Christopher Buckley

Farewell to the Vishnu

The world knew him as ‘Bush 41’. I knew him by a different name -during the time I worked for him as his speechwriter when he was vice president. In those days, the staff called him ‘the Vishnu’. (Bear with me.) It was his own devising. He’d been to India on a state visit, where

Dr Spacelove

Americans traumatised by their current president could be forgiven for thinking that his demand for a ‘space force’ was about protecting the country from aliens. Aliens, that is, of extraterrestrial persuasion, not the ones currently hurling themselves against the southern border. What, really, is implausible these days? As baseball savant Yogi Berra said when told

All hail Pence!

 Washington Day 1: The New York Times reveals that President Trump offered FBI director James Comey a 25 per cent discount on membership at Mar-a-Lago if he would end his investigation into former NSC director Michael ‘Mikhail’ Flynn. Vice President Pence secretly convenes the cabinet at Camp David. The site is chosen because Trump has

The SpeccieLeaks take on Trump’s first encounter with Putin

SpeccieLeaks presents: Transcript of private meeting between President Trump and President Putin, 14 February 2017, Andreyevsky Hall, Grand Kremlin Palace PUTIN: So how are you liking Russia? TRUMP: Fabulous. Amazing. And this room — incredible. You have beautiful taste, my friend. Beautiful. PUTIN: You like gold? TRUMP: Very much. We used a tremendous amount of

When the Donald met the Vlad

SpeccieLeaks presents: Transcript of private meeting between President Trump and President Putin, 14 February 2017, Andreyevsky Hall, Grand Kremlin Palace   PUTIN: So how are you liking Russia? TRUMP: Fabulous. Amazing. And this room — incredible. You have beautiful taste, my friend. Beautiful. PUTIN: You like gold? TRUMP: Very much. We used a tremendous amount

The age of Hillary

Predicting what might happen in a Donald Trump presidency is easy. Day 1: A fabulous, really great inaugural, the best ever, with amazing entertainment by fabulous, top people. Day 2: War with Iran. Day 3: War with North Korea. Day 4: Mexico builds a wall to keep out Americans. But let’s not go there. (Please.) Let

Dealing with The Donald

A few nights ago, my missus and I were walking along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, minding our own business while trying not to think about Donald Trump — or Ted Cruz, or Hillary Clinton, or Bernie Sanders. Presently we passed the Old Post Office Building, a venerable pile dating to 1899. It looks a bit

What’s wrong with Hillary

The presidential campaign here in the land hymned by one of its earliest immigrants as a shining ‘city on a hill’ looks more and more likely to boil down to electing Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. It is of course possible that the party of Lincoln and Reagan will not go completely off its meds

Donald Trump and the Republican cabaret show

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/jeremyhunt-scatastrophicmistake/media.mp3″ title=”Christopher Buckley and Freddy Gray discuss the Republican nomination race” startat=1125] Listen [/audioplayer]Washington DC A friend of mine asked his father, aged 82: ‘Dad, at this stage of life, what do you enjoy most?’ Dad replied: ‘Voting Republican and being left alone by your mother.’ Surely an unimproveable definition of bliss. My friend