Reply #24: Well, I can see why you used the "door-buster" of JFK vs. Obama to get us to open

[Peace Patriot]

this thread, and then didn't include Vidal's assessment of them. He lambasts JFK to extremes I wouldn't have thought possible except in a John Bircher. Way off the mark, Mr. Vidal. Refreshing like being dipped into a vat of acid. And his praise of Obama has a curious twisty dagger to it:

"As for Obama, Vidal has taken time to warm to him. 'I liked the idea of him, but he never managed to get my interest. I was brought around by his overall intelligence – specifically when he did his speech on race and religion.'

"In Vidal’s opinion, 'he’s our best demagogue since Huey Long or Martin Luther King.'"

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article3952774.ece

Demagogue? He's thinking of the original Greek, of course. That's very Vidalian. But did he really mean to slander both Obama and M.L. King with the modern connotations of this word? It's come to mean little more than liar and hypnotizer of the great unwashed, for evil purposes. Hitler. Stalin. Really, I don't know what to make of it.

As for JFK, he put men on the moon, and got people like me interested in politics and government when I was 16. I don't really care if his daddy was rich. And is Vidal scraping for his meals these days? I usually like Vidal and agree with him, but something's got him down. Gout maybe? Old age?