When William F Buckley Called Gore Vidal A Queer On Live TV

Gore Vidal has died at the ripe old age of 86; there's no need to be sad as the man lived one of the great lives of the 20th century. Writer, political activist, intellectual, gay groundbreaker, Vidal was one of the finest, most interesting personalities of the previous century. And he could really piss people off.

The video above is from his stint doing political analysis for ABC during the 1968 presidential conventions. He was there as a proponent of the left, while William F. Buckley was there for the right. The two went at each other for days and days, but as the situation in the streets of Chicago outside the Democratic Convention came to a head - the famous police riot was going on - the bickering got downright nasty, as Vidal called Buckley a Nazi and Buckley called Vidal a queer. 

Vidal went on to help found the People's Party, which ran Dr. Spock for president in 1972.