Charlie Rose

robtul12  07/01/2010 06:44 PM Report

ShalomFreedman, your impressions of Vidal are spectacularly naive. He has every right to dismiss certain authors' work as junk if that is how he genuinely feels. Indeed, Christopher Hitchens, whom you quoted, has done so numerous times. Ha has even gone so far as to launch vicious attacks on several public figures including: Bill Clinton, Rev. Jerry Falwell, Mother Theresa, and many others.

Your assertion that Churchhill was "unquestionably great" can easily be disputed. In fact, you need look no further than Christopher Hitchens in a book of his entitled "Love, Poverty, and War" to find an essay of his rather critical of this undisputedly "great man."

As far as WWII is concerned, most Americans of that time were isolationists and shared the same sentiment. They did not believe in getting involved in European conflicts. Europe's problems were just that: Europe's. It was the attack upon Pearl Harbor -- which was provoked by the U.S. by the way (the U.S. was interfering in Japanese oil affairs in China) -- that Roosevelt used as an excuse to get the U.S. into WWII.

I believe I have addressed all of your purported "points."

coe8jc  01/30/2010 01:13 PM Report

It is truly a joy to listen to an old man who is still able to express his irreverence for the human icons we erect for ourselves. In doing so Gore Vidal has become what he most detests an icon that has questioned dogma of almost any kind. In the American sense he, Gore Vidal certainly is a heretic. However, to understand religion or history it is important to understand the heretics that have blessed us with their opinions and analysis.

jazzstock12  01/21/2010 12:59 PM Report

Context. In all of Vidal's historical novels, he gives both praise and criticism when to historical figures where it is due. And his novels involved far more research and intellectual depth than anything from Updike or Buckley.

ShalomFreedman  01/11/2010 01:40 PM Report

Christopher Hitchens recently wrote a description of Gore Vidal in his present state. He describes him as a crank and crackpot who spouts endlessly his own grudges and resentments. In this interview he cites Vidal as saying of three writers who recently died. "Updike was nothing. Buckley was nothing with a flair for publicity. Mailer was a flawed publicist, too, but at least there were signs every now and then of a working brain.” Charlie Rose did not hear this quotation but he did hear Vidal insulting the writers who died. These were people who appeared tens of times on his shows and considered him their good friend. He could have defended them a bit. They all by the way especially Updike are far far beyond whatever Vidal was as a writer.

He also could have defended the United States of America a bit. To hear this old jerk indict the U.S. for having helped save the world in W.W. II and not respond shows a singular lack of good taste and gumption. The insults of Churchill one of the unquestionably great men of the twentieth century were chuckled along with. I wish Charlie Rose would see a bit beyond the courteous relation to the person he is interviewing. One also should consider the people not there, those listening, and those being insulted and castigated.

Vidal had wit and intelligence. He also had a tremendous envy and resentment of others, a real wickedness. The old do deserve perhaps a special consideration but when they act the way Vidal did here they should be put in their place.