Citizen Gore Vidal
Elections won’t reverse the decline of American democracy, the prolific literary legend says
By David Barsamian

Gore Vidal is one of the singular literary figures of this era. A scion of a political family, he grew up in a milieu of power and politics. Winner of the National Book Award in 1993 and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1982, Vidal is the author of scores of plays, screenplays and historical novels, including Lincoln and Julian. He also has written a number of bestselling nonfiction books, including Dreaming War, Imperial America and Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. The Washington Post calls him “the master essayist of our age.”

You have a role as a kind of Cassandra of the United States. A couple of years ago, you were talking about the impending economic collapse of the country.

We’re in it. But my predictions — I’m a master of the obvious. If you spend money at this rate on an unjust war — and a war that will have no outcome favorable to us, ever — don’t be surprised.

Bush is insane. We have a better word in Italian. It’s deficente. He’s deficient in the mental department. Deficente. He got applauded when he attacked two innocent countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, and he’ll try it again. “I’ll be popular because I’m going to hit Iran. It’s the source of all evil, heh, heh, heh.” And he starts to whinny like a horse.

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