Gore Vidal: America Rotting Away, Obama Letting It Go On

Gore Vidal served in the U.S. Army Reserve during World War II, emerging as an eloquent critic of American foreign policy over the last 60 years, among his myriad accomplishments.

As President Obama begins his descent into aping Sen. Hubert Humphrey, disappointing 10,000,000s who voted him into office as the next Robert Kennedy, the London Times (Sept. 30) offers an interview with Vidal on topics ranging from the "War on Terror" to President Obama's performance in office.

Vidal castigates Obama on Afghanistan and the president's refusal to take a solid stand on seemingly any issue, except an abiding commitment to compromise with neocons and know-nothing Republicans. [Came upon this from The American Conservative which calls Vidal the "politically incorrect man of the Left" and the "Last of the Republicans."] The Times' headline reads: "Gore Vidal: 'We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US.'"

Here's an excerpt from the London Times piece.

How’s Obama doing? 'Dreadfully. I was hopeful. He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position for a long time. But he’s inexperienced. He has a total inability to understand military matters. He’s acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism.'

America should leave Afghanistan, he says. ''We’ve failed in every other aspect of our effort of conquering the Middle East or whatever you want to call it.' The 'War on Terror' was 'made up', Vidal says. 'The whole thing was PR, just like ‘weapons of mass destruction'’.