The sound quality of the posted audio is somewhat less than broadcast-quality; a high-quality version can be prepared in short order upon licensing. Thanks, Lydon McGrath William F. Buckley won his spurs as the sharpest tongue on the Republican Right--a provocateur and propagandist of the conservative movement that captured the GOP with Barry Goldwater and the presidency with Ronald Reagan. With interviewer Christopher Lydon on the eve of the Republican convention in New York, Buckley strikes a wistful note on the subdued tensions in his party. President Bush's renomination speaks for "a party that really hasn't found any missionary excitement of the kind that identifies a leader with a body of thought that's either gestating, or received as common wisdom." But what if the Reagan vs. Rockefeller soul struggles of the Republican Party have been misreported, and now covered up? And what does it tell us that stalwart Republicans like Pat Buchanan, Kevin Phillips and Ron Reagan Jr. have sensed in George Bush a taste for Empire--and have renounced the Party of Oil to save the Party of Main Street? Chris Lydon's questions are as keen as Bill Buckley's answers in this searching and surprising telephone conversation about the lineage of President Bush's party leadership.

The sound quality of the posted audio is somewhat less than broadcast-quality; a high-quality version can be prepared in short order upon licensing. Thanks, Lydon McGrath William F. Buckley won his spurs as the sharpest tongue on the Republican Right--a provocateur and propagandist of the conservative movement that captured the GOP with Barry Goldwater and the presidency with Ronald Reagan. With interviewer Christopher Lydon on the eve of the Republican convention in New York, Buckley strikes a wistful note on the subdued tensions in his party. President Bush's renomination speaks for "a party that really hasn't found any missionary excitement of the kind that identifies a leader with a body of thought that's either gestating, or received as common wisdom." But what if the Reagan vs. Rockefeller soul struggles of the Republican Party have been misreported, and now covered up? And what does it tell us that stalwart Republicans like Pat Buchanan, Kevin Phillips and Ron Reagan Jr. have sensed in George Bush a taste for Empire--and have renounced the Party of Oil to save the Party of Main Street? Chris Lydon's questions are as keen as Bill Buckley's answers in this searching and surprising telephone conversation about the lineage of President Bush's party leadership.