[Pharmboy]

Surprised the Jew-hating Vidal would be in the same room with Mailer; I guess their combined hatred for the US trumps the other stuff.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

I am surprised homosexual Mailer isn't an editor at antiwar.com. Birds of a feather, and all that...

[Catspaw]

Miller retorted in the Journal that Mailer, like designer Mary Quant, was "kinda hot for a few minutes in the '60s . . .

ow ow ow ow OW! That's gotta hurt :-))

[Asclepius]

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

The death of American letters, these three.

[KeyWest]

Miller was funny. Mailer is vitriolic. Classic liberal response.

[AgThorn]

good piece giving a lot of Miller quotes, but where is anything of a retort from Mailer? Face it, it's an unfair fight!! ;-)

[doug from upland]

I think that Dennis will be further eviscerating the scum in public. This could be fun to watch. Dennis has to watch out that Mailer doesn't stab him, as he did to one of his wives, or help get another murderer out of prison so he can murder again. Mailer is totally morally bankrupt.

[skeeter]

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

Lest I become overly sentimental for the WWII generation.

You can add Studs Turkel & Walt Cronkite to this list.

[keithtoo]

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

Mailer, Vidal et al are a bunch of self-absorbed, elitist, America-hating Euro-weenie-wannabe parasites.

[dead]

Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut and Gore Vidal.

Whole lotta cranky in that room.

[John Lenin]

Mailer is projecting his own insecurities on the rest of us. It must suck to be him.

[Billthedrill]

Good Lord - Vonnegut, Mailer and Vidal? Geriatric ex-trendoids whose talent is decades past its "sell-by" date. Love to have the Metamucil concession at that party.

Vonnegut, at least, has not fallen prey to the grotesque attempts on the part of the other two to project a macho image more appropriate to men fifty years younger and fifty IQ points lower. But all three seem blissfully unaware that the verities they have spent careers propounding as received truths are no longer the basis for a world-changing philosophy; that they have borne fruit and that fruit is rotten. Romantic youth overturning the ossified social structures of their elders ended up in the killing fields of Pol Pot and the literary and artistic holocaust of the Cultural Revolution. Anti-fascism enthusiasms ended up supporting despots. Anti-imperialistic passions ended up supporting communistic empires. Anti-militaristic slogans ended up in the massacre of Tiananmen Square and the brutal blitzkrieg that led to the final takeover of South Vietnam by the North. Brick by brick, piece by piece, each of the high-sounding nostrums promulgated by these three has been exposed for the sham that it is.

The stridency we now hear from these fading icons is that of failure and irrelevance, and that is precisely what Miller pointed out with respect to Mailer. They have retained their ideals untarnished by the horrors that the unrestricted applications of those ideals caused in the real world. It is sad that they think this to be laudable.

[cynicom]

Vidal is a communist like his cousin Al Gore.

[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.

[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.

[Hildy]

Mailer, Vonnegut and Gore...Irrelevance x 3

[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?

[lilylangtree]

Mailer and Vidal are examples of the New York elite that Algore ascribes and the clintoons suck up to? Yuck!

[GOPJ]

Miller is way cool. His best comments were left out of this liberal kiss up piece, but they're still on the record...

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

Where does one go to read the Mailer blast?