The Independent Voice of Southern Methodist University Since 1915

The Daily Campus

The Daily Campus

The Independent Voice of Southern Methodist University Since 1915

The Daily Campus

The Independent Voice of Southern Methodist University Since 1915

The Daily Campus

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Satirist cracks up McFarlin

Christopher Buckley shares stories of U.S. taking satire too seriously
Social and political satirist, Christopher Buckley, responds to questions from area students. Buckley is the editor in chief of Forbes FYI, and his best seller Thank You for Smoking was developed into a motion picture.
CASEY LEE/The Daily Campus
Social and political satirist, Christopher Buckley, responds to questions from area students. Buckley is the editor in chief of Forbes FYI, and his best seller “Thank You for Smoking” was developed into a motion picture.

Social and political satirist, Christopher Buckley, responds to questions from area students. Buckley is the editor in chief of Forbes FYI, and his best seller “Thank You for Smoking” was developed into a motion picture. (CASEY LEE/The Daily Campus)

Christopher Buckley, the political satirist and best-selling author of “Thank You For Smoking,” spoke in front of a mixed crowd of SMU students and members of the Dallas community in McFarlin Auditorium Tuesday evening to discuss the humorous side of politics and human affairs.

Buckley not only has tried to auction off Vladimir Lenin’s dead body, but also buffed up his own autobiography for no other reason than he was bored with the old one. It would not be the first time Buckley’s satire would be taken seriously by some.

What started out as a hoax about Buckley auctioning off Lenin’s body, soon became a reality, as Peter Jennings picked the story up for the evening news, sparking the Minister of the Interior or Russia to interrupt what Buckley called “Russian Oprah” to calm citizens that it was a joke and that Buckley was a “brazen liar” and “international provocateur.” The Soviets were not amused.

Six months after the Lenin corpse hoax, Buckley received an offer for the body for $37 million from a Dallas resident, earning it a front-page story in The New York Times. Buckley’s reaction was “cool.”

Buckley, in his book “Thank You for Smoking,” included in his autobiography on the back cover that he has been an advisor to every American president since William Howard Taft. To put it in perspective, Taft was president from 1909-1913.

When appearing on a radio show one morning, the host, having only read the back page of the book cover, was gullible enough to believe Buckley’s biography was accurate, as the two men discussed Buckley’s time spent with Taft. Buckley was never asked back to the show.

Known around the world for his humorous perspective on national and world affairs, Buckley graduated cum laude from Yale University before becoming the managing editor of Esquire magazine at 24.

Five years later, the New York native published his first best seller, “Steaming to Bamboola.” It was also at this same time that Buckley became the chief speech writer for former Vice President George H.W. Bush.

Currently the editor in chief of Forbes FYI, Buckley is also the author of more than one dozen books, including “Supreme Courtship,” “Boomsday,” “Washington Schlepped Here” and “No Way to Treat a First Lady.” Two of Buckley’s books have also been turned into movies.

During the Lacerte Family Lecture, Buckley told the story of his great grandfather, the sheriff of Duvall County, who before dying in 1904, befriended Pat Green, the man responsible for killing Billy the Kid. Buckley’s great-grandfather’s son, William Frank Buckley Sr., became an oil man, so, according to Buckley, his son could support a fourth Buckley that would go on to become a political satirist.

“Is this a great country we live in, or what?” Buckley joked.

“Bassholes” created another example of sature taken too seriously, as readers rushed to bookstores to pick up the concocted novel about fly-fishing that was mentioned in the New Yorker.

“It’s another example of the futility of attempting satire in America,” Buckley said. “It’s a hopeless competition with USA TODAY.”

There was also the time Buckley wanted to title a piece “Oval Sex in the Oral Office,” when during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Buckley’s 10-year-old daughter asked what “oval sex” was. To the dismay of Buckley, his suggestion was denied. When asked what he told his daughter, Buckley did what any good father would do and sent his daughter to ask her mother.

The next Tate Lecture will feature Buzz Aldrin, as he celebrates the 40th anniversary of his Apollo 11 moon landing. The Oncor Electric Delivery Lecture will be on Dec. 8 at 8 p.m. in McFarlin Auditorium.

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