Page 12-Sunday, October 15, 1978-The Michigan Doily
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buckley
(Continued from Page 3)
everything he writes - which is con-
siderable. While Buckley says his job as
the editor of the National Review is his
most important activity, it is not his
most important "literary activity."
Buckley writes a syndicated column,
and often contributes articles to
magazines such as Esquire, most of
which touch on political themes. In
more recent years he has branched out
into novels, one of which involves a CIA
agent who has sex with the Queen of
England. But the novels, too, have a
subtle political tone.
"A good writer," says Buckley, "is
impatient, impatient with slow
movement. He tends to say things in-
stead of whacking around."
It is, however, rather difficult to find,
a copy of the National Review in Ann
Arbor. You can find it at the Grad
Library but you won't find it on many of
the newsstands which are inundated
with leftist periodicals like Seven Days
or New Times. To Buckley, this is just
another example of the liberal attitude
which pervades college campuses.
Liberalism on campus is one of
Buckley's common complaints and he
lashed out at this topic in his book God
and Man at Yale, an account of
Buckley's brushes with liberal
propaganda during his years as a
student at that school.
Although he lectures on campuses
occasionally, Buckley says he is out of
touch with what goes on there these
days. Only a student, according to
Buckley, can accurately gauge the
amount of liberal indoctrination he or
she is fed at college.
"It's really the student ... He gets
around and catches little nuances. He
gets it from the newspaper, the year-
book and the reading list - the implicit
sense of intellectual priorities - what it
is one is urged to read."
Buckley sees liberals as urbane in-
tellectuals who maintain high ideals, a
view which may seem contradictory
since Buckley himself is an urbane in-
tellectual who maintains high ideals.
He has nothing against idealism; he
does, however, object to liberals who
embrace the philosophy without
thinking objectively. That's why he likes
Doonesbury - another seeming con-
tradiction. The comic strip does poke
fun at the conservative establishment
but it also jabs at the Left. And because
the series' author Gary Trudeau looks
at both sides through a process of
careful analysis, Buckley has written a
laudatory introduction to Trudeau's
latest book, Doonesbury's Greatest
Hits.
There are always new points for
Buckley to consider but he consistently
interprets them from his conservative
perspective. For Buckley, the division
between liberalism and conservatism is
clear; "conservatism is the politics of
reality," hesays, "not to undermine
liberalism but to give it a realistic
base."
Buckley contends that liberals are
short-sighted - they see problems,
then instantly mastermind and
legislate solutions which usually un-
dermine the freedom of others without
resulting in a permanent solution. So he
opposes programs like national health
insurance or welfare on the grounds
that they are simply hand-outs which
thwart any motivation for society to
work out permanent, long-range
solutions to its problems.
He has it all figured out. He has con-
sumed the statistics and perused the
graphs while churning out articles,
editorials, TV shows and lectures. And
even those who think he's wrong will
undoubtedly continue to hear from him
again and again.
As he stepped into the drizzle outside
of Hill Auditorium, Buckley was met by
the young man who had, just a few
minutes before, stood in the auditorium
proclaiming that Buckley is wrong.
"Mr. Buckley, I disagree with
everything you say, but it was in-
teresting to hear you speak." They
shook hands.
N
sadat
(Continued from Page 10)
Immediately upon entering the royal
armed forces, he began organizing the
revolution, an effort compelled by his
ties with the land, his village purity,
and his heroes. He organized the Free
Officer's Organization through a series'
of covert roundtable discussions with
other officers who had also grown tired
of British imperialism.
One of these officers was a quiet
moody man who spoke infrequently -
Gamel Abdel Nasser. When Sadat was
imprisoned on two different occasions
by the British, Nasser assumed control
of the Free Officers Organization. It
was this tightly-knit group of in-
dividuals that was responsible for the
coup that overthrew the rule of the
colonial power and the king.
IF IT HAD not been for Sadat's high-
ly publicized role in an assassination
during the Second World War it could
well have been Sadat, not Nasser, who
rode the wave of revolution to power in
Egypt in,1952.
Sadat goes to great lengths to explain
how his Egypt would have differed
from that of Nasser. It is in this context
that Sadat attempts to score political
Doints.
In fact, Sadat goes out of his way to
impress the reader. He talks about
Nasser's forms of tyranny even before
his narrative reaches the revolution of
1952. Sadat claims he would have done
things differently but he does not con-
vince the reader. He does a lot of Mon-
day morning quarterbacking, pointing
to Nasser's errors in judgement made
between 1956 and 1967.
Sadat claims he would have done
things differently because his per-
sonality was different from Nasser's.
And indeed it was. Nasser was prone to
fits of moodiness and despair brought
on by excessive paranoia - a fear that
those around him were busy plotting a
counter-revolution. Sadat is a far more
secure man.
But there is no guarantee that, if
Sadat had been Egypt's first president,
the fear of counter-revolution would not
have clouded his judgement also.
Moreover, Sadat's ponderous
pleading of his case tarnishes the
believability of the autobiography. In-
deed, his self-portrait, which paints him
as An ardent civil libertarian, has been
disproven by the events of recent years
when he purged newspapers and
government critics.
Unfortunately, Sadat does not attem-
pt to rationalize or even mention these
events.
But In Search of Identity is an impor-
tant historical document of the history
of the Middle East - as seen through
the eyes of Anwar el-Sadat.
Daily Photo by WAYNE CABLE
film
(Continued from Page 11)
an asteroid.
Y ET ALL ITS resident illogic could
be forgiven-as it was in Star Wars
-if Galactica would simply loosen up a
little. I suspect the program and the
network hoodwinked themselves into
the idea that a monster budget, mass
video technology, and a hype campaign
were enough to ensure themselves of a
series of Masterpiece Theatre pro-
portions.
Galactica isn't even close. Battlestar
Galactica will never be another 2001.
All its ill-starred participants should
come down from their cardboard
Olympus and start enjoying themselves
a little. For at this moment, Battlestar
Galactica is the biggest floating
mausoleum ever to grace
television-and for TV, that's saying a,
galaxy-full.
wiesel
(Continued from Page 10)
He points out the accounts of suf-
fering and death in the Ache tribe in
Paraguay in 1974. He recognizes the
similar characteristics of a genocide;
men massacred for sheer pleasure,
young girls raped and sold, children
violated, trampled, killed in front of
their parents' eyes.
"But our society chooses not to take
notice. Silence everywhere. Rarely
mentioned in the press, it is not a sub-
ject for discussion at the United Nations
or elsewhere. The important voices are
still. At one time we may have had the
excuse that we did not know. But now,
that is no longer valid. Now we do
know," he says.
Elie Wiesel has made sure we know,
but he rests uncomfortably because he
believes his words-go unnoticed. But he
continues to speak out, hoping someday
they will be heard.
-MMM
sundaes mC-dtdzine
Co-editors
inside:
Elizabeth Slowik
Sue Warner
looks Editor
Brian Blanchard
Cover photo by Darryl Pitt
On the firing
line with
William Buckley
Focusing in
on the 'U'
TV Center
Books:
Anwar So
identity
Supplement to The Michigan Daily
Ann Arbor, Michigan-Sunday, October 15, 1978