Australian Foreign Minister Praises Gore Vidal Legacy

Gore Vidal died today.  He was a great American intellectual and ethical commentator on American politics.  Here is an article praising Gore Vidal by Australia’s Foreign Minister Senator Bob Carr.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8509269

The death of US writer Gore Vidal is a loss to his country, literature and history, Foreign Minister Bob Carr says.

Senator Carr, who had a close friendship with Vidal, said no one knew American history better than he did.

“Gore Vidal’s passing at age 86 is a loss to his country, to literature and to history,” Senator Carr said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Farewell to a polymath, a storyteller and a wonderful writer.

“His essays may have been the best in the language.

“There won’t be another mind like his.”

Vidal embodied an anti-imperial tradition that went back to fellow writer Mark Twain, Senator Carr said.

“Representing an isolationist viewpoint that once ran deep in America,” he said.

“Gore Vidal believed no foreign war justified a single American life and this view was his fundamental political commitment.”

Senator Carr said Vidal would have loved to have been a politician and stood twice – once for Congress and again for the Senate from California.

“He would have traded all his literary accomplishments for a chance to serve as a long term Senator, and to have one day run for president,” he said.