A conversation with Gore Vidal

A conversation with Gore Vidal

20 May 2008

Speakers: Gore Vidal

Vidal begins by discussing his initial support of Hillary Clinton, and his feelings on the wave of support for candidate Obama – attributing part of his success to ‘white guilt’.

While explaining the distinction between a political party and a faction, he discusses the low esteem with which the Republican Party are held by the American population, describing their tactics as having created the ‘ugliest election I have ever seen’. While having never expected to feel ashamed of being American, since the atrocities of Abu Graib he feels ‘like a German’. He discredits the 9/11 Truth movement as an impossibility – mainly due to the absolute precision the Bush Whitehouse would have needed to have pulled it off – and Bush only deals in failure.

Moving on to his family, Vidal discusses being brought up by a blind, atheist, isolationist Senator who represented a bible-belt district. He compares the values of that generation of politicians with those of today. He cites the loss of due process of law under the Bush Administration as an example of the degeneration of politics, as well as the cowardice of Bush’s avoidance of real military service and the war-profiteering of Vice President Cheney.

The discussion moves to his famous work The City and the Pillar (1948), its early depiction of homosexuality, and the resulting relationship with The New York Times. The conversation then ranges across a wide spectrum, touching on Benjamin Franklin, poetry, democracy, Aristotle, ‘the good life’, the afterlife and, finally, monotheism.