Editing Gore Vidal (section)

===Criticism of George W. Bush===
[[File:Gore Vidal and McGovern 1.JPG|thumb|Vidal and ex-senator [[George McGovern]] at the [[Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum]], August 26, 2009]]
As a public intellectual, Vidal criticized what he viewed as political harm to the nation and the voiding of the [[citizen's rights]] through the passage of the [[USA Patriot Act]] (2001) during the George W. Bush administration (2001–2009). He described Bush as "the stupidest man in the United States" and said that Bush's foreign policy was explicitly [[Expansionist nationalism|expansionist]].<ref>{{cite web|author=Osborne, Kevin|url=http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/blog-1001-gore-vidal-obama-a-disappointment.html|title=Obama a Disappointment|publisher=City Beat|access-date=June 2, 2010|archive-date=May 26, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100526184359/http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/blog-1001-gore-vidal-obama-a-disappointment.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-drWGnF6DjM |title=YouTube – The Henry Rollins Show – The Corruption of Election 2008 |via=YouTube |date=January 12, 2008 |access-date=October 20, 2008 |archive-date=November 14, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081114175959/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-drWGnF6DjM |url-status=live }}</ref> He contended that the Bush Administration and their oil-business sponsors, aimed to control the petroleum of Central Asia, after having gained hegemony over the petroleum of the [[Persian Gulf]] in 1991.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3156121348015048039&sourceid=docidfeed&hl=en |title=Gore Vidal Interview with Alex Jones Infowars, 29 October 2006 Texas Book Fest |date=November 1, 2006 |access-date=January 22, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110519205813/http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3156121348015048039&sourceid=docidfeed&hl=en |archive-date=May 19, 2011}}</ref>

Vidal became a member of the board of advisors of [[The World Can't Wait]], a political organization which sought to publicly repudiate the foreign-policy program of the Bush Administration (2001–2009) and advocated Bush's [[movement to impeach George W. Bush|impeachment]] for [[war crime]]s, such as the [[Second Iraq War]] (2003–2011) and torturing prisoners of war (soldiers, guerrillas, civilians) in violation of international law.<ref>{{cite web |title=World Can't Wait Advisory Board |url=http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=1&Itemid=2 |access-date=July 29, 2002 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060426110309/http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=1&Itemid=2 |archive-date=April 26, 2006}}</ref>

In May 2007, while discussing [[9/11 conspiracy theories]] that might explain the "who?" and the "why?" of the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., Vidal said

{{blockquote|I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I'm a conspiracy analyst. Everything the Bushites touch is screwed up. They could never have pulled off 9/11, even if they wanted to. Even if they longed to. They could step aside, though, or just go out to lunch while these terrible things were happening to the nation. I believe that of them.<ref>{{cite news |author=Close |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/may/05/featuresreviews.guardianreview14 |title=Vidal salon |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=May 5, 2007 |access-date=August 17, 2009 |location=London |archive-date=December 20, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220203148/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/may/05/featuresreviews.guardianreview14 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}