From the Editor

AL Sharpton, leaning back in his chair at his office in Harlem, is waving his hands and talking excitedly about, of all things, Wm. F. Buckley Jr. “Since I was in high school, one of my greatest dreams—and I have not achieved it—is to debate William Buckley,” Sharpton says. “Buckley would make mincemeat out of people. I used to go and sneak into tapings of his show. I remember one night I was there and he tore Gunnar Myrdal to pieces.”

Sharpton, with a deep, raspy voice, speaks always with the staccato inflections of a preacher. He says he admires Buckley for his rhetorical and writing skills (“I, I’m telling you that by the time I was 16 I read God and the Man at Yale [sic] at least three times.”) But he is on Sharpton’s mind for another reason too. “When I was a kid, Bill Buckley ran for mayor,” he says. “The Goldwater movement that locally Bill Buckley was, you know, on that swing, in many ways, is like Jackson-Sharpton. So, who knows, in ten, fifteen years we’ll decide who’s the outsiders and the mainstream?”

About the Author

Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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AL Sharpton, leaning back in his chair at his office in Harlem, is waving his hands and talking excitedly about, of all things, Wm. F. Buckley Jr. “Since I was in high school, one of my greatest dreams—and I have not achieved it—is to debate William Buckley,” Sharpton says. “Buckley would make mincemeat out of people. I used to go and sneak into tapings of his show. I remember one night I was there and he tore Gunnar Myrdal to pieces.”

Sharpton, with a deep, raspy voice, speaks always with the staccato inflections of a preacher. He says he admires Buckley for his rhetorical and writing skills (“I, I’m telling you that by the time I was 16 I read God and the Man at Yale [sic] at least three times.”) But he is on Sharpton’s mind for another reason too. “When I was a kid, Bill Buckley ran for mayor,” he says. “The Goldwater movement that locally Bill Buckley was, you know, on that swing, in many ways, is like Jackson-Sharpton. So, who knows, in ten, fifteen years we’ll decide who’s the outsiders and the mainstream?”