William F. Buckley, Gore Vidal in 1968
“BEST OF ENEMIES” My rating: B
87 minutes | MPAA rating: R
The early greats of television journalism — Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley — would undoubtedly be appalled by the partisan savagery and intellectual dishonesty that has taken over the electronic news.
Once upon a time the news was straightforward, genteel, presumably unbiased (or at least not openly divisive). The nightly broadcast was viewed as a cementer of ideas, certainly not a disruptor.
Today all bets are off.
“Best of Enemies” makes the case that the long decline of what passes for TV journalism began in 1968 when ABC-TV opted to spice up its bargain-basement coverage of that year’s Republican and Democratic national conventions by staging “debates” between liberal gadfly Gore Vidal and conservative icon William F. Buckley.
It was a clever marketing move on the part of ABC, perennially the third-place TV network (remember…back then there were only three commercial networks, plus PBS). Always strapped for cash and unable to field the deep staffs of their competitors, the ABC bosses basically bought a relatively cheap fireworks show, one that largely replaced insight with controversy and insult.
Robert Morgan and Gordon Neville’s documentary makes the case that the fallout from the Vidal/Buckley confrontations today is thicker than ever.
Buckley was the man who through his National Review and “Firing Line” TV show had become the St. Paul of the conservative movement. (Although his conservatism, when compared to today’s Tea Party thuggishness, seems almost quaint.)
Vidal was a novelist and social commentator way ahead of the cultural curve in writing about homosexuality (The City and the Pillar) and transgender issues (Myra Breckinridge) and who had a long run of bestselling historical fiction.
Both men were East Coast intellectuals — elitists, in fact. Both exuded a certain gentility. Both had run unsuccessfully for public office.
And each man genuinely despised the other.
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