John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as Vice-President raises a number of questions:

John McCain is the oldest nominee in history for the office of President. While doctors from the Mayo Clinic say that he is reasonably healthy for his age, he is more likely to experience health problems than a fit male who is 20 years younger. That is why his pick of Sarah Palin truly matters. Is SHE presidential material?

Sarah Palin is being praised because she knowingly decided to give birth to a child, four and a half months ago, who has Down Syndrome. Her son, Trig, is classified as a special needs child. But apparently such a child who at this critical, formative stage in his development, may have a special need for an attentive mother, is not going to have that need fulfilled. His mother is off running as a Republican Vice-President and she is receiving praise for being a “pro-life” politician. Is this the best that a truly loving mother can do? Abandon her child to others, while she pursues a political career?

Sarah Palin, we are told, opposes sex education in public schools. Apparently she did not do a first-rate job of sex education in private either. Her 17-year-old daughter is now an unwed mother-to-be. This dubious achievement is now being hailed by social conservatives as proving, once again, how “pro-life” the Palins are. Bristol’s boyfriend, Levi Johnson, used to have a YouTube page in which he reportedly said he did not want to have children and described himself as “a f**king redneck”. (The website recently disappeared).

One reasonable question would be: has this young couple been “bought off” for political reasons? (Along the lines of John Edwards’ mistress receiving a great deal of money to keep scandal at bay.) Someone should look into the possibility at least. The Republicans have a lot riding on protecting McCain’s reputation during a close election race.

Time will tell how long this teenage romance will last… but those who run McCain’s campaign care that the marriage looks as respectable as a shotgun wedding ever can and that it endures until the election has taken place

No one who was in favor of voting for Hillary Clinton could possibly think of Sarah Palin as an equivalent, simply because she is a woman. Whatever McCain’s reasons for choosing her as a running mate, he should not mind if the national press vets Palin for a second time, assuming she has nothing to hide.

Even though Edmund White may be merely stirring a pot of controversy on behalf of his new book (Vidal was not promoting anything in his London Times interview), I was struck by how glibly he dismisses Vidal as a lunatic for supporting Timothy McVeigh.

He couldn't possibly write a play (even one supposedly based on the Vidal/McVeigh relationship) in which a bomber was treated sympathetically: "I don't approve of killing hundreds of people in the name of some abstract ideal."

Has it ever crossed Mr. White's mind that, as a champion of promiscuity, he may indirectly be responsible for causing more people to die than McVeigh? (in the name of some abstract ideal...sexual excess and gay freedom.)

The challenge to White, in writing his play, was to get inside the minds of both of his characters and incisively portray them -- giving the play a rationale for existing and possibly serving an artistic purpose that was unique. Instead, White over-simplified and sentimentalized their relationship portraying the Vidal character as someone who was smitten by McVeigh (apparently because he could not imagine any other basis for their relationship,) That is in keeping with White's mindset, as reflected in his other works.

Terra Haute is a failed opportunity. But would Vidal himself have failed it? Would Sontag? It would take a writer who is not afraid "to lose about 99% of the audience" as White imagines, in order to make that play all that it could be and should have been.

As for the rest of White's work, and Vidal's work, I am inclined to think that Vidal had the more intellectually varied life. He was more interested in the fluidity of sexual identity than in being boxed in as "gay". It may be pointless to argue about the merits of Vidal's fiction vs the early works of Edmund White; or his plays ("The Best Man" and "A Visit to a Small Planet") compared to White's modest efforts; Vidal will likely survive as an acerbic witness to our age.

Someone who was not afraid of what "people will think" .....

He would never have published "The City and The Pillar" (in 1948!) if he had been guided by the principle that he must be influenced by "what 99% of people will think."