51³Ô¹ÏÍø

Norman Mailer interview; C4N: ALEX THOMSON ITN SCOTLAND: Edinburgh: INT 2 SHOT Norman Mailer (Writer) interviewed SOT (1 of 2) - His time in office was licking the finely polished bottom of the corporate powers for eight years and never taking them on and doing away with welfare - that was his crime - he never got down to the basic question which was that wealth in America was getting too divided - I was the first one to say that the American president is the soap opera star of America and I said it many years ago and he's the best soap opera star we had he's even better than Ronald Reagan and Nancy - he beat George Bush and Barbara Bush and while he did certain good things and he certainly improved black and white relations in America and that is probably his outstanding achievement and he was interesting Gore is not going to be as interesting but Gore amazed me because I was so disinterested in Gore and Bush that I said yes to the Edinburgh festival and came here because I just didn't want to cover it - Now I have some interest because Gore did something which was that he made a major political move which is exciting and that is he made a move to the left and to the right at once - the move being taking a very Conservative man Joseph Lieberman whose also Jewish which means a move to the left so that will give some fire to his campaign - Anti-semitism has been off the board in America ever since the second world war and I think the establishment came to have the feeling that was dreadful what happened and that can't work here this is America and it's almost as if since then it was political suicide to make an anti-semitic remark - if Gore does a lot better or worse than expected you're going to be having a referendum on how much anti-semitism there is in America