November 7, 2005 by s.z.

Book Reports As D.Sidhe mentioned, the The New Yorker has an interesting piece about Scooter's book, The Apprentice.  And it seems that his novel is not just an informative read about bestiality, but also part of the Time-Life series, Kinky and Clunky Books by Prominent Conservatives (collect the whole set!) Libby has a lot to live up to as a conservative author of erotic fiction. As an article in SPY magazine pointed out in 1988, from Safire (“[She] finally came to him in the bed and shouted ‘Arragghrrorwr!’ in his ear, bit his neck, plunged her head between his legs and devoured him”) to Buckley (“I’d rather do this with you than play cards”) to Liddy (“T’sa Li froze, her lips still enclosing Rand’s glans . . .”) to Ehrlichman (“ ‘It felt like a little tongue’ ”) to O’Reilly (“Okay, Shannon Michaels, off with those pants”), extracurricular creative writing has long been an outlet for ideas that might not fly at, say, the National Prayer Breakfast. In one of Lynne Cheney’s books, a Republican vice-president dies of a heart attack while having sex with his mistress. And let that be a warning to all Republican vice-presidents! Anyway, per the publisher, The Apprentice is the story of an apprentice who falls in love with a mysterious woman.  "Emotionally wrought by his feelings for Yukiko, Setsuo cannot see that he is getting involved in political skulduggery."  So, if all art is to some extant autobiographical, I think this means that Scooter leaked Valerie Plame's name because he has the hots for Laura Bush. (While further analysis of this sort might prove enlightening, we don't want to ruin our beautiful mind by thinking about how the section about bears and little girls might tie in with this administration's unholy fascination on Saddam's rape rooms -- we will, however, say that we are NEVER going to let Scooter be alone with our imaginary daughters.) And for more info about the novel, check out Mrs. Tarquin Biscuitbarrel's Amazon review. And did you know that Lynne Cheney's Sisters takes place in "a world where women were treated either as decorative figurines or as abject sexual vassals...where wives were led to despise the marriage act and prostitutes pandered to husbands' hungers...where the relationship between women and men became a kind of guerilla warfare in which women were forced to band together for the strength they needed and at times for the love they wanted"?  We won't speculate what this might say about Lynne and Dick's relationship.  (For more info, consult the review by Mrs. Tarquin Biscuitbarrel.) And while you're familiar with Bill O'Reilly's Those Who Trespass : A Novel of Television and Murder ("Reporter Ashley Van Buren ... can't believe that a man who could give such a sensuous massage could also be a serial killer"), I bet you didn't know about Bill Frist's entry in the genre: When Every Moment Counts: What You Need to Know About Bioterrorism from the Senate's Only Doctor. Here's part of the publisher's description: Frist, a Republican senator from Tennessee, brings his experiences as a heart and lung surgeon and a ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on Public Health to this extremely informative, very approachable guide to coping with the bioterrorism threat, the only such guide available today. The book's linchpin is a chapter called "Safe at Home: A FamilySurvival Guide," [...] which provides basic information on the most likely bioterrorism agents, such as anthrax, smallpox, plague and botulism. Frist clearly and knowledgeably explains the symptoms, incubation period and available treatments for each agent, providing specific details, like the definition of "weaponized" anthrax and the government plan for containing a smallpox outbreak. The rest of the book tells the story of the dashing Bob Jist, a doctor/Presidential candidate who has the uncanny ability to diagnose people just by watching a short video of them.  When the family of a comatose young woman asks for Jist's help in saving the unfortunate maiden from the blood-crazed secularists who want to remove her life support, Jist can tell from the video clip the family shows him that the girl is fully conscious, and can be fully cured.  He can also tell that she wants him.  Wants him bad ....  Okay, maybe we better stop before we totally gross out ourselves, and offend everyone else (something that apparently didn't concern any of the above authors).  If you want to learn what these books might say about the psyches of those who wrote them, see AntiWar.com's "Pathologies, Perjuries, and Policies of the War Party.  8:29:40 AM

The Pot Calls the Tea Cup Uncivil So, I was flipping through the TV channels on Saturday, and when I hit Fox News, Michelle Malkin was talking about that case in California where the district court had ruled (in part) that "there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children" (or, as WorldNetDaily put it, "Parents have no fundamental rights").  Michelle became extremely animated while discussing the case (and you know what she looks like when that happens ...).  So, I found it amusing that Fox identified her as "Michelle Malkin, Author, 'Deranged ...'." Truth in advertising at last!   But speaking of Michelle's book, an excerpt from it was recently published in the New York Post.  I thought the best part was the pie section (even though it was basically just a recycled version of one of her blog posts, "THE MYTH OF LIBERAL TOLERANCE"). In it, she recounts how Bill Kristol, Pat Buchanan, and David Horowitz had ice cream pie, salad dressing, and chocolate cream pie tossed at them last year (cue Homer Simpson drool). She then updates the list of atrocities committed by the Left on innocent conservative geezers. The attacks have not ceased. Just last week, Horowitz was rushed on stage at the Liberty Film Festival in Los Angeles by two left-wing loons from a group called "World Can't Wait!" Um, yeah.  A young man and a young woman ran on stage and shouted "Fascists have no right to speak! Horowitz and the whole Bush Regime must be Driven Out! Horowitz is a bigot who wants to end ethnic studies and all critical thought on the campuses!"   And then they were tackled by some audience members, thrown to the ground, and dragged out of the theater.  So, I guess the "attacks" reallly haven't ceased, but it sure isn't Horowitz who's getting manhandled.  The liberal media elite treat these assaults as jokes. They greeted an October 2004 cream-pie attack on author Ann Coulter with sickening glee.  You know, while I don't consider pie throwing to be the proper response to wingnuttery and I don't condone it, I would like to know when Michelle will denounce the sickening glee that Ann and David took in the reported bodily harm inflicted on their "attackers" by conservatives. Here's Ann, talking to the NY Observer: I was physically attacked this year [i.e., two kids threw pies in her general direction]. I hear MoveOn.org has a bounty for anyone who throws a pie in my face. Neither of those guys hit me. I think one is still in prison. It is a funny thing, that they ended up in prison—enjoying the benefits of gay marriage. One guy with a broken shoulder and one with a broken nose. And that was when I was traveling totally unprotected. Let ’em try it again, they’ll end up dead. Yes, death to all pie-ers! And this is what she said about the two college students/failed snipers in one of her columns:  Unfortunately for them, Republican men don't react favorably to two "Deliverance" boys trying to sucker-punch a 110-pound female in a skirt and heels. The geniuses ended up with bloody noses and broken bones. And here's what she said on Hannity & Other Guy: HANNITY: What should happen to people that are attacking speakers like you, and Buchanan, and Kristol and David Horowitz? What should happen to them? COULTER: On the basis of what happened to the ones that physically attacked me, I hope they try it again. HANNITY: Jail time? COULTER: No. Apparently, the college Republican women gave them a beating they won't forget.  According to eyewitnesses I talked to, one got a broken shoulder and one got a broken nose. Ann's responses remind me of the Doug Giles column ("Hey Florida scum . . . it’s time for you to run!") in which he seemed to be fervently hoping that somebody would break into his house so he could blow the scum's brains out.  (Which seems to prove Michelle's point about how the liberal media "relentlessly" characterizes the Right as "angry and violence-prone" for no good reason.)   And now, here's David, talking about his most recent "attackers" (the two activists who interrupted his speech): I had not gotten two or three sentences of my introduction out to the audience gathered in the posh Pacific Design Center before two very large individuals wearing what looked to me like Revolutionary Communist Party T-shirts charged onto the stage and at me screaming "No free speech for fascists," thereby showing their inability to understand the meaning of either the words "free speech" or "fascist."  [...] Larry roused up festival co-director Jason Apuzzo and half a dozen others who sprang to my rescue and beat the living crap out of the two deserving reds dragging them unceremoniously from the theater.  As wise men have said, the remedy for bad speech is rude, obnoxious speech, and the remedy for rude, obnoxious speech is to beat the crap out of the speakers. But back to Michelle:  In answer to conservative denunciations of one such incident, a commenter at Daily Kos, a highly trafficked liberal blog, groused: "It's just a f--king cream pie." Yes, and it was "just" two urine-laced pies that were thrown in the face of right-leaning Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn a few weeks before Fortuyn was assassinated. And the Dutch media's blasé reaction to the pie-throwing attack may have subtly encouraged further violence. Right.   :::Rolls eyes:::  But since it's been several months since the pie-ings, and nobody's been assassinated, I don't think we have to worry about how culpable the Daily Kos commenter is in anyone's murder, do we? I still think it's a hoot that Michelle wrote a book called Unhinged.  I guess people who live in glass houses now feel comfortable throwing stones because they get federal assistance to help them rebuild.  P.S.  One of Ann's "attackers" has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, and "has agreed to pay $915 in restitution for damage caused to a backdrop screen that was hit by one of the pies."   Here's what one of the Free Republic commenters had to say about it: These days, any freak that vaults onto the stage during a public speech or program and starts throwing things should be thought of as an assailant and dealt with accordingly. If Ann has body guards that pack heat, then I'd rule a shooting as justified.  Today, the possibility that some leftist scumbag would lace a shaving cream pie with battery acid is no remote possibility and any assault should be considered deadly. Besides, these two idiots were ugly enough to remind me of those old wild west pictures of the dead bandits stretched out in some funeral parlor window. A good end for bad trash. I'm waiting for Michelle to denounce this call for vigilantism and violence. 5:47:54 AM