SILENT GORE
BUSH-bashing belletrist Gore Vidal is refusing to promote his new book, "Imperial America." The tome, just out from Thunder's Mouth Press, consists of anti-Bush diatribes and articles Vidal wrote in the Nation, Esquire and elsewhere from 1975-2004. But Vidal recently canceled interviews for the book, which has gotten a lukewarm reception, and told the publishers he'd only give them three days of his time to promote it. "He's very prickly," huffed a Thunder's Mouth insider. "He won't even talk to us directly. We have to go through his editor at the Nation." A rep for the publisher says Vidal's time was "unexpectedly cut short."