Scooter's Sex Shocker

[Thom Little]

Of all the scribbled sentences that have converged to create the Valerie Plame affair, the most remarkable, in literary terms, may belong to Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney’s recently deposed chief of staff. “Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work—and life,” he wrote in a jailhouse note to Judith Miller. Meant as a waiver of confidentiality, the letter touched off the sort of fevered exegesis more often associated with readings of “The Waste Land” than of legal correspondence. For even more difficult prose, however, one must revisit an earlier work. “The Apprentice”—Libby’s 1996 entry in the long and distinguished annals of the right-wing dirty novel—tells the tale of Setsuo, a courageous virgin innkeeper who finds himself on the brink of love and war.

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 (“ 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.

It took Libby more than twenty years to write “The Apprentice,” which is set in a remote Japanese province in the winter of 1903. The book is brimming with quasi-political intrigue and antique locutions—“The girl who wore the cloak of yellow fur”; “one wore backward a European hat”—that make the phrase a “former Hill staffer,” by comparison, seem straightforward.

Like his predecessors, Libby does not shy from the scatological. The narrative makes generous mention of lice, snot, drunkenness, bad breath, torture, urine, “turds,” armpits, arm hair, neck hair, pubic hair, pus, boils, and blood (regular and menstrual). One passage goes, “At length he walked around to the deer’s head and, reaching into his pants, struggled for a moment and then pulled out his penis. He began to piss in the snow just in front of the deer’s nostrils.”



http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/051107ta_talk_collins

[TaleWgnDg]

1. And the purpose of this post is???????????????

[Moochy]

3. Made ya look! n/t

[TaleWgnDg]

4. Indeed! LOL . . . n/t

[rodeodance]

2. even the self-rightous Right loves smut. What a shocker

[Shipwack]

5. What disturbs me most...

There is one aspect of these writings that tend to bother me...

(caveat - I've only read excerpts, not the books in question, so it is quite possible I'm talking out of my ass)

None of these people seem to write about sex being gentle, loving or good. Heck, Libby has a scene in "The Apprentice" where a ten year old girl is put into a cage and raped repeatedly by a trained bear in order to teach her to not enjoy sex with male customers.

As kinky and twisted as my imagination is, I would never have thought of something like that. These are the people that want to legislate <b>my</b> morality?

[supernova]

9. They don't see it as good

None of these people seem to write about sex being gentle, loving or good.

These are not wholly integrated personalities. They can't reconcile liking sex AND attending The National Prayer breakfast. Sex IS bad. So everything they write about it; or think about it (regardless of what they actually do), is that sex is painful, shameful, hurtful. They work so hard at being so superficially "good" in public (the right religious "beliefs," the right politics, the right places to live, the right salary to make to join the country club) that their darker selves come out to play in this attempt at erotic fiction.

How many conservatives does that make who have written bad porn now? Libby's just the most recent. Let's see, there's: Newt Gingrich, Lynn Cheney, and now Scooter.

And while I'm on the subject, how can I a man seriously when he wants people to call him "scooter?" Doesn't this bunch call each other by grown-up names?

Ugh. I'd rather have a Prez who stains dresses AND studies the issues.

[kma3346]

15. I agree 100 percent!

Moral Majority? Family Values? HAHHHHHH!!!!

:puke:

[Iris]

20. That bear story literally makes me sick.

Especially when put along side reports of human trafficking.

[Scooter24]

6. I'm so sorry...

I tried to keep my shocking sex secrets quiet... *sigh*

:rofl:

[Moochy]

11. Hey dont you have a court date in a few hours?

Be sure to smile pretty for your arraignment pictures! :)

[salin]

7. lesson to be learned:

these folks shouldn't write novels - their work is tripe, and revealing.

[fasttense]

8. The sad part is Libby could have written just about anything

and he would have had an instant audience because of his job/title/name. So what does he choose to write about? Sex. So sad that he has so little to say.

[supernova]

10. It is sad when people don't use their intellect

for the betterment of mankind. What a waste.

[Strawman]

12. in the next line, does Chimpy come along and eat the yellow snow?

[Ksec]

13. Part of it talks about the raping of a 10 yr old

by an animal /

These people are truly sickos.

[kma3346]

14. Two VERY different takes of the book on the news

I was watching Countdown last night and Keith talked about the book and quoted the part about the bear and was pretty disgusted about it. See:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5248786

Just now, I saw Wolf talk about Scooter's novel on the Situation Room with some other blowhard and they were both singing its praises. Wolf even said that he had a copy of the book! No mention was made about the rape of the little girl , the pissing on the dead dear, and the other disgusting incidents.

Ok...

Keith's reaction: Normal
Wolf's reaction: Not so normal

I think I'll keep watching Countdown. I'd completely bypass The Situation Room if it were not for Jack Cafferty!

[kerrygoddess]

16. Posted this the other day here

from the Democratic Daily. Pretty wild stuff - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1005

[Jacobin]

17. The new Goldilocks and the Three Bears

[kma3346]

19. Seeing John Stewart's face on your message.....

Makes me really hope that The Daily Show covers the Libby novel tonight. This was just made for a John Stewart delivery on.

[dogday]

18. thats some sick shit with the bear nt

[Iris]

21. You know what the really sad part is? It took him 20 YEARS

to write this shit.