"The Grand Old Man of American Letters"
Isn't that what Walker Percy once predicted for Gore Vidal? In 'Love in the Ruins,' didn't you say? And now we see that day has arrived. You'll also want to go here to read comments by Gore and Rushdie (the grand late-middle-aged-man of Islamic letters) on the necessity of pornography in a Free Society. Note the Kundera riff as well.
COOPER: We now see that House majority leader Tom DeLay has been indicted. The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, is under investigation by the SEC. We've seen the debacle around Michael "Brownie" Brown and FEMA. Is this Administration finally collapsing under its own weight?
VIDAL: "Under its own lack of weight" [laughing], I think, is the phrase you are searching for.
COOPER: Sort of the unbearable lightness?
VIDAL: Yes, the unbearable lightness. Or here DeLay--gone tomorrow. Yes, I do believe it is breaking up. And the indictment of DeLay would not have happened had there not been two hurricanes, which dramatized to everybody in the United States that we don't have a government. And to the extent we do have one it is not only corrupt but a menace to other countries, to our liberties, to our Bill of Rights.
COOPER: If, indeed, this Administration is collapsing for lack of weight, what comes after it?
VIDAL: Martial law, that's next. Bush is like a plane of glass. You can see all the worms turning around in his head at any moment. The first giveaway of what's on his mind--or the junta's mind.
COOPER: The junta being...?
VIDAL: Cheney, who runs everything, I suspect. And a few other serious operators. Anyway, I first noticed this was on their mind when Bush finally woke up to the fact that the hurricanes were not going to be good PR for him. And he starts to think friends of his are going to be running in '08. So what's the first thing he does? The first thing on the mind of a dictator? He gets the National Guard away from the governors. The Guard is under the governors, but Bush is always saying, Let's turn it over to the military. This is what's on their mind. Under military control.
COOPER: We now see that House majority leader Tom DeLay has been indicted. The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, is under investigation by the SEC. We've seen the debacle around Michael "Brownie" Brown and FEMA. Is this Administration finally collapsing under its own weight?
VIDAL: "Under its own lack of weight" [laughing], I think, is the phrase you are searching for.
COOPER: Sort of the unbearable lightness?
VIDAL: Yes, the unbearable lightness. Or here DeLay--gone tomorrow. Yes, I do believe it is breaking up. And the indictment of DeLay would not have happened had there not been two hurricanes, which dramatized to everybody in the United States that we don't have a government. And to the extent we do have one it is not only corrupt but a menace to other countries, to our liberties, to our Bill of Rights.
COOPER: If, indeed, this Administration is collapsing for lack of weight, what comes after it?
VIDAL: Martial law, that's next. Bush is like a plane of glass. You can see all the worms turning around in his head at any moment. The first giveaway of what's on his mind--or the junta's mind.
COOPER: The junta being...?
VIDAL: Cheney, who runs everything, I suspect. And a few other serious operators. Anyway, I first noticed this was on their mind when Bush finally woke up to the fact that the hurricanes were not going to be good PR for him. And he starts to think friends of his are going to be running in '08. So what's the first thing he does? The first thing on the mind of a dictator? He gets the National Guard away from the governors. The Guard is under the governors, but Bush is always saying, Let's turn it over to the military. This is what's on their mind. Under military control.
posted by Quin Finnegan at 2:24 PM
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