Two Links
It's difficult to say enough good things about Gore Vidal. He has an exceptionally strong mind, and he's honest with himself and for the most part, with us. I'm sure if ever I got the chance to talk with him he'd think I'm a naïve optimist, but that's OK. And, of course, sometimes he's mistaken, as in his respect for Timothy McVeigh (perhaps due to a misplaced homoerotic impulse), or his complete loss of faith in America. Still, a very canny cat. So I thought his recent comments over the course of a two hour interview with a British journalist were important, both on their merits and for what they signal about the direction of high leftist thought.
Regarding the administration's prospects, Mr. Obama, he says, "is incompetent," and "will be defeated for re-election." On a related subject, Afghanistan, he predicts that the war "will be terminal for the American empire." Classic Vidal. The interview/essay is worth reading.
On a completely different subject, my favorite political hobby-horse of expanding the size of the U.S. House of Representatives, I was gob-smacked to read a column from yesterday, by the ultra conservative Jonah Goldberg, extolling the virtues of a 5,000 seat House. I'm not sure even I would go that far. But I sent Jonah a friendly note to the effect that despite our political differences if we could agree so completely on such a fundamental political reform, it is a hopeful development. Perhaps the great awakening has begun! And I wonder what he might think of getting rid of the Senate through a constitutional amendment? Hmmmm...
Posted by George Kenney on October 7, 2009 8:31 AM 
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Comments
Personally, I find him vulgar and degenerate. I hope to heaven I don't age in that manner.
Admittedly, he has a certain prescience, and one agrees with his anti-militarism and anti-imperialism, but it doesn't compensate for the rest. And frankly, he is just as mesmerized by American political mythology and the nimbus surrounding the "founding fathers," as any yokel or member of the "booboisie."
I think his narcissism is quite transparent — and boring.
Posted by: Lisa | October 9, 2009 8:45 PM