About two and a half minutes into the documentary “Best of Enemies” about the debates between William F Buckley Jr and Gore Vidal on ABCNews during the 1968 Republican and Democratic conventions, Buckley first appears on film at a speaking engagement somewhere in the early 1960s, and says, “Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. That was a very nice introduction. On the other hand, if it hadn’t been I would have smashed you in the God damn face.”
Later in the film, when Buckley loses his temper at Vidal and says, "Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in your God damn face and you’ll stay plastered” it becomes the watershed line of the whole public affair.
Still later, he uses the same line with Noam Chomsky on Buckley’s show, “The Firing Line,” which you can see on Youtube.
William F Buckley was a cowardly bully with a pretentious vocabulary.
