Not the former Veep but his distant cousin (and my favorite writer) Gore Vidal.Apparently the master’s “snottiness” made Michelle Bachmann a Republican. Genetics made her an idiot:
I was a reasonable, fair-minded Democrat. And another secret you need to know: My husband and I met in college. We worked on Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign. It’s true, it’s true. This is like a 12-step meeting here today, you know that. Because I am here to admit to you, I’m a Minnesotan who had “DFL” – that’s what we call Democrats in our state — stamped on my birth certificate, worked for Jimmy Carter. The first time I ever went to Washington, DC, I went to dance at Jimmy Carter’s inaugural ball! It gets worse!
Until I was reading this snotty novel called ‘Burr,’ by Gore Vidal, and read how he mocked our Founding Fathers. And as a reasonable, decent, fair-minded person who happened to be a Democrat, I thought, ‘You know what? What he’s writing about, this mocking of people that I revere, and the country that I love, and that I would lay my life down to defend — just like every one of you in this room would, and as many of you in this roomhave when you wore the uniform of this great country — I knew that that was not representative of my country.
And at that point I put the book down and I laughed. I was riding a train. I looked out the window and I said, ‘You know what? I think I must be a Republican. I don’t think I’m a Democrat.’
Burr remains one of my favorite books, I’ve re-read it many times, but now I like it more than ever. Thanks, GV.
It’s interesting how someone with no sense of humor can be so funny but that’s Michelle Bachmann in a wingnutshell. At least she’s original: most Goopers her age blame Jimmy Carter for making them wingers. Btw, Carter is also a distant cousin of both Al Gore and Gore Vidal. It’s a small fucking world, after all…
We’ve talked about this before but GV is also one of my favorites. I got a kick out of this story.
Best laugh today. Thanks. And thanks, Gore.
Also like pretty much everything I’ve read by Gore Vidal — includingBurr, though I only read it once.
Bachmann getting all in a huff about the founding figures of the nation being human and not divine speaks volumes, eh?
If Gore Vidal’sBurr turned Bachmann into a Republican, I shudder to think whatLast Exit to Brooklyn would have done to her…
Ha I just read this item over at Salon.com. And I’m smelling the waft of bullshit. BIG TIME. Hell I read “Burr” and it didn’t make me Republican.
As the Salon writer observed, every wingnut has an origin story. It’s like when you’re at one of the Fundiegelical churches and they all have to tell the story about how they were saved. This is the same thing, it’s an evangelical dog whistle.
She forgot to call Gore a fag.
better keep marvin kitman’s ‘making of the prefident 1787 away from her.
another snotty book i highly recommend. plus his earlier book. i swear my aunt BURNed my copy i leant her. still peeved.
LOL! It’s always a piece of fiction that defines today’s conservatives be it books (GV, CS Lewis), movies(300), TV series(24) or Fox News stories.
Is it any wonder conservatives are so fucked up in the head these days when every thing they believe in and the basis of their decision making is based on the imaginations of others?