Sunday, November 16, 2008

By apolloguide, November 16 at 11:46 am #
re"  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081114_a_rejoinder_to_gore_vidal/

If the comment required explication why didn’t you, Mr. Gumbel, request for clarification instead of going to press with your confusion?  I can only reason from your rejoinder that you decided to keep the comment out of context so that you could make issue from it.  Gore’s remark is dripping with sarcasm.  An earlier Bill Buckley might have understood this but as his reincarnation you appear unable to do the same.  
You say that you were:

“deeply troubled about where this thought had come from.”

The next time you are not sure what you heard you need to clarify by asking another few questions, and not by rushing a publicly tarnishing hit piece on a great American author which your article attempts to do, to print. You proceed to suggest that Gore Vidal is out of touch and and nothing more than an idle rich man of the Jack Tanner class of 1896.

and then this line: 
“Vidal’s reactionary bile is part of a clear historical pattern that has, at different times, condoned the slavery he alludes to; espoused open prejudice against immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and the industrial working class; and embraced the notion that democracy is somehow too precious to be entrusted to more than a small fraction of the people governed.” As an immigrant Catholic Jack Kennedy would certainly dispute your characterization of Vidal.

Could it be that Gore Vidal is also responsible for global warming? Or could it be that you Mr. Gumbel are no Bill Buckley?

No comments: