re: Webb (One hero, not two mutineers...)

[troublemaker]

In THE CAINE MUTINY the defendant is upset with his attorney (Jose Ferer) for letting Fred MacMurray's lies about not being involved in the Mutiny go unchallenged. Ferer says, "We want one hero, not two mutineers."

___________

It is not productive to dredge up republican smut in fictional works for three reasons. 1) The MSM is not going to run with this crap unless it is made an issue with two sides, such as a spat about whose books are dirtier. (The equivalency argument provides a media narrative we don't want.) The Foley thing should have brought home the futility of "everyone does it" arguments on hot-button issues. Raising Gerry Studds didn't help the Republicans. Raising Lynne Cheney doesn't help us. 2) Webb's work is not really FICTION insofar as it involves real experiences about real things that happened in the course of his heroic service to his country. The seemingly salacious smear-quote is NON-FICTION... it's reportage of an actual custom that, as Webb said on WTOP, he saw with his own eyes. It is not a sexual fantasy. Lynne Cheney's work is sexual fantasy. Raising Cheney as an repost implies that Webb's work is sexual fantasy, which it is most emphatically not. And 3) Libby and Lynn Cheney are not on a ballot anywhere.

Think about why a real person in Virginia would cast a real vote.

The best outcome is that this moronic attack get nowhere, so it doesn't help to broaden the battlefield into a free-for-all over whose books are smuttier. Democrats always lose "pox on both your houses" arguments. We want one hero, not two pornographers.

If, for some reason, this crap becomes a story then it's not all bad... Just as the Corker ad opened the door for Harold Ford to go on TV and say, "I believe in God," if it gets traction this bogus controversy opens the door for Webb and his proxies to go full bore on his Vietnam record, which is spectacular. (The Navy Cross isn't something you get for just showing up.)

But the best thing is to not create a he-said she-said type narrative at all.

[troublemaker]

1. UPDATE: Having sampled some of the reaction

I can say that the democratic response is completely ass-backwards. I just say someone billed as a democratic strategist highlight "fiction" and "Lynne Cheney" in one sentence on Fox while acting hopelessly embarrassed.

This is not complicated, folks.

It is NOT the product of Webb's imagination. It is an ACTUAL NON-FICTIONAL REAL LIFE Cambodian tribal custom he witnessed first-hand and described in a book. It is NOT comparable to Lynne Cheney.

This is like calling the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica a Nazi because there's a Hitler entry in the encyclopedia.

THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS BANNING HUCK FINN AS RASCIST BECAUSE THE NOVEL HAS THE WORD "NIGGER" IN IT. A description of real life is not advocacy, nor is it fantasy or immagination.

Get it straight, for heaven's sake.