Mr. Stockman had been anathematized as a traitor by many conservatives, and Mr. Buckley doesn't start him off easy: "The purpose of the book, one gathers, is in part expiation: so that we can all know what a fool he was, while celebrating the survival of his intelligence and his decision to go public with the news of the fools he left behind him to run the White House and Congress." But Mr. Stockman didn't get where he was by being a shrinking violet, and he defends himself ably. WFB: "How is it that this impression is abroad that you have repudiated supply-side economics when in fact the only tax, as I understand it, you say right now that you would endorse would be a consumption tax?" DS: "Because the media is glib and superficial. If you take this whole book, it's four hundred pages, there's a lot of complicated history in there. There is a demonstration that the choices we face in running this country aren't easy. You can boil it all down in one slogan: Stockman repudiates supply-side. That's not true at all."