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Gore Vidal: I Knew JFK, & Believe Me--Obama Is the Better Leader

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Deeper_Background, May 20, 2008.

  1. Deeper_Background

    Deeper_Background Active Member

    lol
     
  2. Herbert Anchovy

    Herbert Anchovy Active Member

    Vidal hasn't written a good book in 30 years.
     
  3. writing irish

    writing irish Active Member

    The amount of time he's been abroad. I guess the expatriate life doesn't fan the creative fire in some people.
     
  4. Well he's been living in Italy and writing books about Rome. The kind of books where you can toss in a bit about one guy fucking another guy in the ass and it doesn't seem completely out of place.
     
  5. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member

    Vidal's lifestyle is no secret. He does seem to have become more bitter since his longtime companion passed on, a few years back.
     
  6. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Washington used to receive heavy criticism for his leadership in the Continental Army for the majority of the Revolution.
     
  7. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    And it wasn't a secret forty years ago.



    These two would be right home here on sj in 2008
     
  8. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member


    A classic.
     
  9. Simon_Cowbell

    Simon_Cowbell Active Member

    Kennedy is the only true leader this country has had at president in more than 50 years.

    Faint praise?


    Puhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhlease.
     
  10. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    Despite the vitriol they both speak in complete sentences.

    As much as I didn't think much of Buckley, I loved Firing Line. Other than sporting events it's the only time I yelled at the TV. :)
     
  11. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    The country has, indeed, had only one true leader as president in the last 50 years. That man's name was Ronald Wilson Reagan. I regret that i did not understand that until after the great man left office. I repent daily about that.

    *****

    Evaluating JFK as a leader is difficult, it seems to me, because of the whole Dallas thing. It's like trying to figure out what kind of actor James Dean would have been if only he'd worn a seat belt.

    Kennedy's leadership includes almost tumbling the world into nuclear war (Bay of Pigs), wiretapping Martin Luther King (which, oddly, MLK historians are now quite grateful for and setting all the stage props for our misadventures in Southeast Asia. At least he nailed (a lot of) quality ass, unlike Slick Willie.

    Gave a great speech, though ... including a speech ("pay any price") that could never be delivered at a Democratic National Convention today without getting booed off the stage.

    I was stunned to read Paul M. Johnson's Modern Times in my 20s and see how a historian who hadn't bought into the Kennedy Myth viewed that period. I was sure he was wrong, but I see now that he was right.

    As with Elvis, death was a great legacy booster for JFK.
     
  12. Simon_Cowbell

    Simon_Cowbell Active Member

    Space program.... the Cuban Missile Crisis... Intelligence at every moment while speaking in public.

    GREAT leader.
     
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