MAILER BLASTS BACK AT COMIC

NY Post: Page Six ^ | Richard Johnson

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Maybe Mailer is only havng a bad hair day. Apparently some members of FR support this pacifist.

[Austin Willard Wright]

Pro-British? Tory!

[Buckwheats]

Denial ain't a river in Egypt.

[sheik yerbouty]

Mailer is merely a garrulous lunatic.

[cynicom]

Vidal is a communist like his cousin Al Gore.

[Pharmboy]

Way to go, Bill!

I hereby nominate your mini-rant for Quote of the Week.

[Buckwheats]

"Full of trivial conversation"....lol.

[TX Bluebonnet]

The fun started with Mailer's recent op-ed piece in the London Times, "Why Are We in Iraq," in which he asserted that Operation Iraqi Freedom was a way to massage the white male ego.

First the liberals were complaining that the blacks are over-represented in the Armed Forces and we were sending them off to die. Now that we've won with an impressive military display, all of a sudden the military is predominantly white.

I saw all races in all branches and at all levels and was impressed by how well they worked together. One story in particular told of how the native Iraqis were confused by the Melting Pot of ethnicity of the American soldiers, yet they all called themselves Americans - no hyphens needed.

[Pharmboy]

...who stabbed his wife and freed a prisoner who subsequently stabbed a waiter to death (Jack Henry Abbott). Mailer is definitely capable of doing bad stuff...as a matter of fact, he thrives on it, the sicko.

[an amused spectator]

Mailer may have drawn some comfort yesterday from two fellow World War II veterans - Kurt Vonnegut and Gore Vidal.

Talk about literary irrelevance! I haven't read a Vonnegut novel in years, and I only really think about Slaughterhouse Five when I'm pensive about the nature of Western war.

I refuse to read Vidal, and Mailer has been passe for decades.

Whereas Dennis Miller is something like a modern oral version of some of Clemens' better stuff.

[Pharmboy]

Even though I can't stand the old queen, Burr was entertaining.

[an amused spectator]

The death of American letters, these three.

They ain't gonna make into the Classics, that's for sure.

[Hildy]

Mailer, Vonnegut and Gore...Irrelevance x 3

[kabar]

Just about everyone in their 80's is a WWII veteran. That doesn't get you any mileage with me.

Mailer has written a few dozen distinguished books, and has won two Pulitzer Prizes and the National Book Award. Mailer also served in an actual war, as one recent web biography describes: "Mailer was inducted into the Army in March 1944, less than a year after graduating with honors from Harvard with a B.S. in Engineering. His experience in the Army as a surveyor in the field artillery, an intelligence clerk in the cavalry and a rifleman with a reconnaissance platoon in the Philippine mountains, gave him the idea for a novel about World War II."

Gore Vidal grew accustomed at an early age to a life among political and social notables. He was born at the military academy in West Point, New York, where his father was an instructor. He was raised near Washington, DC, in the house of his grandfather, Thomas P. Gore, a populist Democrat senator from Oklahoma. Vidal learned about political life from him and when he was a teenager he adopted the first name of Gore. Vidal also spent time on the Virginia estate of his stepfather, Hugh. D. Auchincloss. After graduating from Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, he served on an army supply ship in the Aleutian Islands, near Alaska.

[Hildy]

"Love to have the metamucil concession at that party!" Email that to Miller..that's great!

[an amused spectator]

Two quotes from Mailer, four quotes from Miller.

Perhaps Johnson had difficulty finding any more interesting zingers from Mailer's cow spew.

I know I'm not going to waste my time on it. ;-)

[Steve_Seattle]

"Geriatric ex-trendoids whose talent is decades past its "sell-by" date."

Now that's a good line - wish I'd thought of it.

[an amused spectator]

I'll second the motion. ;-)

[Consort]

It's almost sad to see these aging Democrats lose their dignity. Almost, but not quite.

[Steve_Seattle]

From the Dixie Chicks to Mailer to Madonna, what I find offensive about these people is the way they present themselves to Europeans as not being like all those "other" Americans, all the dumb, ignorant, racist Americans who voted for Bush. That is why I see no "courage" in any of these celebrities' comments - they are simply pandering to a foreign audience that they know will applaud them - what's so f***ing courageous about that?