Not Live! Not From New York! It's 'Studio 60' . . .

'Mr. Conservative'

A beautiful and illuminating job of setting the record straight -- though without ever claiming to be anything but subjective -- "Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater" recounts the life and times of a politician who died not knowing how influential or revered he would eventually become.

The 90-minute HBO documentary, premiering tonight at 9, was co-produced, and is narrated, by CC Goldwater, granddaughter of the film's subject, Barry M. Goldwater, who served 30 years in the Senate and made a run for the presidency in 1964 that he may have regretted for all the unseemly vilification he endured. We see some of it: posters that said "Bury Goldwater" and vicious caricatures of him brandishing a Hitler mustache or a swastika. It was no way to treat a patriot.

Goldwater, who died in 1998, was the man who defined conservatism for more than one generation and who essentially split with the conservative movement when it became allied with pseudo-religious extremists. To Goldwater, the essence of conservatism was that government should stay out of people's lives as much as possible, and he was "appalled," his granddaughter says, by the "social agenda" of the far-right-wingers who seek to control the Republican Party now.

He was a feminist without labeling himself one, declaring that "abortion is not a conservative issue" and that what a woman did with her body was her own business. When he learned that a grandson, Ty, was gay -- "I was never in the closet," Ty says -- he raised no alarm or objection: "He was just concerned that I be myself."

Fiercely and bravely independent, Goldwater parted company with fellow Republican Richard Nixon when it became clear Nixon was guilty as hell of the Watergate coverup. John Dean recalls discussing Nixon with Goldwater prior to Dean's testimony before Congress and remembers Goldwater saying, "That s.o.b. was always a liar. Go nail him."

The film's title is somewhat unfortunate. For one thing, it implies this is a purely political portrait, when actually it's at its most affecting when it describes Goldwater the man -- a man of the land, a photographer who favored nature and native Americans as his subjects, an adventurer who shot the Colorado rapids in 1940 and had the expedition filmed in color (later carrying prints of the film around to theaters in Arizona, where it drew boffo crowds), and for most of his life a pilot who loved buzzing around Arizona in a small plane or getting behind the controls of the latest state-of-the-art jet that the Air Force had acquired.

Also, this isn't Goldwater talking about himself but an impressive parade of Goldwater's friends, associates and admirers who attest colorfully to his character, integrity and rugged charm (no one compares him to Teddy Roosevelt, but there seem to be notable similarities).

Among those commenting on-camera: Justice Sandra Day O'Connor ("He was amazing"); Sen. John Warner, who worked as an aide to Goldwater during Goldwater's early Senate days ("I loved being in his presence"); columnist George F. Will, who speaks for true conservatism today as Goldwater did in his prime; Sally Quinn, who got to know Goldwater when he "moved in" with her parents; and Quinn's husband, Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of The Washington Post, who says Goldwater was a help to the paper during its historic Watergate reporting.

Maybe the first Goldwater in the "Goldwater on Goldwater" is meant to be filmmaker CC, for whom the documentary was obviously the definitive labor of love. She doesn't claim Goldwater was perfect, however, and Goldwater offspring and relatives speak with sadness about his inability to express his love for them.

Goldwater also erred, clearly, when he opposed Lyndon Johnson's Voting Rights Act, which earned Goldwater the enmity of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Even so, Roy Wilkins says Goldwater was "not a racist" but that he felt states, even Southern states, would solve their civil rights problems themselves. In retrospect, this seems incredibly naive.

The producers are obliged, of course, to cover classic and iconic Goldwater moments, landmarks in his career, as when he said "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice" at a Republican convention or wrote "The Conscience of a Conservative." Also replayed is the most famous and infamous political commercial ever made, the "daisy" spot run -- only once, then withdrawn -- by the Johnson campaign in 1964. The commercial clearly implied Goldwater was too dangerous and trigger-happy to have access to the nuclear button during the Cold War.

I wish that, just once, producers who make reference to the daisy commercial (a little girl picks petals off a daisy, followed by a countdown and the explosion of an atomic bomb) would mention the advertising wizard who created it: Tony Schwartz, author of an influential book called "The Responsive Chord."

Many responsive chords are struck by "Goldwater on Goldwater." It whets one's appetite to learn more about this unfairly maligned man, this giant figure from a time of giants, and it seems bound to have a significant salutary effect on his reputation.

Not that Goldwater himself would be likely to give a damn one way or the other.

Studio 60 on Sunset Strip (one hour) airs at 10 p.m. on Channel 4.

The Class (30 minutes) airs at 8 p.m. on Channel 9.

Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater (90 minutes) premieres at 9 p.m. on HBO.