American conservative William F. Buckley was up against leftist public intellectual Gore Vidal on ABC (then a network that had fallen way behind CBS and NBC in the ratings war) during the 1968 Democratic and Republican national conventions, and this very interesting documentary brings that time to life again. The distaste of these two men for each other was palpable and frequently made quite clear for the viewing audience. It’s easy to forget that US television “news” had not seen this type of exchange before.
