Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 4, 1990 TAG: 9004040470
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY Staff Writer
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG LENGTH: Medium
McGovern sits with his back straight on a chair while Buckley slumps to one side, one hand hitting the floor.
The former U.S. senator from South Dakota speaks in loud, dry sentences; while the host of television's "Firing Line" purrs through multisyllabic words.
And, then of course, there are their politics.
In a debate full of one-line jabs and one-line jokes, Buckley and McGovern argued Tuesday night at Lynchburg College about the effectiveness of President Bush and his administration.
Buckley, who has described himself as a radical conservative, told the audience of 1,000 why Bush - and his predecessor Ronald Reagan - were leading the country in the right direction.
It was under their principles of leadership, Buckley said, that changes began in the Soviet Union. Buckley praised Bush for not proposing dramatic cuts to the defense budget despite developments in Eastern Europe.
"We don't know what the state of Mr. Gorbachev is and what we must do is maintain our guard," said the 64-year-old founder and editor of the National Review.
McGovern criticized Bush for just that. "Why is it that we're being offered a military budget the same as last year's as if nothing had happened with the wall coming down in Europe?" he said. Bush, whom McGovern said should be given no credit for changes in Soviet policy, showed "timidity" and "slowness" in reacting to the situation, he said.
McGovern, 67, also blasted the Bush administration for its fiscal policies. The country's most urgent policy, he said, is the growing national debt. "It's not a policy simply to say, `Read my lips,' " McGovern said.
In a typical exchange between the pair, Buckley told McGovern that such conservative sounding economic advice sounded like a "pious disposition" from a Democrat. Despite President Reagan's attempt to "squeeze and squeeze" spending, a Democratic Congress kept on spending, Buckley said.
McGovern turned the accusation around - and called Buckley the liberal after Buckley gave his reasons for saying drugs should be legalized.
In that area, the two were as close as they ever came to agreeing on anything. "I'm not 100 percent different," McGovern said. He said he hasn't made up his mind about legalization, but - for now - believes education is a better idea.
Buckley poked fun at McGovern's 1972 presidential defeat by Richard Nixon and so did McGovern himself. Despite his loss that year of every state but one and the District of Columbia, McGovern pointed out that he had, after all, come in second.
"I'd like to remind my friend, Bill Buckley, that he has yet to come in second," said McGovern, who also ran an abortive bid for the presidential nomination in 1984. Buckley actually did run for an elected office - for mayor of New York in 1965 as a member of the Conservative Party he helped to found.
Buckley poked back at McGovern's new occupation, as owner of a hotel in Stratford, Conn. "If 18 years ago he had told me he had wanted to be an innkeeper, I could have raised the money overnight," Buckley said.
On a list of future democratic presidential hopefuls, McGovern mentioned U.S. Sen. Charles Robb and Gov. Douglas Wilder. Buckley's list was shorter - "that Democrat whose views you know least is most likely to succeed."
by CNB