Conservatives young and old were at the Heritage Foundation’s Allison Auditorium this afternoon to hear Rick Brookhiser speak about his terrific book, Right Time, Right Place. It was a great chance to hear about the book as well as some good stories about the Buckleys. One such story took place when WFB was supporting Joe Lieberman for Senate over liberal Republican Lowell Weicker. Rick provided the fun mental image of Bill’s wife Pat, the tall socialite of Stamford, standing in her grocery store parking lot handing out bumper stickers that read, “Lowell Weicker makes me sick.”

Rick read aloud parts of the first chapter and gave a good overview of the books three arcs: a portrait of Bill Buckley, the story of National Review and conservatism over the last 40 years, and the story of the relationship between the two men. He recounted one of my favorite episodes from the book about WFB’s correspondence with renowned historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

The best of these winners was an exchange with Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who had referred in passing to “National Review, or the National Enquirer, or whatever you call your magazine.” Bill asked how Schlesinger would like it if he wrote, “Dear Arthur, or Dear Barfer, or whatever you call yourself.” This was the perfect answer, telling the great man that he was behaving like a five-year-old, and showing him how for good measure.

Rick had some encouraging words for those of us who might be down about how things are for conservatives these days. He reminded us all about how bad the mid- to late-Seventies were in the wake of Watergate, the fall of South Vietnam, stagflation, and Soviets invading Afghanistan. Rick offered some great advice about how to survive in bad times. “The way you make them less bad is you do the right thing.”

— Michael Warren, a Collegiate Network intern at National Review, studies economics and history at Vanderbilt University.