Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson (Yale Nota Bene series) (Paperback)

Gore Vidal has an incisive way of cutting through hypocrisy, and in this book he takes aim at the often very bitter and
scorched-earth politics that accompanied the founding of the United States of America. His portrayal of just three founders
make today's politicians look as wimpy as a babble of Girl Scouts quibbling about their last box of broken peppermint
cookies. Pardon me, I don't mean to insult any Girl Scouts; given their ability to sell cookies, they could probably do better
than today's "polluticians."

He links many pecadilloes of the men who created America to modern times; I think, but I'm not sure, that he wants to
contrast the founding idealism of the birth of a new democracy to the banal and petty politics which now infect public life. In
reality, this book gives me hope that Americans are far better than their politicians -- in 1787, when they were writing the
Constitution, and today when so many politicians are trashing it.

Vidal is witty, incisive and a delight to read. One of the warm fuzzy images of Washington shows him wrapped in warm winter
clothes as he kneels in prayer in the snow at Valley Forge. Why was Washington praying? Perhaps, as Vidal explains, because
he was "dealing with a crooked Congress that was allowing food and supplies to be sold to the British army while embezzling
for themselves money appropriated for 'the naked and distressed soldiers,' as Washington referred to his troops."

In other words, this isn't your usual history. Washington describes Congress as a place with "venality, corruption, prostitution
of office for selfish ends, abuse of trust, perversion of funds from a national to a private use, and speculations upon the
necessities of times pervade all interests." It explains why today's so-called conservatives want to go back to the values of the
Founding Fathers.

He may be too cynical. For example, how competent was Washington? Vidal quotes one British observer who wrote, "Any
general in the world other than General Howe would have beaten General Washington; and any general in the world other than
George Washington would have beaten General Howe."

These are the people who created America. Vidal fails to understand the world in general is run by mediocrity. He should
know; he was once a friend of President John Kennedy, a brilliant showman with little substance. It is how the world functions,
including the birth of the American system of government from 1775 to 1815. Some politicians are all image and no ideas;
great politicians dress noble ideas with inspiring images.

Vidal's weakness is that he understands little of England of the era; if he had, he'd understand the American Revolution as a
major reform effort of a basically good system rather than the invention of something new. On this basis, reform (Jefferson
called it revolution) is a permanent patriotic duty of all.

Setting these quibbles aside, Vidal does what every good journalist should do -- he afflicts the comfortable, comforts the
afflicted. He makes you think about today's politics in terms of the idealism and pettiness of the founding fathers. In 1789, with
the new Constitution ratified, the business of governing meant "the days of discussing Hume and Montesquieu were over." In
its place came back-room deals and log rolling for special interests.

He offers a refreshing reminder that America was founded on a mixture of idealism and the venality of opportunist politicians.
Little has changed. Americans have always been better than their government, as Vidal makes abundantly clear in this inspiring
book.

You don't read Vidal if you want a cosy retelling of the story as written in the school text books, which are - after all - always written by victors. Vidal's strength is that he cuts through the cliches and accepted interpretations and presents the facts within the context of his own liberal isolationist standpoint, a position which his grandfather, a US senator, also shared.

The result is a fairly light hearted while still absolutely factual account of America. This is history without the plethora of dates and accounts of what people were wearing and what type of earthenware they were eating from. It places the famous names of America's founding fathers within their context of the nation as it has grown, and in doing so, Vidal demonstrates how far America has deviated from what the founding fathers not only imagined, but would ever have wanted. It's a fascinating book.

Don't buy it if you're scared of thinking, though.