Video (10min 31sec) - Part 1 of 4: Legendary Author Gore Vidal on the Bush Presidency, History and the "United States of Amnesia". With a career spanning more than six decades, Gore Vidal is one of America's most respected writers and thinkers. He's authored more than twenty novels and five plays. His latest book is "Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir."
"I mean, you know, I think, quite rightly, the Bushites think that the American people are idiots. They don’t get the point to anything. There are two good reasons for this, the public educational system for people, kids without money, let’s say, to put it tactfully, is one of the worst in the first world. It’s just terrible. And they end by knowing no history, certainly no American history...
"...They were dreaming war. You can see little Bush all along was just dreaming of war, and also Cheney dreaming about oil wells and how you knock apart a country like Iraq and of course their oil will pay for the damage you do. For that alone, he should have been put in front of a firing squad." Goodman: "Do you believe in the death penalty?" Vidal: "No. But in their case, yes."
