After the Republicans held their lively first debate, you heard people saying what they always say nowadays — that our media-driven political discourse has become shallow and petty, even clownish.

For better or for worse, we’ll never again see television quite like that documented in the compelling “Best of Enemies,” which returns us to the summer of 1968 and the historic series of televised ...

William F. Buckley’s son Chris has a good column on the The New Republic reflecting on the death of author Gore Vidal, who had a long-running hatred of the elder Buckley. Vidal’s enmity dates back an ...

William F Buckley Jr was, above all else, a debater. He’s perhaps best known today for jousting with the liberal writer Gore Vidal in 1968 during the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.

From their polar positions, Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. see themselves as witty, wily intellectuals magnificently equipped to interpret (respectively) the left and right of U.S. life. Except ...

The author and commentator, who would have turned 100 this month, made an art of his public rivalries. In his last years, his ultimate sparring partner was Christopher Hitchens, a friend turned ...

Gore Vidal (1925-2012) is one of those rare but regularly appearing types on the U.S. literary landscape who tried to make a wholesome contribution to the life of the nation, but having a classicist's ...