Comments on: Update III: Tossed and Gored By Gore Vidal

By: Myron Pauli

Myron Pauli — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:59:05 +0000

I meant to say that NOT having the guts to get out of Afghanistan is an escape from his responsibility (together, of course, with the gutless and compliant Congress).

By: Myron Pauli

Myron Pauli — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:56:47 +0000

My thoughts on Vidal: He is amusing, witty, perceptive, and a tad nutty – like Christopher Hitchens – sometimes on the mark and sometimes way off in deep space.
He also got confused on Suez (that was under Ike).

Afghanistan is Obama’s chance to do a Nixonian “Vietnamization” following Lyndon Baines Bush. Vidal sees it – Obama is just trying to escape responsibility (by having the guts to leave).

The “agenda” of gay marriage, hate crimes laws, and the like are a way of going beyond respect for private autonomy into the realm of ramming government “tolerance” down everyone’s throat.

MacVeigh was a mass murderer – whether his “cause” was “the Constitution”, anti-abortion, healthy dieting, appreciation of Mozart…. – does not erase that fact. The Unabomber loved nature, Hitler like paved highways, and Stalin supported rural electrification – fine – and all those can be debated on their merits, apart from the crimes.

By: Barbara Grant

Barbara Grant — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:09:05 +0000

It’s interesting that many gays are despondent over Vidal’s interview:

http://www.queerty.com/its-not-that-gore-vidal-hates-gays-marriage-he-just-hates-americans-who-want-it-20091001/

This is a man whose views can’t be fit into a nice, neat little box, consistently supportive of some faction or other. That is probably the characteristic about Vidal that ticks off people the most. Iconoclasm, as Ilana correctly calls it.

By: M. B. Moon

M. B. Moon — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:12:39 +0000

“I think it all has to do with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the misconception that the government is obliged to provide those things or has the jurisdiction to deny them. We’ve gotten away from the principle that they were only created to secure those rights. And that’s where, I believe, much of the trouble has surfaced.” Tim McVeigh

Indeed. But why? Hint: 1913

I respect Gore Vidal. He would probably respect that I would prefer sexual proclivities be kept in the closet. And I respect him for that too.

By: Dan Maguire

Dan Maguire — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:55:56 +0000

Vidal is in the same neighborhood of statism as Paglia. He may be a little quirkier. And yes, he served.

He was dumb enough to vote for Obama and now regerts the things that ought to have been apparent at the get-go. He hails McVeigh’s love of the Constitution, yet laments the lost opportunity on nationalized health care, a decidedly unconstitutional endeavor. He labels Americans as the dumbest people on earth, yet cites their supposed support of national health care as a reason it ought to have been accomplished. He’s a blowhard of the first order who happens to be right on a few things.

By: George Pal

George Pal — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:29:49 +0000

Reminds me of Truman Capote and his interest in Perry Smith, who, along with Richard Hickock murdered the Clutter family of “In Cold Blood” fame. Interesting that these odd birds, Capote and Vidal, exhibit all the pathologies of women who become pen pals and even wives of death row inmates. That may be one of the great mysteries of the female psyche – in whomever it is detected.

By: M. B. Moon

M. B. Moon — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:37:45 +0000

Ah hah! I am more perceptive than Gore Vidal; I wrote in Ron Paul.

Obama is merely a synthesis of his culture which he assumes is good. Wrong!
A few selections from the right side of the menu (war, police state, etc) plus a few from the left (state run health care, etc.) won’t cut it when both sides of the menu are bad.

According to Vidal, Obama is not a liar.
Maybe and hopefully not, but that is the opinion of a man who regrets voting for him. I suspect Obama is just deluded but frankly the man bores me just as Bush did.

By: haym

haym — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:45:11 +0000

Another example of how the “very smartest” really have little understanding of the real world, and how it is they have the freedom to do and say as they please. Too many errors and incongruities to even begin to list.