Hitchens attacks Gore Vidal for being a 'crackpot'

[Rrose Selavy]

This is less about the facts or conspiracy theories (which wil continue to be debated ad nauseum elsewhere) than one of those almighty academic/journalistic feuds

I'd pull up a seat and open the popcorn but I'm not sure how long Gore Vidal, who has yet to comment, has left....


As literary feuds go it has the all the hallmarks of a classic. In one corner, the journalist and polemicist Christopher Hitchens. In the other, America's great man of letters, Gore Vidal.

The latest salvo is in this month's Vanity Fair where, in an article headlined "Vidal Loco", Hitchens launches a stinging attack on Vidal, claiming that the events of 9/11 "accentuated a crackpot strain" in the author. He claims that Vidal's work after the terrorist attacks consists of "a small anthology of half-argued and half-written shock pieces [which] either insinuated or asserted that the administration had known in advance of the attacks."
"He openly says that the Bush administration was 'probably' in on the 9/11 attacks, a criminal complicity that would 'certainly fit them to a T'; that Timothy McVeigh was 'a noble boy', no more murderous than generals Patton and Eisenhower; and that 'Roosevelt saw to it that we got that war' by inciting the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor," Hitchens writes


More here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/hitchens-attacks-gore-vidal-for-being-a-crackpot-1891753.html

Hitchens original Vanity Fair article here:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/02/hitchens-201002?currentPage=1

A response to Hitchens here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/hitchens-has-no-clothes-a-response-to-lsquovidal-locorsquo-1891507.html

[The True Scotsman]

It sort of sounds like Hitchens mis-interrupted Gore's articles and doesn't want to admit it, because then he would look rather foolish. But, then again, who knows...

And now for a re-enactment of what I think happened...

:teacher: :curse :soapbox :catfight: :bricks:

[Pardalis]

Another Hitchens bulleye.

[quixotecoyote]

Well he didn't disrupt them from being published, so I suppose in that sense he mis-interrupted them.

[portlandatheist]

Vidal is not a conspiracy theorist, however:
It is only in this context that Gore describes bin Laden as ‘still not the proven mastermind.’ Hitchens thinks this is self-evidently absurd, but it would seem the FBI agree with Gore, not Hitchens: according to Sonoma State University’s Project Censored, one of the top 25 censored news stories of 2008 was that ‘He [bin Laden] has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.’

Crackpot.

[Pardalis]

Ahmed tried to defend Vidal by spouting even more conspiracy babble. Kind of proving Hitchens' point that these two have gone wacko.

There isn't really a "feud", there's Vidal and Ahmed talking to themselves like madmen, and Hitchens justly pointing this out.

The Left has taken upon itself to become the defendor of radical Islam, and Hitchens won't stand for it, and he's right.

[quixotecoyote]

The Left has taken upon itself to become the defendor of radical Islam, and Hitchens won't stand for it, and he's right.

Which is fairly bizarre given the left's take on everything else.

[Pardalis]

Which is fairly bizarre given the left's take on everything else.

As long as it helps their cause to bring down the US and capitalism, they'll get in bed with just about anyone.

[quixotecoyote]

As long as it helps their cause to bring down the US and capitalism, they'll get in bed with just about anyone.

I know, just look at Obama and Bill Ayers!

eta: Amiright??

[Pardalis]

I know, just look at Obama and Bill Ayers!

eta: Amiright??

Nah, I don't buy into that. I don't place Obama in the "loony Left" camp (when I said the "Left" I meant the "loony Left"), and I don't think you can blame him for acquaintances he's had in college.

There are good people still left on the Left, but it's mostly been hijacked by lunatics.

[quixotecoyote]

There are good people still left on the Left, but it's mostly been hijacked by lunatics.

Yeah, ever since the Dems got the majority in the House/Senate plus the presidency, you can tell they've been driven by the extremists because their politicians are enacting wild socialistic anti-capitalist programs willy-nilly instead of getting bogged down in moderate vs left-of-center interparty feuds and forever talking about bipartisanship.

[Pardalis]

I wasn't talking about the Democratic party.

[quixotecoyote]

So what's got hijacked then? You aren't referring to the whole of the Left or the Democratic party, so who is it? Berkley protesters?

[Pardalis]

There's a world outside the United States. When I talk about the Loony Left, I'm talking about the Galloway, Chavez, Pilger, Moore and Chomsky and the likes, not Obama.

[Skeptic]

quixotecoyote's self-identification of Pardalis' "the loony left" with Obama reminds me of the old joke about the Jew who was arrested during WWI in Moscow for saying one of the kings in the conflict is an idiot. He said in his trial that he meant the Kaiser, but the judge wasn't buying it: you said "stupid king" -- everybody knows that can only mean the Czar!

[MarkCorrigan]

There's a world outside the United States. When I talk about the Loony Left, I'm talking about the Galloway, Chavez, Pilger, Moore and Chomsky and the likes, not Obama.


George Galloway?

You mean George Galloway right?

Hey everyone, he means GEORGE Galloway!

Newsflash, he's a very minor politician and annoying talking head. That's ALL he is here.

[Harpo]

George Galloway?

You mean George Galloway right?

Hey everyone, he means GEORGE Galloway!

Newsflash, he's a very minor politician and annoying talking head. That's ALL he is here.

Surely you don't mean George "The Cat" Galloway? :bigcat

[dafydd]

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_234094b715b26eeba6.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=18970)

[Rrose Selavy]

Grumpy old man on Election night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD0p-wfCARk

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[Eddie Dane]

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_234094b715b26eeba6.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=18970)

That picture........wow.

My first reaction? I want to know that man's opinion on world affairs!

Was this his idea of connecting to the public?

[dudalb]

George Galloway?

You mean George Galloway right?

Hey everyone, he means GEORGE Galloway!

Newsflash, he's a very minor politician and annoying talking head. That's ALL he is here.

He also furnishes a lot of material for comedians, consdiering the number of Galloway jokes I heard when last in London.

[MarkCorrigan]

He also furnishes a lot of material for comedians, consdiering the number of Galloway jokes I heard when last in London.

True. He's a bit of a laughing stock. Bear in mind that in the picture above he was acting like a cat. A cat. This is an elected official.

I have no idea what his reach is abroad, but here, he's a rather bad joke.

[Rrose Selavy]

True. He's a bit of a laughing stock. Bear in mind that in the picture above he was acting like a cat. A cat. This is an elected official.

.

No you are incorrect. He was not acting like a cat in the picture .That is not the cat scene. The scene depicted in the leotard was a separate "mime task".
In the cat scene with Rula Lenska he was wearing a white lab coat.

[portlandatheist]

No you are incorrect. He was not acting like a cat in the picture .That is not the cat scene. The scene depicted in the leotard was a separate "mime task".
In the cat scene with Rula Lenska he was wearing a white lab coat.

Thanks for the clarification :)

[quixotecoyote]

There's a world outside the United States. When I talk about the Loony Left, I'm talking about the Galloway, Chavez, Pilger, Moore and Chomsky and the likes, not Obama.
:rolleyes:

quixotecoyote's self-identification of Pardalis' "the loony left" with Obama reminds me of the old joke about the Jew who was arrested during WWI in Moscow for saying one of the kings in the conflict is an idiot. He said in his trial that he meant the Kaiser, but the judge wasn't buying it: you said "stupid king" -- everybody knows that can only mean the Czar!

Given that the discussion was about Vidal v Hitchens, an American and an English-American who lives in DC, I find pardalis's attempt to deflect outside the US disingenuous and your piling on more so.

There also was no 'self-identification.' Paradalis shifted from Left to Looney Left after I called him on his ********.

[Cicero]

Hitch might wish to invoke William F. Buckley's all time classic rebuke of Vidal.

"Now listen you queer, stop calling me a crypto Nazi, or I'll sock you in your god-dammed face and you'll stay plastered." William F. Buckley to Gore Vidal.


http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/95207/detail/

[Rrose Selavy]

That Buckley's got form.
Here he is threatening to punch Chomsky in the face.
But I'm sure he really wouldn't hit a man with glasses.....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEIrZO069Kg

[Eddie Dane]

That Buckley's got form.
Here he is threatening to punch Chomsky in the face.
But I'm sure he really wouldn't hit a man with glasses.....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEIrZO069Kg

He didn't threaten him. He made a joke in reference to the Gore Vidal incident.

[Cayvmann]

As long as it helps their cause to bring down the US and capitalism, they'll get in bed with just about anyone.

Conspiracy irony right there

[Rrose Selavy]

He didn't threaten him. He made a joke in reference to the Gore Vidal incident.

I know. A threat in jest is still a threat.

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[Cicero]

I know. A threat in jest is still a threat.

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Would you feel better if it was a promise in jest?