The Best of Enemies

You always hurt the one you loathe, or at least hope to. That was the mantra behind the relationship between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr., two of the 20th centuries ideological giants, whose complicated relationship is explored in The Best of Enemies, the immensely fascinating documentary by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon.

Their focus is the appearance of Vidal and Buckley during ABC News' coverage of the 1968 Republican and Democratic conventions in Miami and Chicago. At that time ABC was the also-ran amongst the three networks, especially in its last-place news division. To boost their ratings they took a chance by hiring Vidal and Buckley to debate each night of the conventions. It was a daring move -- at that time television news was largely devoid of commentary of this type, but ABC saw they had nothing to lose. "It wasn't necessarily sensible. It was a shot in the dark, and it changed television forever," says one of the commentators in the film.

What also made it daring was that Vidal and Buckley hated each other. Their animosity went well beyond their politics. The left-leaning Vidal and the conservative Buckley were both from upper-crust families. Vidal reached fame (some said infamy) in the 1948 with his ground-breaking novel about gay culture, "The City and the Pillar"; Buckley founded the National Review, the highly respected conservative journal. Both were well-known celebrities, Vidal through his television appearances on chat shows and Buckley with "Firing Line," his political commentary show in which he weekly debated guests of all political persuasions. Both had run for political office and lost, Vidal for Congress and Buckley for Mayor of New York. But their differences went well beyond politics. In 1968 Vidal had published "Myra Breckinridge," his ground-breaking satire about a transsexual who conquers Hollywood, which Buckley thought was indicative of the collapse of moral values in America.

Why both men decided to debate each other is a question that the film, which illustrates their careers with copious footage, never quite answers; but once they do, starting with the Republican convention in Miami, it is clear that Vidal has the upper hand. His scathing one-liners have an off-the-cuff spontaneity; in actuality, as the film shows, they were scripted and rehearsed beforehand. At one point he calls Buckley "the Marie Antoinette of American politics." At another, Vidal says that the Republican party is based entirely on human greed, to which Buckley responds: "It seems to me the author of 'Myra Breckinridge' is well acquainted with the imperative of human greed." Vidal replies: "If I may say Bill, I would like to say if there was a contest for Mr. Myra Breckinridge, you would unquestionably win it. I based her entire style polemically upon you: Passionate and irrelevant." Point to Vidal.

Their point/counterpoint continued to Chicago, where it became as heated as the streets outside the political convention. Much has been written on how the ensuing riots between left-wing politicos and the police shaped the election result two months later, as Richard Nixon (with his Silent Majority) beat the happy liberal warrior Hubert Humphrey; but what this film does with great effect is bring to life the visceral response the two men had to the events.

In one of the most memorable exchanges in American political commentary, Vidal calls Buckley a "crypto-Nazi," to which Buckley responds venomously: "Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered." The fallout from this had a cool Vidal looking victorious over the overheated Buckley. "I do this so well that I left the bleeding corpse of William F. Buckley, Jr. on the convention floor in Chicago," he later said. The exchange so affected Buckley that he was said to have never addressed their confrontation publicly for the rest of their lives, nor to have uttered Vidal's name.

A number of Vidal/Buckley experts are on hand to offer their assessment of the fracas, as well as such commentators as Frank Rich and the late Christopher Hitchens. Interestingly Buckley's son, writer Christopher Buckley, refused to participate. However, Buckley's brother Reid is on hand to offer the family's assessment of Vidal: "There is always a residue of nausea when I watch him," he says.

Seen today, it's hard not to think of our fractious political climate and the endless spew of Vidal/Buckley-style debates that fill our airways, though, as this excellent film shows, no one did it better and with more panache than these two colorful, ideologically-opposed intellects.