideal of what a president should be by the Republican party and respected as a sort of honorable politician by the Dems.
Sorry, I guess that's off topic but it's just echoing the "debate has moved to the right" / "exonerating and haigeographising (if that's a real word) people with some pretty indefensible views"
"held up as this sort of ideal": by who? I still think he was a brain dead actor, used as a figure head by the smarter and unscrupulous. Just like the current chimp.
yeah, but wouldn't you much rather hear him on the radio and in the newspaper than Rush or Coulter?
Buckley came in for some posthumous criticism from at least some on the right, too. Mickey Kaus, quoted below, dredged up the following...
"And now for another view of William F. Buckley: Since Buckley can no longer defend himself, it seems bad karma to even link. But try to stop reading it. The ruptures on the Right over immigration long predate John McCain, it turns out."
http://www.vdare.com/pb/080228_buckley.htm
Rush who? Who is this "coulter"?
Hmmm Nazi, vs queer...?
I'd say that in the context of the argument, Buckley was being restrained. Also, Ummm... wasn't buckley's statement factually correct? I know he meant it as an insult, but isn't gore vidal gay? As far as facts go, however much you hate him, WFB was not a nazi. (My recollection is that they were socialists, perhaps you see it otherwise)
I'm a bit too much of a libertarian to be much of a buckley fan, (drug policy excluded) but I always read his stuff, which was usually well argued, if not frequently wrong. Some of this crowd could take a lesson.
As far as buckley claiming that perhaps people who were illiterate should not be allowed to vote. (which was his actual argument, not that they were black)
I work at a university in chapel Hill. I've heard this same thing said nearly every day from the left, regarding "rednecks", "trailer trash", "republican" or whatever other alias for non-university indoctricated, they can come up with. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard that not only should republicans not be allowed to vote, but they should have to have a license to breed. This because your average redneck doesn't have her intellect shaped by having her parents support them until she is through her graduate degree in anarchofeminism at 30 years old. Talk about spoiled brats.
So the guy wrote, and lived his life largely in the public eye for about 60 years, wrote millions of words on more things than you will be aware of in your life and because he came out on the wrong end of history on SOME of them, your summation of this massive intellect is that he was a closeted homosexual because he talked funny.
Be glad there isn't a poll test for tolerance.
Also that is just plain stupid.
I'm saying thoughts about other men might have turned him on, and his inability to control his own desires led to some of his negative views and spewed hatred.
What evidence do you have to support this? His manner of speech? The way he carried himself? So then any man with a somewhat effemenate or effete demeanor is either a homosexual or (if they are disagreeable) a closeted homosexual.
You do see this argument being more at home on the far fringes of the right wing don't you? It's a redressing of the right's notion that feminists are all lesbians who hate men.
Attack the man's ideas, they're ripe for it, attack his snobbery and elitism, but when you bring suppositions and guesses about his sexual identity into the mix you engage in homophobia and gay-bashing, simple as that.
Antinous, Kyle, I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised.
My other gut-level perception of WFB was that while for other right-wingers, conservatism was an ideology, for Buckley, conservatism was his kink.
There are moments -- you can probably find some on video -- when you can see that for him, it had a kind of weird erotic charge, as though conservatism were a kind of bondage, and he its hyper-intellectual sub. In the middle of making some high-Tory point, his head will tip back, his eyes fall nearly shut, and his tongue flicks out to lick his lips like a frog catching a fly: "Oh yessss, we bow before thee, O dominant historical and cultural paradigm. Make it hurt real good."
The other thing you can sometimes see is that his brand of conservatism made some other conservatives viscerally uncomfortable, though in those days I doubt very many of them could have said why.
The man was a fascist. Plain & simple. An apologist for US Imperialism and genocide, both abroad and locally.
The left have and will hold the moral high ground in the war of ideas. Conservative values are inherently unstable and lead to disaster every time, being too narrowly focussed on the values and needs of the wealthy minority.
Articulate anarchists like Chomsky prove it. Chomsky chewed Buckley up and spat him out on firing line over Vietnam, and could do the same today about the 'wars' in the Middle East.
David Cox, San Francisco
#54--"Attack the man's ideas, they're ripe for it, attack his snobbery and elitism, but when you bring suppositions and guesses about his sexual identity into the mix you engage in homophobia and gay-bashing, simple as that."
Well put SH.
Postulation of this sort borders on the "FOX NEWs" variety of what passes for in depth analysis.
What next? Speculation on his Zodiacal sign, his body English or wardrobe? Come on!
Stick to the facts, there are more than enough 'real' reasons to abhor this man.
###
With DCOX. I don't put it past the idiocy of Americans to elect another conservative, but at some point, conservative ideology will be shown to be bereft of any workable ideas. Maybe it will be when our kids are out in the street, naked and starving, but it will eventually happen. That's because conservatives aren't concerned with your welfare. They don't claim to be.
Buckley, a clever and talented prose stylist, was, at the end of the day just another jingle man who liked to say absurd things as a way to publicize his magazine. The most I can say for him is that at least he was a dressed up pig. Nowadays, with the likes of Limbaugh and Coulter, we just get the pig.
This guy was CIA in his youth was he not?
Way to read the linked article, UC . . . Buckley's status as a CIA operative is "Controversy #1" in this odd little list.
I think that the rhapsodic eulogies and the bombastic vilifications of Buckley are both pretty ridiculous. I do think this list of "scandals" is pretty carefully cherry-picked to make him look more counter-cultural, adventurous and non-partisan than he actually was, however. It seems a little disingenuous to put together a list of WFB controversies that includes, "He was a smoker" and "He didn't like the Beatles" but doesn't make any reference to the kind of odious crap he wrote about the civil rights movement, or his proposal for tattooing all AIDS victims.
...your summation of this massive intellect is that he was a closeted homosexual because he talked funny.
Oh and they also called him:
"blowhard
brat
queen
heinous
asshole
cannibal
crypto-nazi
slimeball
odious
piece of shit
coward
fascist
pig"
Of course I could level similarly-shocking pejoratives at the posters above, but to what end? Boingboing's community is snarky, posturing, and distressingly left-wing, but at the end of the day it's only a blog about Star Wars Legos and desk slime.
It's worth mentioning that WFB's magazine The National Review, which was the most important voice for his politics, is said to have been not economically viable on its own and to require periodic infusions of capital to remain in business. You expect that from The Paris Review or some rich hobbyist's poetry quarterly, but TNR is a competitor in the great Marketplace of Ideas. That it couldn't sell enough to sustain itself against its liberal competitors in the free market says a lot about the general acceptance of its ideas.
Okay, ladies, I started the closet queen thing, and I'm fairly certain that you don't want to accuse me of homophobia. I'm not even saying that he was queer. But closet queens in the public eye commonly turn to the right and express themselves with self-aggrandizing vitriol. Who else called Gore Vidal a queer (or in his case kweeyah) on national television, winning a rather sincere smile from Vidal. Being dressed slightly off the norm might sound like a stereotype, but it holds true even for modern closet queens like Tucker Carlson. And his massive intellect - when did intellect become a synonym for ego?
little Willie did a lot of harm while he lived his privileged little life. Now,like Generalissimo Francisco Franco, he's still dead.
Oops . My bad. Do better next time.
On another CIA note has anyone found a list of the books that the CIA secretly promoted in Eastern Europe etc. in the 50s and 60s that were mentioned in the obits of that old spook who recently passed away? (Sorry for the off-topic)
Oh, fuck the old crypto-fascist. And his snarky, posturing, distressingly right-wing vanity rag, NR.
A pithy epitaph.
far too sugar coated
Sometimes, sexual identity is a relevant issue. I refuse to cede the subject to the slimers and tabloid journalists. If we refuse to talk about it, they're the ones who'll inherit it.
outerjohn - that is a great piece of found poetry - the left's epitaph. I can't take credit for "pro-war crypto-nazi", much as I wish I could. That's Gore Vidal's.
Teresa! you really captured something essential about WFB in you "conservatism was his kink" post.
JStevenson - the Buckley/Chomsky discussions are riveting. Chomsky makes a great St. George and Buckley an enjoyably Laidly Worm (there you go, outerjohn).
I know I shouldn't be watching for entertainment value, but it's such a treat to hear actual political discussion rather than soundbites and mealy-mouthed PR platitudes that so often pass for debate.
"This guy was CIA in his youth was he not?"
So was Timothy Leary.
Do not spit on graves of the brave, despite foibles, youthful indiscretions, or eventual jabs at youth.
Voltaire. Oscar Wilde. Bucky Fuller. Richard Feynman.
"How many times have you used LSD?" - Steve Jobs' interview question for the Macintosh computer project team applicants.
http://www.markriebling.com/leary.html
vidal on buckley, march 20, 2008
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080320_gore_vidal_speaks_seriously_ill_of_the_dead/
I've been looking for this particular word for many years--when WFB smoked pot on his boat and talked about it later, he was asked where he got it. He used a "quintessential Buckley" word that meant something like it "materialized from thin air."
Does anybody know what that word would be? I read it in the paper and laughed so hard and tried to remember it, but too much time has passed. TIA