Speaking of conspiracy junkies, here's one closer to home:

Asked what he thinks of McCain, Vidal calls him a “disaster,” then tells Deborah Solomon, “Who started this rumor that he was a war hero? Where does that come from, aside from himself? About his suffering in the prison war camp?”

Solomon replies: “Everyone knows he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.” To which Vidal responds: “That’s what he tells us.”

(And yet somehow, as the above interview with Deborah Solomon of the New York Times illustrates, it keeps quoting and publishing him without reprisal. Go figure.)