Truthfully, I was a dumbass dropout wannabe back when I first heard Zappa’s musical work. Then I was in high school and saw him and William F. Buckley, Jr on Crossfire or whatever was the political show de jour was, I was amazed, it changed my life for the better. I too miss him.
As I recall, on Crossfire, the “liberal” was Thomas Braden, and the “conservative” was Robert Novak, and Braden was the one who attacked Zappa, while Novak agreed with a lot of Zappa’s points.