Gore Vidal, Re-revisited

The tireless Ross Barkan, of whom it has been said (by me) that even his indefatigability is indefatigable, published a revisitation of Gore Vidal this morning. My ego knows bounds, so I’ll not claim the noble title of Barkan’s frisson, but we did have a pleasantly libational conversation last week in Brooklyn about the mainstream right wing’s adoption of what were once far-left Vidalian positions – anti-NATO, anti-Deep State (neé National Security State), anti-proxy antagonism of Russia, the open embrace (in some uncloseted quarters) of homosexuality, etc. – and the further oddity of how all these positions, save the latter, had seemed to disappear from the mainstream left. (As we spoke, my five or six gin and tonics seemed to disappear just as mysteriously.)