Former late-night host Dick Cavett has seen his share of scandals — from presiding over Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal’s famous feud on his show to intensely interviewing Watergate players like G. Gordon Liddy, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
But in the case of Brian Williams, Cavett thinks the fibbing NBC newsman should be forgiven. “We’re a country that gives people a second chance, and he had the manliness to say, ‘I did what I did, I’m sorry, it was dumb.’”
At a Wednesday premiere of “Best of Enemies,” the new doc about Vidal and William F. Buckley’s televised debates in 1968, Cavett told us of Williams, “Certainly, he should be back. There aren’t that many people around with his skill.”
Of the liberal Vidal and conservative Buckley’s battles — Vidal called Buckley a “crypto-Nazi,” and Buckley called Vidal “queer” — Cavett said unimaginative producers then began pitting politically opposed people for ratings. “TV immediately in its dumb way tried to contrive more controversy and it was so obvious, getting ‘Mr. Left’ and ‘Mr. Right,’ You know what they’re both going to say.”