I enjoyed catching the last part of an interview with Gore Vidal. He was very interesting and made witty remarks in answer to audience questions. Some of his remarks or 'jabs' at the conservatives/administration were shallow one liners but witty nonetheless. He reminded me a little in terms of his dry humour and witty remarks of a leftist version of William F. Buckley. North
I'm pretty impressed with both Vidal and Buckley myself (though Vidal and Buckley are pretty impressed with Vidal and Buckley, too!). They had a legendary television debate during the 1970s, and by all accounts were pretty evenly matched. I'm actually more familiar with Buckley than Vidal, though my philosophy is probably closer to Vidal's. I do enjoy Buckley's New Republic column, and his spiritual autobiography (Nearer, My God, to Thee) is every bit as good as you would expect it to be (if you haven't gotten a copy yet, I highly recommend it). Cheers,
Buckley and Vidal nearly came to blows on a live interview during the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Both calling each other "wimps" and "liars" maybe "bastards". Poor Howard K. Smith - he turned referee real quick.
If you're referring to the C-SPAN interview by somebody from the Nation from New York City--then I have to say you underestimate his shallowness. I used to be a fan of Gore Vidal's critiques; his observations paralleled mine as an isolationist libertarian. Now I find him typcial of the Lefts reflexive thoughlessness, an eptiome of their failure to adapt to new challenges. What new challenges, specifically, am I alluding to? 9/11 and Islamic terrorism, of course. Vidal has not thought through how this is not like the Cold War, and his observations and thoughts persistently reflect that failure of imagination. THIS is not the Cold War! Another recent time on C-SPAN--perhaps it was Memorial Day weekend--a leftist spoke about his writing and how his recent column (witten I believe in mid-April, during the active phase of the War in Iraq), critiqed the Left on just this point, so I know I'm not alone in seeing this. Gore struke mas as old, tired, passing-off bromides ("it's all about oil!") as though it were wisdom, instead of the pablum it is (the US could buy oil from Iraq cheaper than any war and reconstruction IF that were the utmost goal or motive)! He seemed an aging 60s fossil fighting new wars with old outdated weapons. And when he was finally asked what would he do about 9/11? He said he would rally the nations of the world to prosecute the bastards and go to the UN to press the case! Fine. But what if not all nations--and especially outlaw Muslim ones--cooperate with the police action he envisions? What then? (And this was the actual case that confronted the US, e.g., Yemen--even now Saudi resists!) And what if the UN is part of the festering problem!--as the now extraordinarilly corrupt extent of the UNs largest cash cow "oil for peace" is now revealed to be? --not par of the solution? What does Gore say then? (There were no followup questions to these vital problems.) Old Gore Vidal offered us new whine in old bottles. The only advancement I witnessed was a one liner, not a counter-policy that meets actual and percieved threats that the Bushies have finessed. I was underwhelmed and dismayed by the deep abyss the Left has sunk into. In Politics, irrelevance is deadly! (see my post of Jonathan Rauch's analytical piece in the Nationakl Journal elsewhere.) There will not likely be any policy that credibly counter's the Bush administration's for two year--or untill after the next foreign terrorist attack on US soil. I pity us; we deserve better from the opposition. --Orson
