I stumbled across “Best of Enemies” on Netflix. Love that recommendation engine.
I’m decently familiar with both principals in this ABC ‘Hail Mary’ coverage of the 1968 presidential primary. William F Buckley, Jr and Gore Vidal were each incredible intellectuals with larger than life personalities and the 1968 election in the middle of Vietnam and the social transitions of the 1960s was a rich backdrop for their meeting.
This documentary covered the eruditic ad hominem attacks (that’s how they may have characterized the exchanges), or rather the egghead cross-insults that accompanied their debates, rooted in true disdain for the other. Yeah, yeah, it was hard to get footage and permissions and audio, blah, blah, blah, but this documentary takes a well-documented written coverage of the clash of these titans and reduces it to smarty-pants name calling that seems trivial compared to the moment in time.
Give me my 90 minutes back.