SOLOMON BEING A MISNOMER (via Matt Murphy):

QUESTIONS FOR WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY: Conservatively Speaking (Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON, July 11, 2004, NY Times Magazine)

Q You have made so many offensive comments over the years. Do you regret any of them?

I regret all spontaneous exchanges, because they aren't as concise as you can make them deliberately. Charles de Gaulle used to memorize replies to anticipated questions from the press.

It's not fair to blame the press. Some of your most inflammatory comments have been made in your essays and columns. In the 50's, you famously claimed that whites were culturally superior to African-Americans.

The point I made about white cultural supremacy was sociological. It reflected, in a different but complementary context, the postulates of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

What are you talking about?

The call for the ''advancement'' of colored people presupposes they are behind. Which they were, in 1958, by any standards of measurement.

Do you regret saying that patients with AIDS should be tattooed on their backsides to identify them to potential bedmates?

If the protocol had been accepted, many who caught the infection unguardedly would be alive. Probably over a million.

You seem indifferent to suffering. Have you ever suffered yourself?

I do not advertise adversity and would certainly not talk about visits with psychiatrists or proctologists. [...]

Is your son, Christopher, who is a writer and has just been named as one of the trustees of National Review, as conservative as you are?

Probably not, but I think it would be rude of me to inquire.

Must you be so clever at all times?

I haven't practiced the alternative.

Why are conservative writers generally wittier than liberal writers?

A mostly insipid interview redeemed at the end by her recognition that all humor is conservative.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 14, 2004 9:10 AM