But Enough About You: Essays Read Online Free PDF Page B

has the power, forty years later, to instill in me paralyzing terror.
    “Ah, Buckley,” he said, giving me an appraising look. “You’ve put on weight , I regret to say.”
    The invitation to speak at the university arrived before Christmas, so I’ve had plenty of time to toss and turn at night, wondering what—on earth—to say to these very bright young people and their proud parents.
    Last year’s speaker was Tony Blair, former prime minister of Great Britain. I found his speech online and did a word count: 1,900 words. The year before Blair, the speaker was Hillary Clinton, then a newly minted U.S. senator. Her count came to 3,400 words. My goal is to be more Blairian than Clintonian.
    I read some of my other predecessors’ speeches. I was struck by their demure tone and their frank worry about boring the audience.
    Fareed Zakaria (2007) ended his address: “Finally . . . you know, somebody once said to me, ‘About halfway through your speech, say, “Finally.” It wakes them up.’ ” I’m tempted to steal that.
    Garry Trudeau (1991) said at the outset of his talk: “. . . the chief function of the graduation speaker has always been to ensure that graduating seniors are not released into the real world until they have been properly sedated.” Might steal that, too.
    Well, it’s all rather nerve-wracking. My only consolation is the knowledge that the speaker is entirely secondary (or tertiary) to the proceedings. However dull, long-winded, or inappropriately profane the speaker might be, he or she is only a bit of parsley on the day’s plate, not the main course. There’s this consolation, too: every person in the audience will be about as happy as they’ve ever been. And ten minutes afterward, no one will even remember who spoke that big day.
    That, at any rate, shall be my mantra next Sunday as I mount the scaffold and look out on the sea of faces. And on the umbrellas, thousands of them, popping open as the rain begins to fall.
    — The Daily Beast , May 2009

REALLY-REALLY-REALLY TOP SECRET
    What do you know: I see that my old friend Dennis Blair is up for the top U.S. intelligence job. The position used to be called “Director of Central Intelligence,” but then it was decided that we need someone more even more central, and if possible, more intelligent, so now our top spook is called “Director of National Intelligence.”
    Describing Admiral Blair as “my old friend” is putting it a bit strongly. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since February 1983. Our friendship, if it was ever really that, consisted of spending nine days together, intense ones, on Air Force Two, flying between European capitals.
    “Denny” Blair was then a bright and dashing young Navy commander, seconded (a British term, which, being affected, I use) to the National Security Council at the White House. I was chief speec-hwriter to Vice President Bush.
    Remember the Cold War? Don’t you miss the Cold War? It was so much more fun than this one. Anyway, the Cold War was running kind of hot in 1983. As we now know from declassified files, the Russians were absolutely convinced that sooner or later, Ronald Reagan would launch nuclear weapons at them. We also now know that Ronald Reagan would never have used “the nuclear option,” even in retaliation. But in 1983, these facts were, as Don Rumsfeld would say, unknown unknowns.
    Vice President Bush was dispatched to undertake a PR blitz and handholding mission to our allies in Europe. Some years earlier, NATO countries had petitioned the United States, asking us to deploy on their soil intermediate-range Pershing nuclear missiles and air-launched cruise missiles (“Al-Cums,” in the grim parlance of Armageddon), in order to defend them against similar weapons already deployed by Russia.
    Then, having asked us, the Europeans came under pressure frompeace movements and the Soviet Union. They backed down and wanted to cancel the order, as it were. But the U.S.