<html> At 18:57 29-10-00, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Gore Vidal appeared on the BBC World Service's weekly _Agenda_ program tonight and spoke at length about the US presidential race and the "two parties of the right," </blockquote> ...And. love him though we may, he sounded far too often like a self-inflated old git, too, overloading his responses with cheap (however apt and amusing) attacks on the physical appearance politicians (of Cheney: "when I look at him I always think of 200 lbs of condemned veal wearing a grey suit -- that is Mr. Cheney to me") when we wanted to hear substantive criticism; revealing that his distaste for the New York Times, fully justified on political grounds, is well-stiffened by personal antagonism; sniping at Christopher Gunness, the interviewer, for presuming to imply that Vidal was not qualified to speak about America when Gunness mentioned that Vidal lives in Italy (the question had been: "You live in Italy, you go back to the States quite often -- tell me, have you seen it in the years that you've observed it becoming a more or a less just society? -- the implication being quite clearly that from the perspective of an outsider Vidal has a better chance of having a clear view of the place -- but Vidal responded "this is a line that the right wing puts out so that nothing that I say can be taken seriously" (Gunness was revoltingly ingratiating: "I take what you say extremely seriously") -- we never got an answer to the question; insisting on the large number of people he draws whenever he speaks in the US; and so on.  Blowfish behaviour.  He corrected Gunness on the fact of his relation to Al Gore (they were not "distant" but "rather near" cousins) and noted that he'd grown up in a *house* in Rock Creek Park (snazzy address), cousin Albert on the other hand in an *apartment* at the Fairfax Hotel which belonged to a relative (his emphasis).  He said he has a certain "familial feeling" about Al: "there's a saying in the south, which is the capital of the Gore clan, the old confederacy: 'If a snake bites a Gore they all puff up'."  Indeed. So it's not just his name that reveals he's a scion of old money (first-born males among the American snobbery are given their mother's last name for a first name) -- he insists on it.  It's sometimes said the aristocrats are always the ones to lead the revolution, but I would imagine it's recommended in the same breath that any such make as little as possible of their high connections.  Then again, it was clear throughout this interview that Gore Vidal doesn't anticipate a revo any more than does his cousin Al. Gunness was continually thwarted in the effort to get a serious dialogue going.  The excellent comment, "It has never been so clear that the presidency is nothing -- in other words that there's no substance to it," was immediately followed by, "The types in politics are the lowest I've ever seen -- [...] they look like displaced anchorpersons, you know, or the man who gives the weather in Bute, Montana has suddenly gone to the Senate, with a great flowing toupé, you know, and always badly made, they never realise when you watch them in the Senate you're watching from above, and you see all the flaws in their toupés" -- here Gunness (no doubt embarrassed) tried to interrupt but Vidal talked loudly over him:  "and the home dyers are the worst -- they dye their hair with *tea bags* you know -- *ghastly* colours! .. I mean it's such a low level." He chuckled.  At least this member of the choir he's preaching to was left wincing. "The media belongs [sic] to corporate America," "We have elections, though we have no politics," "Corporate America owns the United States." Okay, good.  But he thinks Hillary will make a good senator -- who will "crack" within six months, from being harassed by people accosting her to ask whether (and here Vidal takes on a nasal accent to imitate the hoi polloi) abortion in the third trimester is to be allowed. Vidal believes in America's one-time "soul", he's for a pulling-in of the American imperial horns, for the development of social justice in America.  But, pandering to his British interviewer, he says the US should  "try to [...] have a civilisation, *even* -- if I exaggerate the possibilities."  Of all the ridiculous inanities. On Al versus Dubya: "If I were an Israeli I'd certainly want Albert Gore", because Al is "very much interventionist and very much in favour of the current ...arrangements in the Middle East."  Bush on the other hand say's he's for reducing the number of US troops overseas. "The only thing [Bush] said of any interest is something that I believe in, too.  However I think he made an error, I think he got the wrong piece of paper, he read the answers and not the questions, or the other way around."  Bush's statements on US interventionism (that America should begin to practice "humility" for heaven's sake) were indeed startling in their apparent  repudiation of Republican hawkishness, however much in keeping they are, or should be, with Republican isolationism.  But to dismiss them with such unpondered condescension is quite unworthy of someone who considers himself, as he so evidently does, a man worth listening to. Chris Gunness asked how "we" (is the US really the world, then, Chris?) "can or should get back to the business of issue-based serious politics."  The answer: "We can't," -- GE owns the US.  So, that's it, eh?  We should give up all hope of change?  On Nader: "Now we've got Ralph Nader with the Green party talking about a third party, when he is so dense that he should be talking about a second party -- that's what we lack; we have only one corporate American party."  Never mind the syntax, it's an excellent point and one Nader should take him up on. On the US: did he like being there? "Oh yes, I like Los Angeles, particularly."  Would have been good to hear why. What aspects of the US did he particularly enjoy and like? "I like what it might have been -- a republic that minded its own business."  Too bad it's so hard to answer the question. On political-economic imperialism: "Why are we interfering in countries we know nothing of?"  Too right that we know nothing of them, but that is not a good thing, and it is certainly not the primary reason we should not interfere. On cultural imperialism: "It causes the French to turn blue with hysteria at the thought of, you know, American primacy in television.  Well they don't have to buy it, they don't have to watch it, I don't think we force them to.  If we did, well, we do."  Say what? Vidal's conclusion on the topic of imperialism: "There is no role for a super global power, unless you really want to regulate everything.  If we wanted to do that then we'd have to have an education system, and train governors as the British Isles used to do."  Yes, well...heh -- what do you do with that. Dumbfounded, saddened and not a little appalled, Joanna </html>