Gore Vidal on the Democratic Debate Debacle

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



Gore Vidal on the Democratic Debate Debacle


Posted on Dec 18, 2007


By Gore Vidal

I don’t know how many of you were as appalled as I was at the way that the presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was totally erased from the last Democratic debate held in Iowa. This was a decision that was made, I can tell, jointly by the one-time voice of AIPAC, Mr. Wolf Blitzer, and, at the same time, The Des Moines Register—or whatever it is called—a paper of no consequence for the United States of America.

Elements of right-wingism are keeping his voice from being heard, even though there are many millions of us (Kucinich is ahead of both Biden and Dodd in the national polls) out here who like to hear his voice. He is in the great tradition of the original People’s Party of the 1880s; he is in the tradition of George Washington and of Thomas Jefferson, and to silence him with a bunch of political hacks who have made such a mess of our political system, pretending these were the only voices who could talk as presidential candidates ... is it because of their campaign budgets?

Now, I know, as all of you know, that people can come in with millions of dollars, like Romney and so on, and can buy time in Iowa and in the North Pole or wherever it is they are running. They can buy it, but to get an honest member of Congress speaking out for the people of the country is a great and rare thing.

I have listened to many political debates in my lifetime, if I may pull rank because I have been around longer than anybody else, and here is a voice not only against the war but the entire course leading us to it. I haven’t heard anybody who has ever listened to Kucinich who didn’t say, “Oh yes, yes, what he says is true, but nobody will ever take him seriously.”

Well, of course nobody will ever take him seriously, because they won’t let him on TV to stand side by side with the other candidates—some of them attractive candidates but whose roots are not as deep as his in what we may call “American life.” Dennis Kucinich was brought up in poverty, something the other candidates talk about but he actually lived through. He has known poverty in the richest country on Earth, a country that is constantly boasting, that seems to be out of control with self-love. Well, I say let’s have less self-love and pay some attention to our serious critics—and he is one—and his is a voice that’s showing us how to get to the exit from the box that we are all in. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071218_whither_dennis_kucinich/

[MadBadger]

1. I dont like Wolfie, but what would he have to do with DK's exclusion?

[Webster Green]

3. He's a right-wing stooge, of course.

He does what he's told to do by the fascist assholes that own him.

[MadBadger]

6. But the Des Moines Register ran the debate.

CNN and Wolf had nothing at all to do with it. So I think this point falls flat on its face.

[Webster Green]

8. I thought CNN had something to do with it..

Oops!

[maximusveritas]

4. Nothing; it was the DMR's decision alone

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071212/NEWS09/71212029

And as much as I like Vidal and Kucinich, he has no excuse for not setting up a real storefront office.

[eridani]

15. What was Alan Keyes' excuse? He was included--no office of any kind n/t

[maximusveritas]

16. How do you know he doesn't?

He said he had one in Lohrville, Iowa.

[eridani]

17. Not on his website

http://www.alankeyes.com/news.php

All he has is a PO Box in Utah. There are no state contacts listed for him anywhere on the site.

http://www.dennis4president.com/go/state-by-state/iowa/

Kucinich has a state coordinator with a home office.

[K Gardner]

9. Can't do much more research right now, but I can't imagine

Gore Vidal saying something like that without even an inkling of backup. Blitzer worked for an Israeli PAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Comittee, before he went to CNN.. but I still don't get the connection with the DMR. Too tired to look further, but I will tomorrow.

[MadBadger]

12. Im thinkin maybe Gore Vidal watched the debate on CNN and assumed they produced it

though Fox and eventually MSNBC showed it too.

[K Gardner]

13. ROFL... oh lord, surely NOT.. surely somebody VETTED his piece before

it ran and corrected him. Damn, that's just too funny if it's true. :argh:

[MadBadger]

2. delete

[FREEWILL56]

5. I agree with GV about DK and they are aware that just not giving DK

many questions won't stop Dennis from saying what he has to. The proof is that congress tried to sit on the impeachment of cheney and Dennis did force what needed said in spite of a great effort to condone and protect the bush administration. With that they know the only answer to squelching DK is to not have him there at all. I believe the Democratic party needs to set some guidelines here so that the msm does not pick who our nominee is as that's supposed to be up to us.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Thank you for this Marmar! The Kucinich exclusion was disgraceful--

and Gore Vidal gives the most important reason why: Kucinich not only opposes the war, he opposes the PATH to war, and every corporate war profiteer step toward it, to the present refunding of it by Democrats in the teeth of 70% opposition in the country.

Every one of the others, including to some extent Obama, walked that war path. Clinton (yes on the war), Edwards (yes on the war), Biden (yes on the war, and an old "military industrial" war horse from way back), Dodd (yes on th war, also pushed e-voting with corporate secret code, arguably THE fascist coup that ended our democracy), Richardson (governor, didn't get a vote, but stopped the Green's recount in NM in 2004, which might have stopped the war). Obama gave a nice speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004, and while an illegal, heinous war was raging in the background, and while that and the screams of the tortured were muffled to our ears, Obama talked about HIMSELF--a moving story, truly, but myopic, under the circumstances, and it most certainly served the Democratic powers-that-be, who wanted the war, and, indeed, sold out our voting system to insure the war's continuance.

None of them have Kucinich's unswerving opposition to the war, his complete lack of toadyism to the corrupt Washington political establishment, and his focus on creating a PEACEFUL foreign policy. That is why he is given no air time. That is why he is ridiculed and marginalized. That is why he was excluded from the Iowa debate, at this crucial turning point in the presidential campaign.

Utterly disgusting and reprehensible--both by those who did, AND by the other candidates for not objecting and walking off the Des Moines Register's stage in protest. Shame on them! SHAME ON THEM ALL!

[The Traveler]

10. The way they treated Dennis

really pissed me off. It was disrepectful not only to a defiant and magnificent American, but to the millions who admire him.

[K Gardner]

11. Agreed totally 100%. n/t

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

14. The Des Moines Register is to the calling of honest journalism...

...what Michael Vick is to PETA's call for the ethical treatment of animals.