Rakesh wrote:
>But this is rather obvious. And the real reasons for Vidal's brave defense of McVeigh are rather obvious as well, but I am still confused as to why this compares--as Peter seems to think- to Hitchen's grovelling at the feet of his boss.
I can't answer the second part, but am curious about the first. The bizarre symbiosis of aging left queen and young white supremacist probably, in one way, betrays both Vidal and Mc Veigh's utter cynicism. I get Vidal's interest in Mc Veigh as a guy sensitive to the hypertrophy of state military-police power. And the revolutionary rhetoric against the unthinking sanction of state violence, okay. But Mc Veigh's ties to Christian identity movements alone should make Vidal wary. To say nothing of the little light in Vidal's head that should go off when he's being used. But then, I'm sure that, in Vidal's mind, the execution gives him an occasion to be heard by many who wouldn't generally hear him--or listen to him. It's a politically revved up version of Elton John and Eminem, at that level.
But, pace Perry Anderson's intro in the most recent NLR, and _Empire_, perhaps this is a moment when left republicans (republican with a small "r") ought to recognize their symbiotic relation to the right. And take advantage of it.
Christian