the question is if william f. buckley jr. had not left, but conservatism be what it is today or would it be different, would there have been a conservative movement, had there been a conservative movement would it have achieved the same success that it has achieved? i'm going to put that question aside for a moment and try to circle back to it later. let's start with who was buckley he had 16 different careers. he did things that would have been -- would have filled the career of six people and made them all incredibly successful. start with the fact he was a syndicated columnist. he wrote for many years until up until he died a column called on the right coming and was published three times a week in 350 newspapers. he was one of the most widely read columnists in the country. he produced in the course of his life 5,600 columns. if we just took his newspaper columns and published them in book form they would fill 28 volumes the size. he did this extraordinarily well. he won the best columnist of the year award in 1967 and so

i will say this, that i think for william f. buckley, jr, that his catholicism was, that nothing was more influential to him than that, and that that affect -- >> white male, also a lot of these questions he would never be affected by in reality. >> yes, ma'am. >> no question that we have an election year coming up. so my question to you -- >> we are in it now speak right. who is the candidate you are pushing for in your book. >> i am not pushing for a candidate in my book. >> what i was going up my first awareness of buckley, i always thought of him as kind of a contrarian. delighted in taking an opposite point of you know matter what the topic was. and then sort of intellectually bullying people on television. and i wonder if in tracing the evolution of the conservative movement back to him we can also trace back to him this kind of poisonous atmosphere that evolved without his wit and style in a way that these things are accomplished today. >> that's an excellent and i think a very important question. so, oakley was a very sharp debater

at all of a mind that maybe it ought to go to another level, if not to what is advocated by william f. buckley jr. , legalization between there and where we are now? >> no. i don't think that's the right answer. i don't believe legalizing narcotics is the answer. i just don't believe that's the answer. i do believe that there is some fairly good news out there. the use of cocaine, for example, by teenagers is dramically wn, but we've got to keep fighting on this war against drugs. we're doing a little better in interdiction. many of the countries below that used to say, "well, this the united states problem. if you get the demand down, then we wouldn't have the problem, " are working cooperatively with the dea and the military. we are using the military now of interdiction. up. funding for recovery is recovering the addicts. where we are not making the progress, -- we are making it gers. i felt what ross saitds said was most appropriate about the families and children. where we are not making it addicts. i'll tell you one one place it is workinwell, and that is the private sector. jim burke and t

at all of a mind that maybe it ought to go to another level, if not to what's advocated by william f. buckley, jr. and milton friedman, legalization, somewhere between there and where we are now? >> no, i don't think that's the right answer. i don't believe legalizing narcotics is the answer. i just don't believe that's the answer. i do believe that there's some fairly good news out there. the use of cocaine, for example, by teenagers is dramatically down. but we've got to keep fighting on this war against drugs. we're doing a little better in interdiction. many of the countries below that used to say, well, this is the us' problem -- if you'd get the demand down, then we wouldn't have the problem -- are working cooperatively with the dea and the military. we're using the military more now in terms of interdiction. our funding for recovery is up, recovering the addicts. where we're not making the progress, sander, is in -- we're making it in teenagers, and thank god, because i thought what ross said was most appropriate about these families and these children. but where we're not making it is wit