be buckley doing something else so what i wanted to ask was, who would the bill buckleys of the past going back 10, 20, 30 years who were the conservative intellectuals who had so many diversified interests and made such an impression as he did. >> well, let me broaden your question and take it beyond the universe of just conservative intellectuals. he had some resemblances to alexander hamilton. now, hamilton held government positions. he was treasury secretary most eminently did other things as well. but they were both journalists. they both wrote very fast. they wrote well. bill was a better writer. they were incredibly disciplined, and they also had this -- you know, this go to hell streak, this dear arthur, dear barfer streak and, you know, bill set up his life to encourage that but it got hamilton in trouble. i mean, it was a big mistake to tell thomas jefferson that the man you most admire is julius caesar which hamilton did as a leg-pull. joann freeman said she was pulling jefferson's leg. big mistake because thomas jefferson nod humor and he thought the plot is revealed. [la

buckley jr.r, below that, in spindly red ink, a message, something like richard, congratulations, or rick, very nice. in time, i would learn that every contributor to every issue of national review got such a card from william f. buckley jr. which did not diminish its value, rather the reverse. the cards were a courtesy in a profession that often skipped courtesy. over the years, i saved many such cards, a fraction of all the ones that were sent. since they are not dated, i can't tell now which came first. no matter, they were a beam of attention from the top. i go on a little bit to give the back story of bill and me taking us up to 1970 and the introduction ends, at 44, bill's age when he accepted my article, he was conscious of the passage of time. in nearly 60s, a younger colleague said on one of his interviews, bill was in fine form, like a jet with a switchblade. the toughest question was save for walking out the door, bills marley knocked aside. when the door closed, he turned to rickenbac

buckley, jr. from television and we had been subscribing to his magazines for happier maybe that is enough. i took it dear bob off of the beginning of my letter added a conclusion and assented away. months past without a word from "national review" play assumed they have not like to the submission and have thrown away and this was standard procedure in journalism. then after the new year i got a letter from the assistant managing editor. dear mr. mr. brookhiser please forgive our slowness in dealing with your manuscript is somehow got buried on my desk. this i would learn is actually standard procedure in journalism. [laughter] ms. buckley bills older sister, we have read it and are eager to publish it. he added, we do receive manuscripts from people your age but i am sure this will be the first we have never published. anyone who submit something for the approval of the world expects in some corner of his mind that he will be approved. but when approval came it was startling. the world of public

i know why the assistant managing editor, miss buckley, and mr. buckley published it. a dog walking on its hind legs. 15-year-old speaks. i was also dog bites man. there were plenty of young people even in the late '60s who were conservative or simply not liberal but they were not the young people you saw on television or in most magazines or newspapers. preponderance the arch typal young people the major media are idealistic liberals, hairy radicals or druggies. heroes, rebels or freaks. here said the editors of national review was a kid, a high school freshman no less, who speaks for the unseen. there was one more reaction to the piece, the most important of all. a blue 3x5 card with national review's name and address in bold and an italicized identifier, william f. buckley,, jr., editor. a message, something like, richard, nice going, congratulations. rick, thanks. in time i learned every contributor of every issue from national review got such a card from william f. buckley, jr. did not diminish its value, rather than the reverse. it was a courtesy and profession t

where is the next buckley? not going to be one but there will be somebody else, doing it somehow differently. so, i mean, that's a very fruitful line of inquiry, and happy it's done were i purr cycle it in this book and i hope i did justice to it. the way that his talents sit with his message and with the opportunities and the resources that were out there was an extraordinary thing, and of course he had to seize it and make it happen, and he did. >> bill buckley edited a magazine, had a television show, wrote 56 books, nonfiction fiction, skied, has a cia agent, sailed the world. anything you know that he wanted to do that he in fact never did? >> priscilla? he did say -- there's a questionnaire, and it's like a parlor game, you know, if you could come back what would you want to be in your next life, and so on. and one of the questions i remember -- because he took it. he answered those. and one of the questions was, is there any talent you wish that you had? and he said he wished he had an excellent and comp

>> you said there might be another bill buckley but it wouldn't be buckley, it would be someone else. what i want to ask, who were the bill buckleys of the past, go back 10, 20, 30 years, who were the conservative intellectuals who had diversified interests, made such an impression as he did? >> let me broaden your question and take it beyond the universe of just conservative intellectuals. he had some resemblance to henry hamilton. hamilton held government positions. he was treasury secretary, most eminently, did other if things as well. they were both journalists. they both grow very fast, they wrote well. bill was a better writer. they were incredibly disciplined and they also had this go to hell streak, this dealer arthur st.. bill set up his life to encourage that. it was a big mistake to tell thomas jefferson, a man you must admire is julius caesar, which hamilton did once, joanne freeman argues he was pulling jefferson's leg and i think he was right, big mistake. thomas jefferson had no humor and he thought the plot is real. this is something, i just got an e-mail from a friend

a conservatism that was reaffirmed by russell kirk, by bill buckley. i love bill buckley. he was asked in 2005, i loved what he said about george w. bush. and what he said about the iraq war and the president's plan and the second inaugural address, due in journey across the globe. there's a conservative restraint concept. two in journey across the globe. buckley said sadly we conservatives are supposed to be restrained by reality and we haven't been conservatives are supposed to conserve. whether it's a taxpayer dollars whether it's military power. my god, the military fincher is a. the belief that you can export democracy to four corners of the globe. that you can send our troops everywhere. and again, president bush's words, and journey across the globe. that is not a conservative concept. that is a radical concept the type of spending that occurred over the past eight years. nonconservative. radical. entitlement spending. medicare and medicaid are going to go bankrupt. they are going to collapse. they are going to destroy its economy if we don't do something about it.

is a great line were echoed the buckley in 2005 asked about george w. bush and he says, george w. bush is no conservative. he said conservatives whether we like it or not we conservatives are chained to reality with to that is what two help me out on the edmund burke. if you want to foil that message down it is matt we are part of our time, we are chained to reality. we can give inaugural addresses -- you respect reality. you don't as buckley said of bush, you don't go into iraq and say you are going to bring democracy to these people and are going to throw flowers at us and everything's going to be okay. you don't give inaugural addresses where we're going in tyrrany on the globe, the president's words, that is utopianism that is wilsonian. in so the last best hope. >> host: oddly where the aggressive. >> guest: as you said messages inebriation also. but here is the deal, it is one of the reasons republicans are having such a hard time i now is that they are being told and some republicans are thinking have lost power because we haven't been conservative enough. no, that is not t

i'm not bill buckley, but i am writing for him.i grew up in new york, a suburb of rochester, a midsize city with my parents and my older brother, bob. in the fall of 1969, i was a freshman in the local public high school i didn't know anybody who went to private ones. my brother was a junior at yale. every weekend of the school year since he had gone away to college, i wrote him on a small, black metal typewriter that had belonged to mom. a letter reversing the events of the week. basketball games, school plays, little triumphs, tiny disasters, bulletins of adolescents dramatize an ionized. when we, the news barged into this home theater.

step by step, bill buckley recommended me to the search committee. the search committee was headed by a bill brought back. he kept calling. at first i was getting messages that they wanted to talk to me. then i read this whole document of the college and talked to bill and found him to be a spectacular man. this old document of the college -- i began to think, i see. i might try to run the college out of that. you would obey it and the board would obey it. we managed the college that way. i tried to make it hard to have an argument with me. i want people to have an argument with it. if they do not want to argue that, there is no reason to argue at all. >> recently announced a washington program run by virginia thomas. tell us about that. >> virginia thomas is an old friend of mine. she is a friend of mine of long standing, she is not that old. she is married to clarence thomas, and he is a man i admire very greatly and have known since before he was known to many other people. i think highly of him and very highly of her. i have had this idea for a l

buckley is not often remembers he makes dramatic efforts to bring seven years into the conservative coalition it has an editorial in 57 arguing the denial of the vote to black citizens in the south which is perfectly justifiable because they have not reached a level of civilization so he is another figure, goldwater clearly is someone you when he runs in a 64 outside his own state of arizona only wins one hand fall of deep south states know where is the a strong figure to seven why did he win those states? >> guest: one of the major issues in the election was the great civil-rights bill that johnson had proposed an goldwater opposition to the civil-rights bill was one of the things that was refused by his supporters over and over to get those so it was for him articulated as a strong constitutionalism and states' rights and individualist type of ideology. >> what is the southern strategy? how would you define that? >> they begin with the their goldwater or nixon and the idea that northern republicans hoped to win over southern voters and to win southern states by pushing the race issue by eit

buckley jr. >> no, we do not. they went to princeton. we have his articles and all of his published essays are online at the hillsdale college website. we did that work with him. >> how fast is that? >> thousands. it is very big. it is searchable. you can find anything you want. it just so happens i knew him for a long time and admire him very much. late in his life i actually went after him to get his papers, because i thought someone should put them on line where you could find them and read them. he was a very interesting man. he said, how about these articles? i said i would take what i could get. i like the articles. they are good. >> we like to make connections here. go back to claremount institute. what is that and who funds it? >> is a think tank in southern california. it was started by a bunch of graduate students. it still goes. we had the idea, we were studying at an exciting time in our lives. we were studying with very great teachers. we got into the american revolution through lincoln. he actually wrote a very good book. t

. >> next question is from chris buckley, please go ahead. >> a quick question about the program cuts. you talked about in 2009 we have the chart that showed that higher education and k. 312 and a heisman of cuts in terms of the most states making cuts, do you have numbers in terms of dollar figures that show which areas by a dollar figure out the biggest cuts across all states? >> we did not specifically asked that in this report, we just asked if they did a particular cut to that area in that particular topic area. >> do you know generally the education sectors when compared to other areas? in terms of dollars generally. >> my guess is and from what we have heard is you primarily will see that in the higher education area to the extent it was k-12 and a lot has been made up by the recovery act funds and, of course, there are requirements not to allow for further declines based on previous levels, so to the extent to see that it would be primarily concerned higher education areas but again there are maintenance of effort requirements for higher education also so my guess is the perce

. >> the next question is from chris buckley from enr. please go ahead. >> yeah, a quick question about the program cut. you talked about in a 09 we had the chart that showed that higher education and k-12 had the highest amount of cuts in terms of the most making cuts in those areas. do you have any numbers in terms of dollar figures tell what shall which areas by the dollar figures got the biggest cuts? >> we didn't specifically ask that in this report. we just asked if they did a particular cut to that syria, to that particular topic area. >> but do you know generally how, say the education sectors would compare to other areas? >> in terms of dollars generally? >> am i guess, and we've heard you primarily will see that in the higher education area to the extent it was bennett in what has been made up by the recovery act fund and of course they are requirements not to allow for further declines based on previous levels. so, to the extent you would see that, it would be primarily in certain higher education levels. but there are a mainte

>> guest: when i first on a writing a column i asked bill buckley my friend, you ever have trouble coming up with things to read and he said no, the world annoys me three times a week. the world and noise coming interests, amuses me a lot more than five times every to a switches hamid karzai right. i think the happiness a columnist barry's inversely with the help of the republican the more problems we have the more fun it is to write and this is to say no more a great time to write. >> host: how do you stay up that all? >> guest: read constantly incessantly beer and i read four or five hours a day. >> host: we appreciate you being here taking time out of your reading and preparation to listen to our callers questions and some of their the simmons with their points of view and compliments. thanks again. >> guest: i enjoyed it. now the second day of the senate health committee meeting on health care legislation. christopher dodd of connecticut is acting chairman stepping in for ted kennedy who is being treated for cancer this is three hours. [inaudible conversations]tñ >> committee will com

. >> operator: our next question is from chris buckley from enr. please go ahead. >> caller: a quick question about the program cut you had talked about in 2009, we have a chart that showed that higher education and k-12 had the highest amount that in terms of the most date making cuts in those areas. do you have any numbers in terms of dollar figures that would show which areas by dollar figure got the biggest cuts across all states? >> we didn't specifically ask that in this report. we just asked them if they get a particular cut to that area, to that particular topic area. >> caller: would you know generally how the education secretary's would compare to other areas? in terms of dollars and generally. >> my guess, and promote we have heard is you primarily will see that in the higher education area. to the extent it was k-12, a lot have been made up from the recovery act funds. and of course, there are requirements and not to allow for further declines based on previous levels. so to the extent you would see that, it would be primarily in certai

step by step, bill buckley recommended me to the search committee. the search committee was headed by bill broadback. he is chairman of the board now, a very close friend of mine. he kept calling. at first i was getting messages that they wanted to talk to me. i kept getting messages and why would you do that? then i read this whole document of the college and talked to bill and found him to be a spectacular man. this old document of the college it is very beautiful. you can find it on our website. i began to think, oh, i see. what you might want to do is try to run the college out of that. it would be the law. you would obey it. the board would obey it. we managed the college that way. i tried to make it hard to have an argument with me. i want people to have an argument with it. if they do not want to argue that, there is no reason to argue at all. >> recently announced a washington program run by virginia thomas. >> yeah. >> tell us about that. >> virginia thomas is an old friend of mine. she is a friend of mine of long standing, she is not that o

the second book is chris buckley losing mom and pop. we have all heard a little about the book and has seen one way or another the five days of the famous line he said to his mother on her death beds and said i forgive you i hope my grandchildren do not say that to me. when i read the exurbs in the near "time" magazine i realize how true the revealing it is the way families of a certain kind live together i have to come to terms with the practice of veterinary people you have grew up with reached the end of the line and it sounds like something really worth reading. >> up next william least heat-moon look at small-town america. and his first road trip book since "blue highways" even as it sounds and missouri, kentucky, wyoming, o klahoma but mexico florida and other states. it is 70 minutes. >> it is a lot of people's favorite city in the country at i assume it is yours. the last time i was here on a book be 11 i was here for prairie earth i was on a 40 citi book to -- tour by the time i was a princess close fading than i had the flu by

gateway drug to worst drugs, but i tend increasingly to believe that my old friend and employer, bill buckley, and his magazine national review were right when more than a decade ago conservative magazine national review said that drug war is lost and we have to find something to do besides introduction -- that is fighting the drug problem on the supply side in. instead we have to deal with the demand and may have to particularly make more careful discriminations between the things we have prescribed -- marijuana is not cocaine and its affect and social cost of all the rest. so i think the caller raised is interestingly going to be within the next five years and discuss the bill issue. >> host: the hearings got under way on capitol hill for the outlines of the health care legislation and the last sunday you were talking about health care on the program getting ready for discussion and i saw quite a bit of olive -- kuala commentary so i thought i would show to people who did not hear your points and then come back and talk about where you think the debate will go. here it is. >> the president