How to Improve the U.S. Government: Gore Vidal Speech - Economy, Education, Healthcare (1988)

Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 -- July 31, 2012) was an American writer known for his essays, novels, screenplays, and Broadway plays. As a well-known public intellectual, he was known for his patrician manner and witty aphorisms. Vidal's grandfather was the U.S. Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma. Vidal was a lifelong Democrat; he ran for political office twice and was a longtime political commentator. As well known for his essays as his novels, Vidal wrote for The Nation, New Statesman, the New York Review of Books and Esquire. Vidal's major subject was America, and through his essays and media appearances he was a longtime critic of American foreign policy. He developed this into a portrayal of the United States as a decaying empire from the 1980s onwards. He was also known for his well-publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Truman Capote. His most widely regarded social novel was Myra Breckinridge; his best known historical novels included Julian, Burr, and Lincoln. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality. Vidal always rejected the terms of "homosexual" and "heterosexual" as inherently false, claiming that the vast majority of individuals had the potential to be pansexual. His screenwriting credits included the epic historical drama Ben-Hur (1959), into which he claimed he had written a "gay subplot." Ben-Hur won the Academy Award for Best Picture. At the time of his death, he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II, including J. D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, and Joseph Heller. Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit, he has been described as the 20th century's answer to Oscar Wilde. Besides his politician grandfather, Vidal had other connections with the Democratic Party: his mother, Nina, married Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr., who later was stepfather of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Gore Vidal is a fifth cousin of Jimmy Carter. Vidal also may have been a distant cousin of Al Gore. In 1960, Gore Vidal was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress, losing an election in New York's 29th congressional district, a traditionally Republican district on the Hudson River, encompassing all of Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Schoharie, and Ulster Counties to J. Ernest Wharton, by a margin of 57% to 43%. Campaigning with a slogan of "You'll get more with Gore", he received the most votes any Democrat in 50 years received in that district. Among his supporters were Eleanor Roosevelt, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward; the latter two, longtime friends of Vidal's, campaigned for him and spoke on his behalf. On the December 15, 1971 taping of The Dick Cavett Show, with Janet Flanner, Norman Mailer allegedly head-butted Vidal during an altercation prior to their appearance on the show. Asked by a journalist what comment he had about Mailer's head-butting him backstage, Gore dead-panned, "Once again, words failed Norman Mailer." During the taping of the show, there was a legendary on-camera feud between Vidal and Mailer over what Vidal had written about the latter, prompting Mailer to say: "I've had to smell your works from time to time." Mailer was apparently irate at Vidal's concealed reference to an incident where Mailer had stabbed his wife. From 1970 to 1972, Vidal was one of the chairmen of the People's Party. In 1971, he wrote an article in Esquire advocating consumer advocate Ralph Nader for president in the 1972 election. In 1982, he campaigned against incumbent Governor Jerry Brown for the Democratic primary election to the United States Senate from California. Vidal prophetically announced that their Republican opponent would take the race. This was documented in the film Gore Vidal: The Man Who Said No directed by Gary Conklin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore_vidal Image by Florian Hirzinger www.fh-ap.com (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons