Dubya: the Novel
When I read Andrew Sullivan's
post this morning linking to
a blogger's suggestion that the Bush administration is too boring to write novels about, I thought, "Good grief, that can't be right." The relationship between Bush and Cheney, the titanic figure of Rumsfeld, Dutiful Colin, Brownie 'n Fredo as paragons of how Bush turned the virtue of loyalty into the vice of cronyism, Bush's agonized relationship with his father, and how Saddam figured into it ... I mean, there's really rich material there. Can anybody remember
anything about the human drama of the Clinton administration (besides Monicagate, that is)? This has been the
most interesting administration I've ever seen (having been too young to remember Nixon and earlier) -- and I say that even though I can't wait for them to get out of town.
Well, Ross Douthat, as is often the case,
says it best. Excerpt:
No, the fact that none of our artists have managed to make something out of this Administration tells us way more about the artists than the Bushies. It suggests that there aren't any interesting Republicans in our fiction not because Republicans aren't interesting, but because our intelligentsia's political prejudices blind them to the possibility that a Republican might be, well, a complicated human being rather than just the sum of every liberal's fears.
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I don't remember seeing "Clinton: the Novel" on the shelves yet Joe Klein's Primary Colors? Sure, it's about the campaign, rather than about the administration, but it's still a fictionalization of Clinton.
I don't know, can you imagine Rove or Dubya in a sexual encounter, with anyone? And as some current threads have shown, conservatism is about other people's sex. I can't imagine a thriller with this cast of characters, sex or no.
I have no interest in imagining anybody in a sexual encounter. Does that mean I can't be conservative? Or does it mean that I choose to mind my own business? Amazingly enough, Harvey, some pretty good writing has been produced that has no sexual content at all. The Lord Of The Rings comes to mind. Or is it possible that atheism is about other people's sex? Sheesh.
This has been the most interesting administration I've ever seen To paraphrase that ancient Chinese curse: "May you live under an interesting administration"
I don't know, can you imagine Rove or Dubya in a sexual encounter, with anyone? And as some current threads have shown, conservatism is about other people's sex. Someone once commented that Democratic scandals are generally about sex, whereas Republican scandals are generally about money and/or power. I remember when the GOP convention was in New Orleans (sometime in the 80s), the networks sent reports to NO ahead of the convention to get some coverage of the place and what the locals thought of the conventions. I remember when one reporter was interviewing some business owners in the French Quarter, they said that they wish they were getting the Democratic convention instead, because they thought that Democratic convention-goers would be more likely than Republican to spend money on the kinds of things that the French Quarter had to sell -- booze, strippers, hookers, etc. ;-)
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