Gore Vidal rages at Barack Obama’s lost chance

The great American novelist and essayist Gore Vidal may be 84 years old and confined to a wheelchair these days, but that doesn't stop him speaking his mind about President Barack Obama. In short, he says his nation's 44th president simply isn't up to the job.

"I was like everyone else when Obama was elected ­ optimistic. Everything we had been saying about racial integration was vindicated," he says in an interview with Johann Hari published in the Independent today. "But he's incompetent. He will be defeated for re-election.

"It's a pity because he's the first intellectual president we've had in many years, but he can't hack it. He's not up to it. He's overwhelmed. And who wouldn't be? The United States is a madhouse. The country should be put away ­ and we're being told to go away. Nothing makes any sense."

The Republican party is a mindset, like Hitler Youth

Vidal claims the problem with Obama is that he "wants to be liked by everybody, and he thought all he had to do was talk reason. But remember ­ the Republican Party is not a political party. It's a mindset, like Hitler Youth. It's full of hatred. You're not going to get them aboard. Don't even try. The only way to handle them is to terrify them. He's too delicate for that."

Vidal, who used to holiday with the Kennedys, was asked by Hari to compare Obama with JFK. He shook his head: "He's twice the intellectual that Jack was, but Jack knew the great world. Remember he spent a long time in the navy, losing ships.

"This kid [Obama] has never heard a gun fired in anger. He's absolutely bowled over by generals, who tell him lies and he believes them. He hasn't done anything... He's not ready for prime time and he's getting a lot of prime time on his plate at once."

Vidal claims the American experiment has been "a failure". It was all for nothing. Soon the country will be ranked "somewhere between Brazil and Argentina, where it belongs". The nation will collapse when Obama is broken by "the madhouse" and the Chinese call in the country's debts. "They'll have us running the coolie cars, or whatever it is they have in the way of transport."

There is one piece of good news, however. "Afghanistan will be terminal for the American empire, yes. Which is a happy way of looking at it. We'll be out of the empire game, rapidly. But it's too late for the country and the constitution."

Johann Hari's interview in full ·