Show Business: Buckley Is Not Hope

When is a TV artist not a TV artist? When he is William F. Buckley, Firing Line’s syndicated conservative, that’s when. Last week Buckley filed a federal suit challenging the requirement that he belong to a performers’ union in order to appear on the air. The union in question is the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which includes actors, tap dancers—and news anchor men, among others.

Mandatory membership, Buckley maintained, was “a modern writ of indenture” and violated his right of free speech, not to mention two other constitutional guarantees. Buckley, asked by a reporter about the “showmanship” involved in his weekly political talk show, replied, “I’m not nearly as histrionic as Franklin Delano Roosevelt was.” He also distinguished his type of performance from Bob Hope’s. That distinction was painfully manifest to viewers of Buckley’s recent guest gig on Laugh-In, in which he matched limp quips with Rowan and Martin.