I don't think Buckley ever was out to score points, or at least not exactly. He did not think much of that certain sort of intellectual who did not tolerated differing opinion, however.The fact that he valued the expression of differing opinions is obvious when you check youtube and find clips from over the years, of his appearances with Christopher Hitchens, who would seem to embody everything that Buckley didn't.

When one listens closely, however, they seem to see a lot of things in the same light. Buckley is kind of like that--if you are a certain kind of leftist intellectual, you agree with him, at least in principle, a lot more than you disagree with him.