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Chris Bram is the author of the novel Gods and Monsters. Gore Vidal was famous for his hates: academia, presidents, whole portions of the American public and, most notably, Truman Capote. Yet he could be incredibly generous to other writer friends. He wrote beautiful, appreciative essays about Tennessee Williams and Dawn Powell. He was a man of many facets and endless contradictions. He achieved his first notoriety in 1948 when he was only 22, for his novel, The City and the Pillar. It was the fullest, most frank portrait of gay American life at that time. The book wasn't autobiographical...

Sean Penn Appointed Haitian Ambassador LOS ANGELES, USA (defend.ht) - Sean Penn has accepted the job of Ambassador for Haiti, where he has spent the last two years managing a tent camp for displaced Haitians after the earthquake. Sean Penn will now be the "ambassador at large" for the Caribbean nation. Penn was offered the position by Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laurent Lamothe, while at the Cinema for Peace benefit in Los Angeles on Saturday night. Picking up a humanitarian award for his work in Haiti, he told the crowd: "I do accept [the job]," before adding it would...

Here’s a blast from the past. Remember Eason Jordan? Every conservative political blogger worth his/her salt knows and remembers who he is. Former CNN head Eason Jordan is the disgraced journalist who admitted in a 2003 New York Times op-ed piece titled “The News We Kept to Ourselves” that he deliberately and intentionally whitewashed Saddam Hussein’s atrocities and regurgitated Hussein propaganda for a decade in exchange for access. Let me underscore that: In 2003, after the U.S.-led Coalition invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein, Jordan confessed that CNN had deliberately reported Baathist propaganda during the Saddam era...

What is it with Hollywood personalities going to Venezuela and being swept off their feet by the thuggish dictator Hugo Chávez. They come back with these stories claiming he is just misconstrued by the media and that he’s really a great guy. On Oct. 7, at an appearance at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., CNBC “Power Lunch” co-host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, in an appearance promoting her book “You Know I'm Right: More Prosperity, Less Government,” explained how this could happen. She told an audience that Chávez has a very charismatic, seductive personality. “I was telling – my two most interesting...

Howard Zinn (1922 to 2010) is the left's favorite contemporary historian. As an historian he is a child of the Beardian revolution yet he has for decades been able to straddle that line between legitimate historical observer and anti-American leftist. America's intellectual society, in both the social movement and universities, have looked to him as a paragon of American virtue. He's always been held up as just the right mixture of American leftism coupled with true scholarship. But those of us on the right that have paid attention understand that he is not American in outlook and never was. Until...

If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would. But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio, that isn’t what you’d do at all. In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed...

LONDON – The Gulf of Mexico oil spill shows that the United States should follow the example of South American socialists in nationalizing its energy industry, filmmaker Oliver Stone said Tuesday.

At the end of June, I wrote a short op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. In that article, I criticized Oliver Stone’s “documentary” South of the Border. I wrote the following: What Mr. Stone and his writers have presented is a standard far-left narrative that is part of a long line of propaganda films, a modern American version of the old agitprop. There are no dissenting voices in this film. Nor is there any mention of the fact that Mr. Chávez has closed down television and radio stations that disagree with him and arrested dissenting political figures. I then followed...

Did you know that deep down inside (when he’s not silencing his opposition, supporting the FARC, sponsoring drug trafficking, and courting Hezbollah and almost every other enemy of the West) Hugo Chavez is a good, admirable man? Yup, he is—according to Leftist filmmaker Oliver Stone. The filmmaker, along with the upcoming release of his “Wall Street” sequel, has a new documentary called “South of the Border” that praises Chavez, Castro, their allies, and highlights other South American leaders. But, apparently the Venezuelan people aren’t as hot on the near-dictator as Stone is: The documentary is bombing in the country. Personally,...

"Call it Socialism, call it Communism, call it whatever you want.... Seize their assets. Take over BP!"

MR. FRIEDMAN: Well, David, it's been decimated. It's been decimated by everything from the gerrymandering of political districts to cable television to an Internet where I can create a digital lynch mob against you from the left or right if I don't like where you're going, to the fact that money and politics is so out of control--really our Congress is a forum for legalized bribery. You know, that's really what, what it's come down to. So I don't--I, I--I'm worried about this, it's why I have fantasized--don't get me wrong--but that what if we could just be China for...

Utah State University President Stan Albrecht used an Earth Day speech to comment on actor Danny Glover's controversial selection as May's commencement speaker as well as the global warming debate, saying that both illustrate a lack of "rational and thoughtful discourse." Albrecht began by saying that "ideological discord" in the United States has reached new heights. "Looking at this life in total, it reflects 40 years of actions that are centered in kindness and generosity, acts that are not at all defined by politics but by compassion for people," Albrecht added. "He has also been a political activist, taking on...

Ten years have passed since federal agents seized a Little Havana home snatching a 6-year-old boy from his Miami relatives and reuniting him with his father who lives in Cuba. The Elian Gonzalez saga had major political implications and some credit that single episode to the reason George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000. Elian Gonzalez survived a dangerous journey from Cuba after his mother and others died trying to reach South Florida. A fisherman found the 6-year-old boy holding onto an inner tube on Thanksgiving Day in 1999. Now, the fisherman who found him and his Miami relatives...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Former boxing champion Edwin Valero, who gained fame for knocking out all his 27 opponents and having a tattoo of Hugo Chavez on his chest, was found dead in his jail cell Monday and police said he hanged himself after being arrested in his wife's murder. The former lightweight champion used his own clothes to hang himself from a bar in his cell early Monday, Venezuelan Federal Police Chief Wilmer Flores told reporters.

Editor's Note: The following is an open letter from actress Maria Conchita Alonso, who penned this response to actor Sean Penn's recent remarks on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in which the left-wing actor defended Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Dear Sean, WHY? Even though I have great respect for your artistic talent, I was appalled by a recent television interview where you vigorously showed support for the regime of Hugo Chavez. Therefore, I've decided to set the record straight for you regarding the Chavez regime, supporting my case based not only on my political ideologies, but on proven facts...

REPORTED BOOTED OUT OF SEAN PENN EVENTA Yeas & Nays reporter (Tara Palmeri) was publicly berated and threatened to be escorted out by police on Thursday night when the reporter asked actor Sean Penn a question about his humanitarian work in Haiti. Penn, who recently has been criticized for his motivations in helping to rebuilding Haiti, recently told CBS News he hopes his critics "die screaming of rectal cancer." Members of the media were invited to a gala hosted at the Washington Hebrew Congregation and were allowed to ask one question each of the actor in a closed-door news briefing....

The late Howard Zinn would be very proud of his protégé, Matt Damon. The actor has long admired the lefty historian, a man whose anti-American impulses were so profound he could cast the United States’ participation in World War II and its aftermath in an unflattering light. Damon’s latest film, Green Zone, rewrites history regarding the Iraq War in a way Zinn’s acolytes will cheer. Never mind the facts. Green Zone keeps the “Bush lied, people died” narrative front and center while creating an alternative reality as warped as that of Inglourious Basterds. But at least Quentin Tarantino fashioned his...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is grateful that actor Sean Penn has defended him against his critics within the U.S. media. In an appearance on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" last week, Penn slammed Chavez critics who refer to the socialist leader as a dictator. The Oscar-winning celebrity noted that Chavez has won repeated elections and suggested that media critics who call him a dictator should be jailed.

If you wonder how people on the left deal with their critics, look no further than this new lengthy interview with Prof. Peter Kuznick, the co-writer and co-director with Oliver Stone of the forthcoming Showtime ten-part documentary on the 20th century. I first blogged about the projected series last January. Read more: http://pajamasmedia.com/ronradosh/2010/03/10/more-revelations-about-the-oliver-stone-documentary/

The Obama State Department apologized to Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi for offending the dear tyrant with offensive language. The BBC reported: The US State Department has apologized for comments made about Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s call for jihad, or holy war, against Switzerland. Department spokesman PJ Crowley, who made the dismissive comments, said they did not reflect US policy and were not intended to offend. Col Gaddafi had criticised a Swiss vote against the building of minarets and urged Muslims to boycott the country. Mr Crowley described it as “lots of words, not necessarily a lot of sense.” Libya and...