The Gore About Vidal

The death of leftist American writer Gore Vidal, being a man after the BBC's own heart, was marked by the deplorable British "national broadcaster" yesterday with adulatory remembrances in its bulletins, and on its website the BBC sycophantically provides an anthology of quotations evidently designed to showcase his wit and (supposed) wisdom.

It is inconceivable that had the old bigot been an "Islamophobe" rather than an antisemite and enemy of Israel he would have been so honoured by Al Beeb.  But big-noting antisemites and those who wish ill will to the world's only Jewish state is par for the course in "champagne socialist" circles these days.

"The Hate That Dare Not Speak Its Name," a famous essay that Norman Podhoretz wrote in 1986 regarding Vidal's  ferocious, racist antipathy to Jews, has been reissued by Commentary magazine.

Regarding an appalling article that Vidal wrote that March, in the Nation, Podhoretz observed:

 'As befits this resurrection of the two classic themes of anti-Semitic literature—the Jew as alien and the Jew as the conspiratorial manipulator of malign power dangerous to everyone else—Vidal’s tone is poisonous. His every word drips with contempt and hatred, and underlying it all is a strong note of menace. The Jews had better watch out if they wish "to stay on among us" —not that “we” will necessarily permit them to stay even if they do begin minding their manners. Their only purpose, after all, is "to make propaganda and raise money for Israel," thereby impoverishing the rest of us and bringing the world closer and closer to a nuclear war.'

Read all of Podhoretz's essay here