Essays, book reviews, and more than 20 novels, including a great deal of political satire,

a thoroughly American life of letters.

Christopher Buckley on Uncommon Knowledge Now.

One of the country's most prolific political satirists, Christopher Buckley graduated from Yale, became an editor at Esquire, served as speechwriter to Vice President George H.W. Bush, then began writing books. Mr. Buckley's more than 20 volumes include Steaming to Bambula, his 1982 Chronicle of Life Abord a Tramp Steamer, his 1994 lampoon of Washington

lobbyists, Thank You for Smoking, which was made into a movie, and his 2009 memoir,

Losing Mum and Pupp, about the year in which he lost both his mother and his father,

the journalist William F. Buckley, Jr. Christopher Buckley, welcome. Good to be here. I should state for

purposes of full disclosure that you and I have been friends for four decades. We have backgrounds.

Yes, we have.

There's a back story.

There's a back story.

One of the smartest things I ever did was to bring you aboard the George H.W. Bush speech writing team, and where you, which had been known for a while as the Christopher

Buckley era, and then quickly became superseded by the Peter Robinson era. And then you went on to even greater glory

as a Ronald Reagan speechwriter.

And you wrote probably the most famous words

he uttered as president.

Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall.

Thank you very much.

We will edit that out for the purposes.

I'll play that for my children only.

I'm here to talk about you.

Well, not really.

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