Mill Creek Beacon - Your Hometown News Source

While interviewing the late William F. Buckley, who was not late at the time, David Letterman was amused by a particularly flowery sentence from his guest. This wasn’t unusual for Buckley, who seemed to never meet a syllable he didn’t like, and when Letterman teased him, asking him if he spoke that way when he wasn’t on television, Buckley stood his ground.

“I speak this way to my DOG,” he replied, and there really wasn’t any doubt.

I couldn’t help constant exposure to Buckley, as he was a presence on television and in newspaper columns as I was growing up and becoming aware...