FIRING LINE 21ST CENTURY w/host THOMAS SOWELL (a proposal)

vanity | 4/20/2017 | vanity

[jobim]

With the focus on political talk shows in the wake of the BOR episode, it's a good time to consider another format, one that Buckley kept alive 33 years.

[jobim]

60 minutes, one host and one guest, each permitting sentences and thoughts to conclude before weighing in. What a concept.
And WFB proved to us that such a format need not be dull. I propose Thomas Sowell as host: the person possessing the demeanor,
the knowledge, the breadth, the intellectual curiosity.

Who would you choose? Do you think such a format would even find an audience today?

Here are some of the guests who appeared (1966-1999):

Politicians and statesmen:

Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Harold Macmillan, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Enoch Powell, Ron Paul, George Wallace, Ian Smith, Jesse Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Barry Goldwater, Clare Boothe Luce, John Kerry

Political Activists:

Saul Alinsky, Allen Ginsberg, Julian Bond, Timothy Leary, Allard K. Lowenstein, Huey Newton, Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Academics:

Noam Chomsky, B.F. Skinner, Mortimer Adler, Allan Bloom, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Benjamin Spock, Paul Goodman

Journalists:

Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, Bernard Levin, Malcolm Muggeridge

Economists:

John Kenneth Galbraith, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Thomas Sowell

Writers:

Christopher Hitchens, Jorge Luis Borges, Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Jack Kerouac, Walker Percy, Anthony Burgess, Truman Capote, Mark Lane, June Jordan

Religious figures:

Billy Graham, Richard John Neuhaus, William Sloane Coffin, Mother Teresa, Dalai Lama

TV/Film personalities:

Steve Allen, Groucho Marx, Woody Allen

Others:

Muhammad Ali, Hugh Hefner, Billy Taylor, Bernadette Devlin, Huey P. Newton, Richard Vatz, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., Rush Limbaugh

[drewh]

only one man has the power and charisma to pull it off! Gavin Mcinnes!

[ConservativeMind]

Isn’t he a NeverTrumper?

[jobim]

Sowell a neverTrumper? I don't know - he certainly did not support him in the early going.

That hadn't even occurred to me. I was thinking of a host with those necessary components of personality and intellectual scope.

[9YearLurker]

Mark Steyn.

I love Sowell but he is older than dirt and retiring from the biz.

[jobim]

Not familiar w/Mcginnes - had to look him up. Looks to be a comedian like Dennis Miller? And a bomb-thrower on the Conservative side, maybe like Coulter?

I don't think he would fit, just as I don't think a Mark Steyn would fit, as broad and brilliant as Steyn is.

A serious listener would be a requirement, in my vision. He should be capable of the lightning-response repartee, but that would not be his stock in trade.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

I loved that show and Buckley. They had a lot of influence on me as a youth and young man. It was quiet and reasoned, unlike the shouting matches, tantrums, and talking points barrages we have today. I would like to see it return. I don’t know who would be a good host. I hope it would attract an audience who would be struck simply by its difference.

[LS]

This is a different era when a slower, more intellectual show like Buckley’s wouldn’t stand a chance.

[SaraJohnson]

Check for dead people on your list. : ) Really.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

You are most likely correct. I used to watch some other programs from that time that had a similar style. David Susskind’s show comes to mind. I find today’s yelling matches and BS flinging sessions unwatchable.