William F. Buckley, the godfather of modern conservatism, appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson over a dozen times.

This is a startling fact, particularly in light of the recent demise of Stephen Colbert’s show and the slow implosion of the entire late-night television format. People have been rightly arguing that late-night TV has become too left-wing, with The Late Show with Stephen Colbert being the most egregious offender. They want their bedtime TV served without politics.

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Yet the problem may not have been politics per se, but the exclusion of conservatives and the loss of the way Carson used to treat those on the political Right — with respect and curiosity.

In his forthcoming book Love Johnny Carson: One Obsessive Fan’s Journey to Find the Genius Behind the Legend, Mark Malkoff explores how Carson made every guest look good and feel at ease. 

“Despite Carson’s talents as a performer,” Malkoff writes, “with guests he never made the show about him. As Tonight producer Peter Lassally told me, Johnny felt his job was to make the guests look good. He would not go out there to try to get laughs for himself. That was his rule. ‘I’m here to make the guests look good.’ That was uniquely Johnny.”

For Colbert, the guest became second to his hectoring leftist agenda. After CBS announced it was sacking Colbert, who was losing the network $40 million a year, a clip resurfaced from 2015 where Colbert cut off his guest, actress Claire Danes. Danes, who played a CIA agent in a TV show, revealed that the CIA often worked with journalists to push an agenda. 

Journalist Glen Greenwald noticed this: “Yes, Claire Danes tried to explain on Colbert’s show — after he asked her about all the CIA/intel people she talks to for her role in Homeland — that CIA became aligned and ‘allied’ with the corporate media in 2016 against Trump — and Colbert talked over her and cut her off.”

Johnny Carson would never have done something so rude, especially while the guest was making such an important point. 

Carson was also skilled at putting nervous guests at ease. “Whether it was Burt Reynolds or a hog farmer, he made the star feel like a regular guy and the regular guy feel like a star,” The Amazing Kreskin, a frequent guest, said about Johnny. 

In Love Johnny Carson, Mark Malkoff explains that Carson’s “down-to-earth attitude was rooted in Johnny’s midwestern background. ‘He was a little boy from Nebraska when he walked through that curtain,’ comedian Tom Dreesen said. Carson was a true Nebraskan.”

Carson also nailed the right tone for a late-night show. The Tonight Show could often be slow or drift down unexpected paths, with eccentric or shy guests leaving a lot of quiet space. There was no modern ADHD need, so relentless with Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel, to hit a joke every third sentence or frantically entertain with dance-offs or other skits. Carson’s show had a rhythm that was perfect for those last hours before drifting off to sleep. Of course, Johnny had uproarious gags and energetic guests such as Don Rickles, but he was also capable of moments of quiet conversation.

In a fascinating 2016 article in the Los Angeles Times, James Rosen discussed William F. Buckley’s frequent appearances on The Tonight Show. Rosen: “Today, the regular presence on the leading late night TV shows of someone like Buckley, an aristocratic intellectual given to speaking in whole paragraphs, even other languages — he began one ‘Tonight’ appearance with several sentences in Spanish — would seem, in a lineup dominated by actors and pop stars, glaringly out of place. Back then, however, Buckley fit right in and we were, as a nation, richer for it.”

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Rosen celebrates the America that was “a Warholian conflation of High and Low that placed entertainers, athletes, politicians, novelists, intellectuals, psychics and oddballs on the same TV couch.”

With Colbert, it was all leftist all the time. A show in a time slot suited for peace at the end of a work day became a blaring and unfunny political rally.