Gore Vidal: The Man and the Writer [Remember when Bill Buckley Called Him "Queer" On National TV?]

National Review ^ | 08/29/2015 | Ron Capshaw

[davisfh]

I’m on Buckley’s side.

[davisfh]

I’m on Buckley’s side.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: A great novelist and a great essayist.

Yep, but a mediocre logician.

Buckley wins debates on the merits. Gore simply emotes.

[miss marmelstein]

I only look at the work. I couldn’t care less about the personalities.

[SeekAndFind]

I look at his politics as well.

Vidal is not very wise in the causes he champions.

[Steven Scharf]

“The Gore is the same Gore as Al Gore as they are family”

Uhm, you do realize Gore is his first name and actually a nick name (Eugene Louis Vidal). No relationship to the Gores of Tennessee.

I did just learn this: “his maternal grandfather, Thomas Pryor Gore, served as United States Senator from Oklahoma (1907–21 and 1931–37).” Sen. Gore was blind from childhood.

[Glad2bnuts]

Vidal had the epiphany that America was a “fascist security state.” He claimed that the military–industrial complex had kicked into high gear during the presidency of Harry Truman, whose Cold War containment policies he saw as part of an effort to bolster the economy by maintaining a permanent state of war. Vidal would cling to this worldview no matter the counter-evidence. Like Oliver Stone, Vidal would argue that the very lack of proof of a military–industrial cabal was evidence enough of its existence and its control over American lives. Vidal viewed every unpredictable event through this prism. The Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan was the result of the American military–industrial complex’s goading them into this venture in order to bleed them dry and, by doing so, remove them from the running for the military–industrial-complex sweepstakes. Vidal believed that these maneuverings, not ordinary people’s desire for freedom, led to the Soviet Union’s collapse. Gore Vidal may have been many things, a despicable man and wrong on many things but, how was he not correct about this? We are in a permanent state of war, the NSA is spying on us all at any time, really at all times. The military has been purged of dissenting voices and experience at winning strategy to prolong conflicts without victory. Guns and bandages, that is the largest export of America. Without those what would our GDP look like? We are "The Lords of War".

[Fightin Whitey]

Newman you self-righteous dork

[Arm_Bears]

Wikipedia?

Seriously?

[John S Mosby]

He was in “film”.... he knew that, and he was on their political side using “personal” as a cover. Same ole hollyweird shiite. Can’t do it now, though. Queer is heer, and now they marry— it ain’t personal, it’s political as in... getting a marriage license is part of what politics decides— that is, who is to issue the license, under what political office and control and for what tax or fee basis for the application to be paid to state funds. It’s political as hell now.

[John S Mosby]

Buckley was indeed charming. Vidal was a queer, and still is, and a midget in intellect compared to Buckley. Verbally and otherwise.

[John S Mosby]

Unsurpassed? Hardly. And now he’s an old queen, lonely angry and abnormal.

Lincoln and Burr were, frankly awful. Can’t argue taste, as any theatre person will attest. What you can argue is prose and factual points of contention, and agenda.

Would that the real actors in these “texts” were still alive to refute the queer crap.

[John S Mosby]

Correction, dead old queen. He being so unimportant, in view of obamaumao and the continuing leftist queer porn marxists running things... totally forgot he croaked. Good riddance.

[jobim]

That exchange shows nothing but a couple of guys at the end of their ropes. We've all been there.

What IS important, however, is that there once was a weekly TV show in our country where two individuals sat and discussed important issues over the course of 60 or 90 minutes. Buckley's contribution to this puts us eternally in his debt. Would that this concept would be, or could be, brought back. But alas, the hyper-focus on a 30 second name-calling exchange generating so much attention illustrates the demise of a cerebral culture with an attention span, and the rise of one unbridled with neither the interest nor the requisite habit of self-control to engage in one topic for an extended period.

[miss marmelstein]

I don’t even know what you’re talking about. There is nothing “queer” about the two novels I cited. They are masterful.

[miss marmelstein]

Gore Vidal is indeed a relative of Al Gore. Vidal throughout his life claimed he was an Oklahoman sometimes, a Southern gentlemen sometimes and acted like a Boston Brahmin all the time. In fact, when Al Gore was running for Veep, many people sought out Vidal’s opinion on his cousin (I forget the exact relation). His opinion was not good as I recall.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Wikipedia?

Seriously?

_______________________

I’m not one to dismiss everything written in Wikipedia, especially when the quote is adequately sourced. In this case it is:

Gore Vidal (September 1969). “A Distasteful Encounter with William F. Buckley Jr.”. Esquire. p. 140.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: And now he’s an old queen, lonely angry and abnormal.

Gore Vidal is dead.

[MUDDOG]

“Empire” and “Hollywood” are also excellent.

[AmericanVictory]

He was habitually a seducer of young boys and turned many of them into homosexuals. Oddly enough, this is what turned the Kennedy clan off about him despite his being related to Jackie.