Gore Vidal: Today’s politicians ‘blow dried’
By JASON AUSLANDER Daily Press Staff Writer
With bombs beginning to fall on Baghdad, best-selling author Gore Vidal’s appearance in Santa Monica on Wednesday night seemed fortuitous.
“This is an extraordinary moment — when our republic is transformed into something that is not clear yet,” Vidal said as he sat down and placed his walking cane across the table in front of him. “I can’t criticize something if I don’t know what it is.
“But I certainly do know how we got here and I’ll criticize that.”
And criticize he did, noting that the present U.S. administration functions amid so much secrecy that “perhaps we may never be told” the true reasons behind this latest Iraqi war.
“Maybe our descendants will be told,” he said.
Vidal repeatedly displayed a barbed tongue and a sharp wit in a brief “chat” with about 75 Santa Monicans at Barnes and Noble Bookstore on the Third Street Promenade.
Vidal said Saddam Hussein poses a threat only because the United States is attacking his country.
“If we attack him, then he will use the mustard gas he has accumulated,” Vidal said. “We are forcing him to use the things we don’t want him to get.
“It’s insanity. It’s a pretext to dominate the oil fields of the Middle East and Eurasia, as I write in my little book.”
Vidal’s “little book” is his latest, entitled “Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta.” His appearance in Santa Monica was part of a tour of Southern California to promote the book.
He called the Bush Administration’s pre-emptive strike doctrine “ludicrous.”
Soon, Vidal noted wryly, Attorney General John Ashcroft is likely to travel to Utah, where he will begin arresting men over the age of 18 because they might decide one day to kidnap young girls to use as wives.
Vidal’s comments, however, were not only confined to the war with Iraq, which began in earnest Wednesday.
“Let’s chat,” he said to the audience, opening the floor to questions.
Asked if he thought the U.S. possessed any leaders with ideas, Vidal said, “Well, re-election is an idea.”
He characterized most of today’s politicians as “blow-dried” who “seem to all be from Florida.”
“I’ve never seen people in public life at such a low level,” Vidal said. “Congress no longer takes itself seriously.”
Modern politicians have “allowed the whole Constitution to go out the window,” he said, noting that the U.S. hasn’t officially declared war since World War II.
“Since then, we’ve fought numerous wars,” he said. “We’ve had perpetual war for perpetual peace — much good it has done us.”
Vidal also criticized the state of the U.S. educational system, which he said was much better in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the Supreme Court’s behavior in the last election and television news.
“I’ve been on TV with some of the most goddawful people,” he said.
Vidal said he was being interviewed recently over the phone by Alan Colmes, co-host of the Fox News Channel program Hannity and Colmes, who criticized Vidal’s opinions on the Iraq conflict.
“I said, ‘I know you like (the war),’” Vidal said, “and he said, ‘What do you mean I like it — I’m the liberal.’”
Vidal said he then asked Colmes to define the word “liberal.”
“I heard a huge gulp over the line,” he said. “I said, ‘Not only have you not read the Constitution, you haven’t read Webster’s Dictionary.’ By then he was making all kinds of terrible noises.”
Vidal said Colmes then defined a “liberal” as a person who furthers “measures toward the extension of democracy.”
There’s one easy way to determine who are the liberals on TV, he said.
They “have green makeup and pointed heads,” Vidal said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 20, 2003. Read the original PDF.