On TV, Buckley Led Urbane Debating Club

The relationship of William F. Buckley Jr.’s “Firing Line” to the partisan shoutfests that pass for evening political exchange on television nowadays?

Well, as Mr. Buckley, who loved debate for debate’s sake and who died on Wednesday at 82, might have appreciated, one could argue it both ways.

On the one hand, “Firing Line,” which was originally syndicated by WOR-TV in New York and was broadcast from 1966 to 1999, was an obvious precursor to shrill modern-era programming like “Hardball,” “Tucker,” “Hannity and Colmes” and “Scarborough Country.”

“It was the first of all those shows,” said Michael Kinsley, the left-leaning journalist and regular guest on “Firing Line.”

On the other hand, “Firing Line” was so different in tone and pacing from its descendants that one might almost say that it stands as their inverse — their antithesis (Mr. Buckley was fond of a four-syllable word when two syllables would do), a counterfactual, even. That is to say, a condition that cannot — owing to the present-day climates of television and politics — be fulfilled.

“The show was devoted to a leisurely examination of issues and ideas at an extremely high level,” said Jeff Greenfield of CBS News, another pundit who frequently debated Mr. Buckley on the program. “It’s not at all like what you see now, where everybody says, ‘Who won the week?’ or ‘On a scale of 1 to 10, rate Hillary’s chances.’ ”

Over 33 years, the list of guests on “Firing Line” was impressive and very much bipartisan: Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Clare Boothe Luce and Henry A. Kissinger on the right. Muhammad Ali, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Jimmy Carter and William M. Kunstler on the left. There were also, of course, people who, by dint of political or personal conviction, would not appear on “Firing Line.”

“I was never on his show,” Gore Vidal, with whom Mr. Buckley had a famous feud, said on Thursday. “I don’t like fascism much.”

He added: “I was one of the first people he asked. And, of course, I refused to be on it. And, of course, he lied about it afterward.”

Even so, an awful lot of people who chose to engage with Mr. Buckley on “Firing Line” emerged from the experience fond of him.

In 1981, when the show celebrated 15 years on the air, former guests including Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., Mr. Kissinger and Louis Auchincloss honored him with a party at the New York Yacht Club.

“ ‘Firing Line’ is one of the rare occasions when you have a chance to correct the errors of the man who’s interrogating you,” John Kenneth Galbraith said that night.

Mr. Buckley’s manners were classy, if not perfect. He insisted on addressing his guests as “Mr.” Or “Mrs.,” though he once accidentally called Mrs. Thatcher “Margaret” because he thought she’d called him “Bill.” (When, upon reading a transcript of the episode, he realized she had been referring to a bill of legislation, he was extremely embarrassed, said Richard Brookhiser, a conservative writer and a frequent guest on the program.)

Mr. Kinsley said, “He was extremely charming and kind; he never took his ideological battles into the personal realm.”

Mark Green, the former public advocate of New York City, estimated that he was on “Firing Line” dozens of times. “I became kind of his house liberal,” he recalled. “He would mock me in ways I’ve since repressed. And I would call him ‘Mr. 13 percent,’ which is the percentage of the vote he got when he ran for mayor of New York.” Mr. Green added: “I got 73 percent when I was elected public advocate. When I ran for mayor, Bloomberg beat me 49-47.”

Mr. Brookhiser said the program reflected Mr. Buckley’s broad tastes and eccentric manner, which began with his “unusual” rhythm of speaking.

“If it was poetry, you would’ve called it enjambment,” Mr. Brookhiser said. “He would run over a period and then pause in the middle of the next phrase. It kept you on your toes.”

Tom Wolfe praised Mr. Buckley somewhat ruefully for being a tough interrogator, “even though we agreed on so many things.” Take, for instance, the time when Mr. Wolfe’s first novel, “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” was published in 1987.

“I was waiting for that softball down the middle, and he said something like, ‘So, do you think there are any original insights in this book?’” Mr. Wolfe said. “So I said, ‘Oh, of course.’ And he said, ‘I don’t see that at all. There’s been moral turpitude forever. So what on earth is new about this?’ ”

Mr. Wolfe said he got a kick out of his friend’s accent. “I always thought of it as a mid-Atlantic accent,” he went on. “But if you actually listened to it, his got all the way across the Atlantic.”

Mr. Buckley had a soft spot for any kind of wordplay — even if it was at his expense, or even if it was not as highbrow as he. “I was on the show when he had Muhammad Ali on, and he had his own approach,” Mr. Greenfield said. “Ali said to Bill, ‘You’ve got the connection of the complexion.’ Buckley chuckled at that.”

And there was the time that Allen Ginsberg asked Mr. Buckley’s permission, in the middle of an episode, to sing a song in praise of Lord Krishna.

“That was a howl — sorry, sorry about the word choice,” Mr. Brookhiser said. “Bill was very gentle with him. He said of course.”

Mr. Ginsberg proceeded to play a long and doleful number on a harmonium, chanting along slowly and passionately, Mr. Brookhiser said. “And when he was finished, Bill said, ‘Well, that’s the most unharried Krishna I’ve ever heard.’ ”