from the Unbelievable Projection Dept.: Chris Hitchens calls Gore Vidal a 'Crackpot'

[marmar]

from the Independent UK:



Hitchens attacks Gore Vidal for being a 'crackpot'
Former protégé takes America's great man of letters to task for adopting 9/11 conspiracy theories

By Kate Youde
Sunday, 7 February 2010


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.

Vidal's reaction to the Vanity Fair article is not yet known. But yesterday, a British academic, who was also criticised by Hitchens, leapt to the author's defence. Dr Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, of Sussex University, described Hitchens' attack as "extraordinarily vitriolic". He claimed there was a "sense of jealousy he never did quite get to Gore's level of literary flair and his almost iconic status. It does seem like a kind of bizarre personal vendetta being carried out on the pages of Vanity Fair, replete with factual inaccuracies and not very much substance." ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/hitchens-attacks-gore-vidal-for-being-a-crackpot-1891753.html

[laughingliberal]

1. This is not Pot & Kettle. Gore Vidal is not a crackpot. nt

[marmar]

2. I adjusted the subject line to make it more accurate.

[laughingliberal]

9. Thanks! :) nt

[Mari333]

3. I bet you a dollar that Vidal merely laughs when he hears Hootchens speak

I am sure Gore Vidal has enough life experience to know a drunken bloated fool when he hears one.

[2 Much Tribulation]

4. Hitchens thinks Vidal's self-refuting (Hitchens doesn't argue evidence)=Hitchens is the cracked pot

[JoeyT]

5. I don't care if Vidal's reaction to the 9/11 attacks was to insist Bush himself flew the plane into

the first tower, his reaction was *still* better than Hitchens'.
Or does Hitchens think we've forgotten his neo-con "Let's kill all the Muslims and waterboarding isn't really torture until someone tries to drown my pasty drunken ass, which I'll bang for as much attention as possible."

[Mari333]

8. Hitchens went ballistic when his dna showed he was jewish

suddenly he became a keyboard warrior.
hell, I found out I am jewish by dna and I am still smart enough to know these occupations are bullllshit.

[TomClash]

6. Was he sober? nt

[DailyGrind51]

7. Gore Vidal is a creative genius, Hitchens is merely a bitter hack.