NEW YORK NOTEBOOK : Vidal a Tough Critic

Most people are complimentary about relatives who run for high office. But author Gore Vidal tells the National Journal that choosing his distant cousin, Sen. Albert Gore Jr., for the vice presidency is “a bit like asking who is the tallest man in Lilliputia.” Vidal says that Gore is a “perfectly standard politician” and suggests that Candice Bergen, who plays TV’s Murphy Brown, right, would make a better choice. “But I know her,” Vidal adds, “and she’s overqualified.” Vidal has not been a big fan of Gore’s. In a 1987 Playboy article, he said that his relationship with the senator “will get more and more remote the more I hear about that wife of his, who wants to censor the lyrics of rock songs.”