There are very few real 'heroes' in life and Gore was one of mine. A true internationalist with a clear eyed vision of the role and influence of the USA in international affairs and a compassionate observer of the devastating consequences of its ruling oligarghy at home and the spread of its ills accross the globe. He achieved much and tried much more, may he rest in peace.

We all owe Gore Vidal as an epitaph to put aside our anti-gay biases and partisan politics and look more carefully at how caring he was about us all as Americans in his political activism for so many causes. Anger is not hate and so the impression of many that he hated America is wrong, just like the impression and Vidal and Buckley hated eachother. No, they got angry, but not hate. As a conservative I found Vidal more open, gentle and issue oriented than Buckley-- like Buckley's brother, the senator-- and feel I owe it to him to say that, though it's a bit late. If you live long enough, you invariably find yourself recognizing the real attributes of people you misjudged because of your prejudices. I find it telling about my flaws that I judged him as an equally shallow exhibitionist as Buckley though he was on a desperate campaign to get America to see things as he though morally right, just as, in the main, did Buckley in fact. But I don't now think there was the same primacy to self-image in Vidal's politics as in Buckley's. May both rest in peace and honor.