Firing Line: I was a big fan of Buckley's show, the style of which is entirely absent from today's issues/debate shows (Chris Matthews's interruptions, Bill O'Reilly's beratings, etc.). New Criterion reports that tapes of the shows are available -- for $50 a show (!). That's not what I came here to tell you, though.

In recalling "Firing Line," the writer, James Panero, mentions watching Buckley's discussion with Eldridge Cleaver, in which Cleaver called everyone, including Bobby Kennedy, a "pig." (It's funny to recall that particular bit of linguistic currency.) Panero says, in a hilarious aside, that Cleaver "sounds like . . . the Radical Chic version of Lord of the Flies."