NORMAN MAILER DECLARES: 'AMERICA IS SO VAIN' (yep...it's a BARF ALERT)

Drudge Report ^ | 9/6/02

[Brian Mosely]

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX FRIDAY SEPT 06, 2002 20:32:09 UTC XXXXX

[Filed by Matt Drudge in Germany]

NORMAN MAILER DECLARES: 'AMERICA IS SO VAIN'

**Exclusive**

In an 8,000 word polemic to be published in this weekend's London SUNDAY TIMES [9/8/02], Norman Mailer sounds what he hopes to be a "wake up call for America," the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The legendary Mailer rips the United States, calling it "so big, so powerful, and so vain..." and warns "every American has to ask himself, 'Am I ready to die for my ideas?'"

DRUDGE can reveal more of the coming rant, which is sure to ignite controversy on both shores.

Mailer writes:

"This century is going to be the most awesome of all centuries to contemplate - there is a real question whether human kind will get to the end of it... America's so big, so powerful, and so vain, ... I get angry when I see it being less than it can be.

"The British have a love of their country that is profound. They can revile it, tell dirty stories about it. But deep down their patriotism is deep. In America we're playing musical chairs - don't get caught without a flag or you're out of the game. Why do we need all this reaffirmation? It's as if we're a three hundred pound man who's seven feet tall, superbly shaped, absolutely powerful, and every three minutes he's got to reaffirm the fact that his arm pits have a wonderful odor. We don't need compulsive, self-serving patriotism. It's odious...

"When you have a great country it's your duty to be critical of it so it can become even greater...

"Culturally, emotionally America is growing more loutish, arrogant, and vain.

"I detest this totally promiscuous patriotism. Wave a little flag and become a good person? Ugly.

"If we have a depression or fall into desperate economic times, I don't know what's going to hold the country together...

"There's just too much anger here, too much ruptured vanity, too much shock, too much identity crisis. And worst of all, too much patriotism. Patriotism in a country that's failing has a logical tendency to turn fascistic...

"Let's suppose ten people are killed by a small bomb on a street corner in some city in America. The first thing to understand is that there are 280 million Americans. So, there's one chance in 28 million you're going to be one of those people. By such heartless means of calculation, the 3000 deaths in the Twin Towers came approximately to one mortality for every 90,000 Americans. Your chances of dying if you drive a car are one in 7,000 each year. We seem perfectly ready to put up with automobile statistics. I fear I am ready to say there is a tolerable level to terror...

"One of the things I've always found least attractive about Tony Blair was his toadyish attitude toward Clinton...

"Clinton made a point of surrounding himself with people who might be 90% as intelligent as himself, but never his equal. Bush is smart enough to know that he couldn't possibly do the same, or the country would be run by morons."

Developing...

[r9etb]

Well, I guess when it comes to a discussion of vanity, Normal Mailer would qualify as the supreme expert on the topic.

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

what a dumb sonofa bitch...and this Mailer guy sounds like a jerk too!

[Constitution Day]

Glad I checked, was just getting ready to post this little hissy fit.

[TomServo]

and so vain..."

Yup, that's right folks. I've been Carly-Simonized...

[tcostell]

"'Am I ready to die for my ideas?'"

Aren't you Norman?

[dighton]

Well, I guess when it comes to a discussion of vanity, Normal Mailer would qualify as the supreme expert on the topic.

Read my mind like that again, and I shall be forced to hit Abuse.

;-)

[r9etb]

Er, "Normal" = Norman. Not much that's "normal" about him.

[Paul Atreides]

"so big, so powerful, and so vain..."

When I first read that, I immediately thought of the former Soviet Union.

[KC_Conspirator]

Norman Mailer is so full of hate.

[YourAdHere]

How old is this guy? I remember an episode of MASH, set in the 50s, where Frank was burning Norman Mailer books. Hmm. Maybe Ferret Face was on to something there.

[skeeter]

Why do we need all this reaffirmation? It's as if we're a three hundred pound man who's seven feet tall, superbly shaped, absolutely powerful, and every three minutes he's got to reaffirm the fact that his arm pits have a wonderful odor.

With sophomoric metaphores like this its no wonder Mailer hasn't been able to sell a new book in 30 years.

[ErnBatavia]

Yes, he's so relevant and important....I'd thought he was dead for years. BFD what he thinks; another has-been piping in for a bit of publicity...

[Orual]

I fear I am ready to say there is a tolerable level to terror...

Math for Dummies. Ah, too bad, Norm that you or some family member weren't a part of the "tolerable level of terror" statistics. I bet you think this song is about you.

[mystery-ak]

...Abby Normal....

btw....why do all these a$$holes go to Europe and publish a hit piece on the US....Im getting sick of it!....traitors!!!

[Tacis]

Is this the same Normy that was so vain that he knew that his judgment was so much better than society's that he was able to spring a murderer who could write and once sprung, the murderer murdered again? Oh, Norm, please, please guide us, show us the true way.

It isn't every day that America gets direction from a guy with tapioca for brains. Well, actually, I guess it is a daily thing.

[nravoter]

Norman Mailer: spouting the great un-American drivel.

Cue up Carly Simon, w/ words revised to:

You're so vain
You probably think this war is about you...

[Callahan]

Did I read that wrong? Did Norman Mailer say we shouldn't get all huffy about September 11 because you still have a better chance of dying in a car wreck than a terrorist attack?

[The Vast Right Wing]

'Why do we need all this reaffirmation? It's as if we're a three hundred pound man who's seven feet tall, superbly shaped, absolutely powerful, and every three minutes he's got to reaffirm the fact that his arm pits have a wonderful odor.'

Shaquile O'Neal?

[Joe Brower]

every American has to ask himself, 'Am I ready to die for my ideas?'"

Why, yes, Norman, I swore an oath to that regard some time ago; something a yellow-bellied leftist coward like you will never understand. Know full well, though, that I'll do everything in my power as an American citizen to hold that doorway for the other guy first.

Take a few guesses as to who those "other guys" are.

[r9etb]

How old is this guy? I remember an episode of MASH, set in the 50s, where Frank was burning Norman Mailer books.

Mailer's first book, "The Naked and the Dead," came out in 1948. I have to think it's semi-autobiographical, seeing as how he served as a rifleman for two years in the Phillipines.

Lefty, brilliant (if misguided), and quite vain.

[RAT Patrol]

This man is clearly insane.

[nimc]

'Am I ready to die for my ideas?'"

Yes I am. But would not expect you or your kind to understand that.

[JackRyanCIA]

Didn't this guy drop a lot of acid with Leary?

[HELLRAISER II]

It's not a matter of Vanity that set's off jerks like this, it's just a matter of petty jealousy.

[Burkeman1]

"Let's suppose ten people are killed by a small bomb on a street corner in some city in America. The first thing to understand is that there are 280 million Americans. So, there's one chance in 28 million you're going to be one of those people. By such heartless means of calculation, the 3000 deaths in the Twin Towers came approximately to one mortality for every 90,000 Americans. Your chances of dying if you drive a car are one in 7,000 each year. We seem perfectly ready to put up with automobile statistics. I fear I am ready to say there is a tolerable level to terror...

Disgusting heartless Sophistry! To compare auto accident fatalities to 9/11 is the act of an immature malicious smart ass school boy. 2500 Americans were killed at Pearl Harbor. I guess we shouldn't have got hysterical about that (but even here there was a key distinction- the Japs attacked us with their military and they attacked a military target- not civilians- their primary goal wasn't to kill people to just kill people!)

This guy has so much blood on his hands from his past stances that I will not even read his screed. He is an embarassment to himslef and this nation.

[Mr. Bird]

Ever notice that the foreign press is constantly giving a platform to American has-beens?

Of course Mailer detests America: he has been irrelevant for nearly 30 years. It is his vanity that is so embarrassing.

And what is the Sunday Times thinking? This is like calling up John Ritter for a comment on the state of the network sitcom....

[magua]

he is pushing eighty and probably drunk when he gave the interview

[mhking]

Y'know, I'm sick and tired of every Tom, Dick and Jacka$$ coming out of the freakin' woodwork and calling GW stupid!

The joke is old. Find some new material!

Mailer is so transparent while he bends over and plays Hoover next Monica in the lap of Clinton. His hatred for this nation and the people in it is so thick that you can spread it with a trowel.

I keep hearing bad jokes; Garry Trudeau keeps trying to defend his hatred as he spews it in "Doonsbury"; Julian Bond doesn't even pretend any more - he just shows his hatred at the NAACP convention, just before smiling in your face later.

Peter Jennings practically jumps up and down in his anchor chair when he thinks he's got something over on the Administration; and Woody Harrelson just needs to find someone who gives a damn. Maybe once he gets laid, he'll shut up for awhile.

Ah well...let me climb down off my soapbox...

[Stentor]

This guy has so much blood on his hands from his past stances

Jack Henry Abbott.

[dighton]

Ever notice that the foreign press is constantly giving a platform to American has-beens?

If I'm not mistaken, they're still trotting out Arthur Miller.

[wasp69]

The legendary Mailer rips the United States, calling it "so big, so powerful, and so vain..." and warns "every American has to ask himself, 'Am I ready to die for my ideas?'"

Dying for ideas is what made this country so great. Dying for ideas is what we Americans have been doing for over two hundred years. Dying for ideas is what gives you the privilege to bad mouth your country and it's leaders while praising a known rapist and perjurer. With pissant little hissy fits like this, it makes me abundantly aware that you would not fight or die to defend your own. You would rather us conservative low life patriots do it for you.

BTW, Norman, just who in the f@#k are you, anyway?

[Mr. Bird]

And don't forget Robert Altman, another irrelevant windbag.

[dubyagee]

"I detest this totally promiscuous patriotism. Wave a little flag and become a good person? Ugly.

But promiscuous sex is okay, right?

[Alissa]

Clinton made a point of surrounding himself with people who might be 90% as intelligent as himself, but never his equal. Bush is smart enough to know that he couldn't possibly do the same, or the country would be run by morons.

Another pompous East coast "intellectual." His books are awful - it seems these types are only impressed with themselves. I've never thought Mailer was a good author.

And I've about had it with these pseudo-intellectual putting down Bush. If Gore was elected then we'd have a moron leading the country.

[goodnesswins]

A LOT of Americans DIED for BRITAIN and other European countries you WEENIE, you and your weenie "patriots" over there can't even get behind protecting the world now from IRAQ....and YOU suggest WE are VAIN!!!!!!.......I am sorry to say I will not be sad when a person like this appears in the obits....

[Billthedrill]

Poor Norm. He doesn't get it that the sunny-day flag-waving he's talking about is all on his side of the aisle - for some of us it isn't a recent acquisition. He doesn't get it that some of us have already declared ourselves ready to die for what we believe and unlike him have acted on it. I think the latter is what's really getting to him - a reminder of the shallowness of his own self-absorption and self-aggrandizement. He and his ilk figure that they're the only ones smart enough to live for something bigger than themselves. They are not open to the idea that the people they have nothing but disdain for have been doing just that for a very long time.

[Ditto]

By such heartless means of calculation, the 3000 deaths in the Twin Towers came approximately to one mortality for every 90,000 Americans. Your chances of dying if you drive a car are one in 7,000 each year. We seem perfectly ready to put up with automobile statistics. I fear I am ready to say there is a tolerable level to terror...

For people in those towers that day, the chance of death was one in 3! Did this idiot see people jumping 1000 feet to their deaths? Does he equate random accidents with intentional homicide? Where in the hell did this intellectual midget get the reputation of being some sort of deep thinker?

Stay in England with your Fabian friends Mailer. Just stay away if the Stars and Stripes are so damn revolting to you.

[PhilipFreneau]

Norman Mailer? Isn't he the crazy wacko who, as a witness in the Chicago Seven Trial, stated, ". . . in this period I formed a very good opinion of Mr. [Jerry] Rubin because he had extraordinary powers of objectivity which an author is greatly in need of when he is talking to witnesses.

Mailer is still crazy after all these years.

[Sally II]

Jeez! What is it with these people??!! Take a look at Michael Moore, the majority of professors in any public university, musicians, actors, comic strip artists for alternative weekly papers..... they're all singing the same tune. They're all whining and complaining and putting down the petty bourgeois for their patriotism, then complaining that they believe they can't complain and express descent. And you know what I think motivates these people to whine and complain and put down the rest of America? That's right: arrogance and vanity!!

I swear I am getting so sick of these people! When oh when will people start to realize that this 60s hippy-style of rebellion is old and redundant and no longer cool?

[beckett]

Lifelong communist Norman Mailer is a senile, sour old man who has never had a single political insight that came to fruition in the real world. He's a perfect example of why an ability to write good prose should never be mistaken for true political acumen.

[Pompah]

Norman Mailer.!! Oh please. Our little literary fairy said what.?
Does Gore Vidal know about this.? Oh My.

[genefromjersey]

Ah, Norman !

Ever a legend in his own mind !!

[Richard Kimball]

Yup, that's right folks. I've been Carly-Simonized...

But the song WAS about me, so how could I be vain for thinking that?

[Skooz]

Third-rate, has been hack. Wrote a brilliant novel, oh, FIFTY years ago and has been living off of it for this long. He can never attain his former glory, so he spends his time spewing hatred for the nation which made him rich.

Yawn.

[Cicero5]

We are such a terrible country... that we defend his right to publish garbage like this in a foreign newspaper. Where else in the world could you get away with it Norman?

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

'Am I ready to die for my ideas?'"

Which brings up the next question, how many countries have the freedom to give you this choice? (Hint. It's not many and certainly none of those that we are going to fight)

[Sally II]

Ever notice that the foreign press is constantly giving a platform to American has-beens?

Oh, so it's not just me? It's also really bugging me that the press is constantly giving exposure to voices of descent (especially the ones who keep complaining that they feel unable to express descent). For example, remmeber the big Palestinians protest and march in Washington earlier this year, the one that attracted the whole Free Mumia, Enviro-cults, anti-globalization, anti-whatevers, etc. Every major and local news station gave daily coverage, even announced planned marches days in advance. But the pro-America, pro-Israel, pro-war marches and opinions got very, very little time. The sqeaky wheels get all the oil. Conservatives need to start shaking things up.

[M Kehoe]

Norman Mailer is a symptom of the disease that infects our body politic. It's call liberalism.

5.56mm

[SoothingDave]

But deep down their patriotism is deep.

This is a writer?

SD