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Fifth Column
Gore Vidal: Hating Bush, Longing for Saladin
2003-11-13
It’s lucky for George W. Bush that he wasn’t born in an earlier time and somehow stumbled into America’s Constitutional Convention. A man with his views, so depreciative of democratic rule, would have certainly been quickly exiled from the freshly liberated United States by the gaggle of incensed Founders. So muses one of our most controversial social critics and prolific writers, Gore Vidal.
This never ceases to amaze me. Full-bloomed Socialists singing the praises of America’s founders. Perhaps they do believe, with General Clark, that "America was founded on the principle of progressive taxation." Oh, they praise George Orwell too.
Vidal undoubtedly had current pols like Bush and Ashcroft in mind when he wrote his latest book, his third in two years. Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson takes us deep into the psyches of the patriotic trio. And even with all of their human foibles on display — vanity, ambition, hubris, envy and insecurity — their shared and profoundly rooted commitment to building the first democratic nation on Earth comes straight to the fore.
The book is then based on a false historical premise; Washington, Adams, even Jefferson, were committed to creating a Republic, not a "Democracy."

Q. Your book revisits the debate between the Jeffersonian Republicans and the Hamiltonian Federalists, which at the time were effectively young America’s two parties. More than 200 years later, do we still see any strands, any threads of continuity in our current body politic?
A. Just traces. But mostly we find the sort of corruption Franklin predicted. Ours is a totally corrupt society. The presidency is for sale. Whoever raises the most money to buy TV time will probably be the next president. This is corruption on a major scale.[...]
Folks like Vidal could not recognize a truly corrupt society if it took their wealth away.
Q. So if George W. Bush or John Ashcroft had been around in the early days of the republic, they would have been indicted and then hanged by the Founders?
A. No. It would have been better and worse. [Laughs.] Bush and Ashcroft would have been considered so disreputable as to not belong in this country at all. They might be invited to go down to Bolivia or Paraguay and take part in the military administration of some Spanish colony, where they would feel so much more at home. They would not be called Americans — most Americans would not think of them as citizens.
Mr. Vidal’s fantasies speak more than he thinks. If people like him ever gain power the rest of us would be shot, or intimidated. We would be "disresputable." We wouldn’t be citizens at all.
Q. Speaking of elections, is George W. Bush going to be re-elected next year?
A. No. At least if there is a fair election, an election that is not electronic. That would be dangerous. We don’t want an election without a paper trail. The makers of the voting machines say no one can look inside of them, because they would reveal trade secrets. What secrets? Isn’t their job to count votes? Or do they get secret messages from Mars? Is the cure for cancer inside the machines? I mean, come on. And all three owners of the companies who make these machines are donors to the Bush administration. Is this not corruption?
So Bush will probably win if the country is covered with these balloting machines. He can’t lose.
Oh, this is precious. If Bush wins and electronic machines are in use, it is a fraud. If Bush wins, and paper ballots are in use, the Republicans intimidated the black vote!
Q. Is Bush the worst president we’ve ever had?
A. Well, nobody has ever wrecked the Bill of Rights as he has. Other presidents have dodged around it, but no president before this one has so put the Bill of Rights at risk. No one has proposed preemptive war before. And two countries in a row that have done no harm to us have been bombed.
So,not only Iraq, but Afghanistan, did NOTHING to us.
Q. How do you think the current war in Iraq is going to play out?
A. I think we will go down the tubes right with it. With each action Bush ever more enrages the Muslims. And there are a billion of them. And sooner or later they will have a Saladin who will pull them together, and they will come after us. And it won’t be pretty.
This moral imbecile salivates at the thought of our destruction, and enjoys the fantasy of an Islamist World.... Our intellectuals ladies and gentlemen.
Posted by:Sorge

#8  that's it--vidal has sucked so much cock that the smegma in his brain has finally ossified
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-11-13 10:37:26 PM  

#7  Saladin was a victorious commander primarily due to the ineptness of his opponents. Europeans insisted in trying to fight a European campaign in Middle Eastern geography. He, however, could be beaten, or forced into a treaty.
BIOGRAPHY

1138: Born in Tikrit in Iraq as son of the Kurdish chief Ayyub.
1152: Starts to work in the service of the Syrian ruler, Nureddin.
1164: He starts to show his military and strategical qualities under 3 campaigns against the Crusaders who were established in Palestine, with the first campaign this year.
1169: Saladin serves as second to the commander in chief of the Syrian army, his uncle Shirkuh. Shirkuh became vizier of Egypt, but died after only 2 months. Saladin then took over as vizier. Despite the nominal limitations to the vizier position, Saladin took little regard to the interests of his superiors, the Fatimid rulers. He turned Cairo into an Ayyubid power base, where he used Kurds in leading positions.
1171: Saladin suppresses the Fatimid rulers of Egypt in 1171, whereupon he unites Egypt with the Abbasid Caliphate. But was not as eager as Nureddin to go to war against the Crusaders, and relations between him and Nureddin became very difficult.
1174: Nureddin dies, and Saladin uses the opportunity to extend his power base.
— Conquers Damascus.
1175: The Syrian Assassin leader Rashideddin's men made two attempts on the life of Saladin, the leader of the Ayyubids. The second time, the Assassin came so close that wounds were infliceted upon Saladin.
1176: Saladin besieges the fortress of Masyaf, the stronghold of Rashideddin. After some weeks, Saladin suddenly withdraws, and leaves the Assassins in peace for the rest of his life. It is believed that he was exposed to a threat of having his entire family murdered.
1183: Conquers the important north-Syrian city of Aleppo.
1186: Conquers Mosul in northern Iraq.
1187: With his new strength he attacks the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, and after 3 months of fighting he gets control over the city.
1189: A third Crusade manages to enlarge the coastal area of Palestine, while Jerusalem remains under Saladin's control.
1192: With The Peace of Ramla armistice agreement with King Richard 1 of England, the whole coast was defined as Christian land, while the city of Jerusalem remained under Muslim control.
1193 March 4: Dies in Damascus after a short illness.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins   2003-11-13 4:35:14 PM  

#6  Well, nobody has ever wrecked the Bill of Rights as he has.

For heavens sake... he's just published a book on the first years of the country, and isn't even aware of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 (signed into law by John Adams). If the Sedition Act were still in effect, Vidal would have been in trouble, for it made it a crime to utter or publish anything with the intent of defaming the government, Congress, or the President. The penalty was two years in jale and/or a $2000 fine. (link: The Avalon Project, Yale Law School)
Posted by: snellenr   2003-11-13 2:52:46 PM  

#5  "Well, nobody has ever wrecked the Bill of Rights as he has."

-Yeah, I feel my civil rights have been just so violated against.......Tell the lie often enough it becomes truth. Maybe some foreign immigrants who are not formal citizens have been talked to but I know of not one American cititzen who has had their rights trampled on by the "evil Bush". I know someone will probably try to tell me: "oh yeah dude, I know a guy who knows a guy whose brother's girlfriend's aunt was thrown in jail for saying Bush sucks, - I swear bro." So it goes.
Posted by: Jarhead   2003-11-13 2:33:21 PM  

#4  Why isn't Gore in one of the labor-corrective concentration camps that Mr. Ashcroft set up in Idaho?

Oh right, there aren't any.
Posted by: Steve White   2003-11-13 2:33:07 PM  

#3  Does that mean Procter & Gamble will be the next president?
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2003-11-13 2:18:51 PM  

#2  "Whoever raises the most money to buy TV time will probably be the next president...."

All-right!!!!
Posted by: Matt   2003-11-13 2:12:48 PM  

#1  Will Gory Vidalater kindly take his head out of his ass or else shut the fuck up?
Posted by: Atrus   2003-11-13 2:05:23 PM  

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