He doesn't show himself much of a *thinker* of course. But his purposes in this piece didn't require that or want it. Non omnia possumus omnes; we do what we can. I wonder though whether he wasn't always a bit of a chameleon -- not in a calculated way, necessarily, but just a guy who always said and thought whatever the popular kids said and thought. As the intelligentsia plunged to the right he plunged with it.
That Oxford Union debating style is quite good at making people seem a lot more intelligent and thoughtful than they are.
Still: Not a monster. At worst, a sad case, and at best maybe a lovable rogue.
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True that. He couldn't hold a candle to Orwell, and Vidal's wit was deeper, but I will always be grateful for his description of the republicans/democrats as "two cheeks of the same derriere." Always elicits a gasp or recognition ...
Joanna