5/24/2007

Christopher Buckley's Great Talk at the Annual CEI dinner tonight

Some of the funny things said tonight:

1) There are two political parties: the stupid party and the evil party. I am a member of the stupid party. Every once in a while we get bipartisan legislation where we are able to obtain legislation that is simultaneously stupid and evil.

2) Apparently Buckley a former speach writer for George H.W. Bush complained about how speach writers are always treated as the lowest group of people in any administration. A "true" story that Buckley claimed had occurred during LBJ's administration:

LBJ had a speach writer who kept on trying to return to Harvard, but LBJ kept on insisting that he stay on. Apparently, multiple times he had turned in his resignation only to have it not be accepted. Finally, in desparation he tried again, and LBJ insisted on the speach writer write one more speach because LBJ had a big speach coming up. In front of a giant crowd (I believe in Texas), LBJ was reading from speach:

Can we stop the war? I am going to tell you how we are going to do it!
Can we end poverty? I am going to tell you how we are going to do it!
Can we give everyone in America equal civil rights? I am going to tell you how we are going to do it!
The crowd was going wild. LBJ turned the page:

The page read simply: "You are on your own now."

3) Buckley apparently went to an all boys catholic boarding school. Wayward boys were apparently punished with some type of corporal punishment. But what Buckley says scared him the most was the fact that he never got any real "personal" attention from the Monks. This lack of attention has created some really deep-seated fears. He now looks back and worries that the problem might have been that he simply wasn't attractive enough.

4) As one who grew up in the 1960s, Chris remembered a time when people were actually thrilled to find white powder in an envelop.

If there are any errors here, they are completely mine. Buckley was very funny and I may be missing a little on the delivery.

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