Sam Tanenhaus On Bill Buckley

Sam is a biographer, historian, and journalist. He used to be the editor of the New York Times Book Review, a features writer for Vanity Fair, and a writer for Prospect magazine. He’s currently a contributing writer for the Washington Post. His many books include The Death of Conservatism and Whittaker Chambers: A Biography, and his new one is Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America.

It’s a huge tome — almost 1,000 pages! — but fascinating, with new and startling revelations, and a breeze to read. It’s crack to me, of course, and we went long — a Rogan-worthy three hours. But I loved it, and hope you do too. It’s not just about Buckley; it’s about now, and how Buckleyism is more similar to Trumpism than I initially understood. It’s about American conservatism as a whole.

For three clips of our convo — Buckley as a humane segregationist, his isolationism even after Pearl Harbor, and getting gay-baited by Gore Vidal — head to our YouTube page.

Other topics: me dragging Sam to a drag show in Ptown; the elite upbringing of Buckley during the Depression; his bigoted but charitable dad who struck rich with oil; his Southern mom who birthed a dozen kids; why the polyglot Buckley didn’t learn English until age 7; aspiring to be a priest or a pianist; a middle child craving the approval of dad; a poor student at first; his pranks and recklessness; being the big man on campus at Yale; leading the Yale Daily News; skewering liberal profs; his deep Catholicism; God and Man at Yale; Skull and Bones; his stint in the Army; Charles Lindbergh and America First; defending Joe McCarthy until the bitter end and beyond; launching National Review; Joan Didion; Birchers; Brown v. Board; Albert Jay Nock; Evelyn Waugh; Whittaker Chambers; Brent Bozell; Willmoore Kendall; James Burnham; Orwell; Hitchens; Russell Kirk; not liking Ike; underestimating Goldwater; Nixon and the Southern Strategy; Buckley’s ties to Watergate; getting snubbed by Reagan; Julian Bond and John Lewis on Firing Line; the epic debate with James Baldwin; George Will; Michael Lind; David Brooks and David Frum; Rick Hertzberg; Buckley’s wife a fag hag who raised money for AIDS; Roy Cohn; Bill Rusher; Scott Bessent; how Buckley was a forerunner for Trump; and much more.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on the Biden cover-up, Walter Isaacson on Ben Franklin, Robert Merry on President McKinley, Tara Zahra on the last revolt against globalization after WWI, N.S. Lyons on the Trump era, Arthur C. Brooks on the science of happiness, and Paul Elie on crypto-religion in ‘80s pop culture. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

On last week’s episode on Project 2025, a fan writes:

I enjoyed the David Graham interview. He was smart enough not to follow you down some of your rabbit holes.

Another writes:

I had a very interesting experience listening to your pod with David Graham: I had the feeling that we’re all focusing on the wrong things if we put Project 2025 in our sights. While I found David an engaging guest, I didn’t find his cautionary words about creeping theocracy terribly compelling, nor did I feel — and I really can’t believe I’m about to say this — that the Heritage folks were all that in the wrong about trying to reshape the government according to their vision.

I think what may be happening is that so many of us simply recoil from the evident glee of this administration in pursuing their aims, especially if it includes the side benefit of hurting others! Instead, I’d rather we focus on the illegal renditions, the threats to habeas corpus, the strange interest in pissing off our friends, the desire to destroy sectors in which the US is the clear leader in the world, and an accompanying desire to find the least capable people to lead these agencies. So maybe let’s focus on these things rather than policy positions — which we may disagree with, but don’t necessarily threaten the existence of liberal democracy in America.

I feel much the same way — but the incompetence with which they pursue legitimate policy changes still amazes. Another listener:

I’m sorry you’ve been sick, Andrew. I hope you get some rest and recover. You have a difficult job: managing a podcast that covers controversial and complex topics and a fan base who often disagrees with you.

On the subject of Project 2025, I thought you did a good job disputing the catastrophizing by the leftists, the moderates, and the Never Trumpers on the actual changes Trump is making. You also pointed out that Obama and Biden violated Constitutional and traditional norms for the presidency, opening the way for what Trump is doing. Even George W. Bush using extraordinary rendition and “black sites” paved the way for Trump removing people without due process. American governmental norms have eroded for many years.

I worked in the state government in Utah and Washington State. I was not an administrator, but I did have an opportunity to see how state laws and regulations were implemented by merit (i.e. civil service) employees. You gently alluded to federal employees whom you think took on too much initiative for interpreting and implementing laws. Since I was not a federal employee, I can’t comment directly on them, but the state employees I worked with were usually scrupulous to carry out policies and laws. We also had codes of ethics we had to follow.

In Utah, after 40 years of Democratic administrations, when Republicans came in, they just assumed state workers were lazy and incompetent — much like the attitude of Trumpers and DOGE types now. They took a chainsaw approach to changing state government.

In your sort of negative ideological evaluation of federal employees, you didn’t offer any evidence of the federal government being run inefficiently or not. A lot of critics of the government do that, so you are not alone, but if you’re interested in the quality of public administration, maybe you could find someone with expertise in this area to interview — a respected, published person who can talk about issues like how public employees work with legislators, how they cope with changes in administrations, codes of the ethics, merit employees vs. appointed, efficiencies, and inefficiencies.

Earlier this year we had Michael Lewis on the pod defending the victims of DOGE. Here he describes DOGE cutting effective government programs:

Here’s a guest rec:

Andrew Klavan just released a new book called The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness. You may already know this, but Klavan is a popular podcast host with The Daily Wire and a celebrated novelist and writer. You might also enjoy his memoir about going from an atheist to a Christian: The Great Good Thing. It would be a fascinating conversation on the intersection of art, culture, and faith!

A reader writes:

I’m waiting to hear what you have to say about Biden’s cancer, especially with the ridiculous backlash against the new Biden book. Inquiring minds are dying to know!

I’ll be getting into it with Tapper and Thompson in next week’s Dishcast. Gonna read their book this weekend.

Another reader dissents over a small line in last week’s column, “The Pope, The President, And America”:

You continue to parrot Israeli propaganda about “human shields” — a term which implies that Hamas embeds among civilians to try to deter Israel from bombing Hamas targets. What’s actually going on with Hamas is guerrilla warfare.