Hitchens calls out Gore Vidal for being a Truther

[Alareth]

In this piece for Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens outlines Vidal's tendency for CT thinking and comments he's made regarding 9/11.

http://bit.ly/5Pnj8A

 

[Harpo]

The sooner Vidal is pushing up the daisies the better.

 

[Praktik]

The sooner Vidal is pushing up the daisies the better.

yikes

 

[dudalb]

The sooner Vidal is pushing up the daisies the better.

That's going too far, but Vidal has been a crackpot for a long time..as his orgasms at the thought of the US breaking up shows.(He seems to have a disdain for all the states in the union except for those in the Northeast).
He has been playing the "I am not a truther but...." game for a long time.

 

[Walter Ego]

In this piece for Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens outlines Vidal's tendency for CT thinking and comments he's made regarding 9/11.

http://bit.ly/5Pnj8A

Interestingly, it was in Vanity Fair where Vidal himself came out with his defense of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh... the month before the 9/11 attacks.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2001/09/mcveigh200109

Salon's take on Vidal joining "the black-helicopter crowd."

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/08/09/vidal/print.html

 

[dudalb]

What is scary is the number of people in the talkback in the Vanity Fair article who Agree with Vidal . Left wing craziness is just as bad as right wing craziness, it just has intellectual pretensions.

 

[Walter Ego]

What is scary is the number of people in the talkback in the Vanity Fair article who Agree with Vidal . Left wing craziness is just as bad as right wing craziness, it just has intellectual pretensions.

Like this one?

I used to read Hitchens religiously in The Nation. He has, however, become so beholden to the hostile elite that he doesn't write an article now without groveling to them. i.e., in this piece badmouthing Vidal for speaking frankly about organized Jewry and their m.o., shouting down any assertion that WWII was not in America's interests. Hell, he even has gone out of his way to try to pass himself off as a crypto-Jew.

Posted 1/15/2010 by amarranazo

 

[dudalb]

Like this one?

That was one of the ones I had specifically in mind.
What is scary is that Vanity Fair is considered to be a magazine that caters to the better educated segment of the reading public...............

 

[sadhatter]

I hate the " i am not a truther but...." line of logic. They need to take some lessons from " i'm not a racist but....." and " not that i don't like gay people....." and realize if you have to say that your a truther.

 

[WildCat]

He should go back to making shampoo and such.

 

[angrysoba]

I've never read Gore Vidal but none of his supporters or detractors have ever convinced me I should.

Johann Hari is someone who can safely be called left-wing and a critic of the United States, but he appears to be left gobsmacked by Gore Vidal's insistence that Timothy McVeigh didn't know he was going to kill so many people with his bomb.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gore-vidals-united-states-of-fury-1798601.html

I get the impression that Vidal has a huge grudge about something and his rantings about the US are his vicarious way of expressing his self-pity.

As for his belief that the US was responsible for Pearl Harbour, there's a good exchange between him and Ian Buruma here:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/14238

 

[Walter Ego]

I've never read Gore Vidal but none of his supporters or detractors have ever convinced me I should.

Vidal's literary reputation is secure. After his death, the bitter nuttiness of his declining years will be largely forgotten.

Johann Hari is someone who can safely be called left-wing and a critic of the United States, but he appears to be left gobsmacked by Gore Vidal's insistence that Timothy McVeigh didn't know he was going to kill so many people with his bomb.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gore-vidals-united-states-of-fury-1798601.html

Interestingly, McVeigh bears a resemblance to Vidal's adolescent love Jimmy Trimble. I think the old man was besotted.

http://jaajoe.com/oenn/images/OKC/mcveigh2.jpg

http://sportsmed.starwave.com/media/pg2/2002/0314/photo/i_jtrimble_i.jpg

I get the impression that Vidal has a huge grudge about something and his rantings about the US are his vicarious way of expressing his self-pity.

Agreed.

 

[Thunder]

Gore Vidal is gettin' kinda old.

 

[dropzone]

The sooner Vidal is pushing up the daisies the better.

Gore Vidal is gettin' kinda old.

These are far from being mutually exclusive and really don't reflect, except as a commentary, on Gore Vidal's age.

Which is decades past when most pundits give up the spotlight to devote their declining years while muttering crap in a wingback chair whose wings neither muffle his mutterings nor focus them on some idiot who is working, as a pathetic undergrad, toward a role in academia that will make him the GOTO guy of all of late-night TV.

 

[dropzone]

The sooner Vidal is pushing up the daisies the better.

Gore Vidal is gettin' kinda old.

These are far from being mutually exclusive and really don't reflect, except as a commentary, on Gore Vidal's age.

Which is decades past when most pundits give up the spotlight to devote their declining years to gardening while muttering crap in a wingback chair whose wings neither muffle his mutterings nor focus them on some idiot who is working, as a pathetic undergrad, toward a role in academia that will make him the GOTO guy of all of late-night TV.

 

[jmh423]

The sooner Vidal is pushing up the daisies the better.

What a kind gesture..... Compassion on parade.... Typical of the "critical thinking skeptics" so prevalent here.

 

[oldmajor]

Long overdue criticism and Hitchens was the perfect one to do it. Hitchens and Vidal are quite similar in a lot of ways - I'm an admirer of both although I don't entirely agree with the divergent paths of their politics post 9/11. But to me both are at their best when critically eviscerating someone or something in print. I was never much of a fan of Vidal's pseudo-history fiction but read an essay like "Hacks of Academe" and you'll see that bitter wit in all its glory. Or "Bestsellers of '73" is a classic - it's worth a read just to see him rip apart these romance and Christian paperbacks, really great stuff.
So no - Vidal should not be judged solely on his post 9/11 craziness but I'm glad he was called out on it and who better than Hitchens? Thanks for posting the link.

 

[Lisa Simpson]

Hell, he even has gone out of his way to try to pass himself off as a crypto-Jew.

Can someone tell me what a crypto-Jew is?

 

[Alareth]

Can someone tell me what a crypto-Jew is?

The crypto-Jew is an undercover jew presenting themselves as Christian or what not.

It's racist justification for hating everyone that may disagree with them.

 

[Lisa Simpson]

Ah...thank you.