An interview with Allen Ginsberg was once titled “I Sing of Norman P.” The poet referred to Podhoretz as “a sort of sacred personage in my life.”

He is that for a helluva lot of us, who view him much more positively than Ginsberg did. Norman P. sings for himself in my latest Q&A. We talk about many things, literary, political, and personal. We start with Shakespeare, and then go on to Yeats, Eliot, and other characters.

(We discuss two Eliots, actually: George and the poet from St. Louis.)

Conversation turns to wars, in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan . . . Iran?

We talk about Obama, of course — Norman has his number — and we talk about at least three Bills: Buckley, de Blasio, and Kristol. De Blasio is certainly the odd man out in that trio.

At the end of this podcast, I ask Norman why he doesn’t blog or tweet. If he did, the rest of us would be out of business, I assure you. He says the forms aren’t long enough for him, basically, and that they are too casual. Trust me, he’d kill in them, if he ever did it.

Anyway, if you spend some time in the company of Norman Podhoretz, as in today’s podcast, you spend some time with one of the best minds and tongues we got.