Because this is a full-service political blog, I bring you Politico‘s review, excerpted from their Mark Salter tongue-bath:
… if Time magazine’s Mark Halperin is right, Washington has been hit by the biggest Saltergram ever, in the form of an anonymous, 353-page campaign novel titled, “O: A Presidential Novel.”
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Some of “O”’s liveliest passages project the same bitterness that Salter and others in McCain’s circle still feel about the Arizona senator’s 2008 defeat and the subsequent collapse of his reputation, and some of the same villains they blame. “O” devotes particular attention to Arianna Huffington, whom Salter once called “a flake and a poser and an attention-seeking diva.” The anonymous author called her stand-in, Bianca Stefani, publisher of the Stefani Report, a “courtesan [with] one abiding passion: her own notoriety.” (Huffington emailed from Davos, Switzerland, that she hadn’t read the book.)
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POLITICO, which the real Salter has criticized publicly, is also viewed through a very Salteresque gimlet eye in “O,” which describes a news outlet called “Body Politic” that has succeeded by “monetizing Washington’s self-obsessive nature,” even if some of its stories are alleged to have been invented. The book’s plot hinges on a scandal unearthed by an ambitious Body Politic reporter and a misfit Stefani Report blogger that turns out not to be a scandal at all, and offers the idealized Republican war hero candidate a chance to rise above the distasteful fray. Salter’s friends say he likes to settle his grudges, and the media has been a favorite target, notably in a short 2009 Saltergram entitled, “The Media’s Pathetic Double Standard.”
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“I think one of the keys to understanding Mark is to think of him as someone who probably should’ve been born 300 years ago,” said Republican consultant Todd Harris, who worked with Salter on McCain’s 2000 campaign. “He would have made a very good honor-bound knight, willing to duel and fight to the death if his reputation has been besmirched. Mark takes the idea of honor very seriously, far more than most people these days.”
That would be the ‘romantic’, Sir-Walter-Scott-infused phantasy of “ONNAH, Sah!” Mark Twain mocked in Life on the Mississippi. Three hundred years and counting of anger, aggression, and bloodshed… American (Southron) tribalism at its finest.
(Which doesn’t mean Salter, or whoever, is wrong about either Huffington or Politico, of course.)
djesno
FIRST! heh. i’ve never done that before.
Southern Beale
This strikes me as the mother of all vanity projects and as such is destined to be a gigantic FAIL. However, the Villagers will all no doubt devote many column inches to analyzing every possible angle simple because this is a story made for Villager navel gazing.
So I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of it.
junebug
Is this some sort of open thread?
Has anyone forgotten this?
ETA: that’s all supposed to be in block quotes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeesh. McCain’s not the only one in McCainland who’s living a life of delusion. If the McCainiacs, including the grumpy little rage-oholic, have such finely tuned senses of “honor”, did I miss the apology for unleashing Palin on the American body politic?
I don’t think much of Huffington, but “courtesan”? THat’s another embarrassing reflection on Salter.
djesno
seriously, though – truth will out. i’m sure reasonable people won’t disagree that in the short time since obama was elected that mccain has proven himself to be a vaccuous shill and anything BUT a party-bucking maverick. a leader tames the wind to steer the ship; a polit-hack rides the wind and lands where the wind puts him. +3
Cat Lady
Oh fer fuck’s sake. They should all just get a room.
jl
“Idealized Republican war hero candidate a chance to rise above the distasteful fray.”
So, it’s a fantasy, sci fi or alternative history novel?
I thought it was a political roman a clef; that is what I read in the CW political blogosphere. But those people are dense as lead, and I guess they didn’t get it.
junebug
That all was just a few days ago — think about it. Muslims came together to protect Coptic Christians and it worked. And then the next thing is to protest the dictator who has had a state of emergency installed since he came into office.
SRW1
The cause-effect relationship in this snippet would appear to be awfully f*cked up.
Yutsano
Umm…really? There were still knights fighting duels and defending their reputations 300 years ago? Maybe in Japan, and that’s not really the correct terminology, but somehow I highly doubt that’s what Harris is referring to here. I’m gonna call that a big ol’ swing and a miss and move on with my life.
Southern Beale
Speaking of protests:
Would be nice if this started a popular uprising against our corporate overlords but I know better…
Origuy
As Albion’s Seed points out, the South was settled largely by the Cavaliers who lost the English Civil War to Cromwell. They held on to the Royalist cause and doubtless felt vindicated by the Restoration.
djesno
@Yutsano: WHIFF!
asiangrrlMN
Why can’t I get a book published if this tripe is allowed to see the light of day?
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Becuz U iz not all-important Villager. What a difference being in a privileged position makes.
MikeJ
@asiangrrlMN: Is your book entitled, “Why is the black black blackity black man so mean to me?” Regnery would probably sign you right away, and even arrange for a few thousand copies to be bought in bulk.
srv
Mah honnah has been besmirched by some person of words here, and Ah demand recompense!
Instead of a remake of Primary Colors, maybe we need a reimagined The Holy Grail using Republican characters.
jl
The political literature fit for this age has all been written long ago. Not sure why or how that happened. Some adventurous scientist into researching clairvoyance, time warps, and epochal time shift synchronicity should look into it (before they gut the NSF).
Some fun ones that come to mind are
Troilus and Cressida (Shakes version)
Glengarry Glen Ross
Gilded Age
Naked Lunch
Dead Souls
Whatever the most deranged and loathsome thing Celine wrote is.
I didn’t mention anything by de Sade, since that is more of mid 20th century thing, IMHO.
For public safety and nurturing of our precious youth, we should make a list of edifying literature that should be read instead of these dangerous novels, lest any innocent be tempted, and be lead to intellectual and moral corruption, and a general ‘blah’ feeling that will not go away.
Edit: what is the Euripides play where the national heroes turn out to be greedy dull witted crazy emotionally sick halfwits who bludgeon people to death with clubs for no particular reason. That one too.
KG
@Yutsano: well, Hamilton vs Burr happened on July 11, 1804. That wasn’t that long ago, historically speaking, and it was a matter of “honor.”
BruceFromOhio
And ignoring the vast yawning chasm between real honor and the ‘the idea of honor’ appears to be a reflexive behavior in this case.
@asiangrrlMN:
Because you have to write this claptrap anonymously, and you have to know the ‘correct’ email addresses.
Oh, and you have to sell your mortal soul into pitiful, wretched slavery for all your living days.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Good point.
@MikeJ: D’oh! That’s what I’m doing wrong. See, I have to jump sides and be a token of the Republic Party so I can make mad monies. I can even preach about abstinence (Wash U, CALL ME!).
@BruceFromOhio: I can do all that. ::prepares to lose her soul::
lamh32
There is a God. Notice though, he won’t own up to his presidency’s culpability in what ‘s happening now. Obama is attempting to clean up his mess!
Bush: I’m Done With Politics[W. says he won’t campaign, fundraise, or criticize Obama]
KG
@asiangrrlMN: eh, you can sell directly through Amazon and iBooks for e-readers now, bypass the publishers, set the price yourself. All you need is a registered copyright and an ISBN number. If e-readers really take off like ipods/mp3 players did, it’s going to be a brave new world… only thing the publisher is going to be good for is marketing.
Yutsano
@KG: Not sure if I would describe either of the characters involved as knights, but IIRC that led directly to the outlawing of dueling in the US. Or it was on its way out and this was the final straw or something like that. But when Harris says knight he’s not describing Aaron Burr methinks.
erlking
Doesn’t that define John McCain?
jl
@asiangrrlMN:
You need to study this type of novel very carefully, and practice in writing the zero dimensional characters, trite situation, the 1000 percent unlifelike dialog, and utter emotional, intellectual and spiritual emptiness of the worldview.
I don’t mean to offend you asiangrrlMN, but I am just not sure you are down to that standard. Ask yourself, ‘Can I really write that badly?’ Be honest.
I could end with the advice that you should go and live that life, and gain that life experience, but that would be a kind of wickedness that might get me sent down to hellfire fer sher.
Hope that helps.
BruceFromOhio
@asiangrrlMN: OH NOES! You only get one of those, ya know, and once its been enslaved its reeeeeally difficult to retrieve.
What KG said.
junebug
@asiangrrlMN:
Nobody cares. Or you signal it all for free. Is there a pie filter for you?
dmsilev
Maybe, just maybe, if McCain hadn’t insisted on living out every stereotype of the bitter old man, his reputation might be a tad better right now.
Still, everyone must admit, this is excellent news for John McCain.
dms
Jim, Foolish Literalist
also, too, how does publishing what is essentially a hit piece anonymously square with “honor”?
KG
@Yutsano: eh, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt on a Saturday night. I’m thinking he’s off by a century or two.
Ok, Strikeforce show starting, going radio silent
ETA: I can’t decide who is a worse color commentator, Frank Shamrock or Joe Rogan.
dmsilev
@lamh32: Based on their behavior after leaving office, Bush is a better person than Cheney. Now, I freely grant that this is setting the bar so low that even the best of today’s mining technology can’t reach low enough to retrieve it, but at least it’s something.
dms
Southern Beale
Excellent analysis at Salon about the Egypt protest:
Why is America so afraid?
[…]
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, he was going to slap Obama with a glove, but decided that getting shot by the Secret Service wasn’t worth it. Quasi-anonymous hit pieces are only *slightly* less honorable.
dms
asiangrrlMN
@junebug: Well, you can speak for yourself as it appears others do care. And, you can put anyone on the pie filter. Just add my ‘nym, and I will tell you how much I love blueberry pie.
@jl: Oh, I definitely could write that poorly. I’ve had practice.
@BruceFromOhio: Eh. I don’t need my soul. It seems one gets further in this world without one!
The Dangerman
“O: The Presidential Novel” anagrams to “Deep Vitriol Heals Noten”; other than a bit of a spelling problem, it seems apropos.
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Also, too, there’s this from the story:
So, writing an anonymous campaign book lacks honor. Fine. Agreed. However, apparently anonymously slamming the writing of said book is A OK.
dms
hilts
@Southern Beale:
That was a great analysis.
Speaking of why America is so afraid –
John Bolton and Mark Levin dissing the protesters
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/01/29/no-caring-democracy-bolton
Dee Loralei
I just bought NixonLand for my kindle/Iphone, hope it synched. Also can anyone suggest a really good GPS app for my Iphone? Am driving to Dallas next week, but traveling to Carrollton and maybe also FtWorth for business.
Chad N Freude
The LA Times didn’t think much of the book. Sample:
A warning to those among us who have knee-jerk reactions to references to writers they don’t like: The reviewer, Tim Rutten, whose work I like, has nice things to say about Joe Klein in his review.
Dennis G.
@Yutsano:
The stupid of that section almost burnt a hole though my computer screen. These guys are dumber than casually swinging a bag of hammers in a china shop.
Chad N Freude
@lamh32:
So who is making him go on TV against his will?
The Dangerman
@Chad N Freude:
Evil W, his Doppelgänger.
Edit: Upon further review, W’s Doppelgänger would be the opposite of W, so he’d be Good W, right? Can there be a good Doppelgänger? Shit, now I’m confused.
asiangrrlMN
Self-promo here. Thanks to everyone who voted on my poll over at ABL’s place as to what my ‘nym should be. It was a difficult decision. You can read the results here.
D0n Camillo
Then why was he willing to work for John McCain?
Benjamin Cisco (mobile)
This word he keeps using, ” honor.” Definitely does NOT mean what he thinks it means.
lamh32
@Chad N Freude:
Probably Papa Bush. Papa Bush seemed to not ya know hate Obama like the rest of the teatards.
I’m guessing Papa Bush is telling Baby Bush, you’ve done enough. I mean thx to him, the Bush dynasty that cold have continued with Jeb. Now, that’s not all certain.
Chad N Freude
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This “When I do it it’s Good and Pure” is nothing new. Ayn Rand was a supernova of hypocrisy.
Chad N Freude
@The Dangerman: Maybe his doppelganger would be “M”.
jl
@Southern Beale:
I liked first part of the piece that concentrated on the rickety and dishonest foundations of post Cold War US Security and financial regime, and what that has meant for the many of the people of the Middle East.
But I can’t agree with this part:
“There is bound to be great suffering in Egypt, we pray for a smooth transition, but if the Egyptians are only left to handle their own affairs, who doubts that the polity that will emerge from this chaos will be more responsive to human rights, and will strike a blow against the fetters of anti-Arab racism that have chained the American mind.”
I think any sensible person can both “pray for a smooth transition” to something better while they also doubt that “the polity that will emerge from this chaos will be more responsive to human rights”.
In revolutions, force and chance may decide what happens, and great progress may be made, or they may be thrown back into repression. Or chaos may continue. That is the nature of revolutions, like it or not.
I am very glad that the French threw off tyranny but the process was long, terrible, and heartbreaking.
I also wonder if the author got a little caught up in the Palestinian issue. Perhaps the mass of the people in Egypt see it as about Palestine too, but that would be a dangerous mixing of too different issues. What would be the result of a revolutionary Egyptian government that saw much of its rationale as being ‘about Palestine’. Seems to me, a good chance of armed conflict, or economic turmoil that would hurt any progress in Egypt.
We simply do not know what will come of this. I watched a youtube clip of an Egyptian talking about the revolution, and he got so chocked up, he could barely speak. It was very moving and inspiring, but given the uncertainty and the great stakes, also very sobering.
I hope things go well, and the wingnuts’ and neocons’ fantasies are not taken seriously, since that would mess up things even further here, and mean little good for Egypt or Tunisia, or Lebanon.
Persia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
How could you forget? In Rethuglican Land, women who like sex are whores.
hueyplong
Maybe his doppelganger would be “M”.
—–
So it would be a central European child killer in a Fritz Lang movie?
Well, maybe so.
Southern Beale
@jl:
True and of course we have Iran’s Green Revolution from last year which near as I can tell amounted to very little in the long run … but honestly what do I know, I’m not very educated on these things.
General Stuck
@Southern Beale:
The reason is simple as American Pie. We are congenitally a people primed for instant, or short term gratification. Not only in economic and financial matters, but in everything we do. And foreign policy is certainly no exception. And when it comes to the ME, we have multiple personality disorder. We want everyone to have democracy, not only for something to share in common with them, but because everyone knows, it is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
So we prop up corrupt dictatorships for the return of stability, at the cost of alienating entire worlds and countries, for whatever immediate gratification, or fear. With the ME, it is primarily oil, at this point in time, that keeps our engines running for the instant gratification of soccer moms and Wall Street tycoons, with a system of money fueled politics. And to get that oil, we need stable countries that have it, and to get stable countries, we have to interfere with that countries natural pol ecology and social evolution. All for short term interests, always money, except for Israel, and even that is for money to a large degree. And when you essentially damn up the hopes and dreams of the citizens of these countries, and render them powerless to design their own fate, we get what we see in Egypt. I use the analogy of US long term policy of fighting and putting out every forest fire in this country, going back decades. Intervening in natural ecology that is the forest fire, allowing unburnt fuel to build up and that create a white hot inferno that is unstopable.
At this point in time, Israel can fully defend itself, though they are still a major factor in overall stability in that part of the world. So we are left with oil, and the addicts eternal denial of the next fix will make everything all right, for a while, until it turns about and nothing will make it better but complete abstinence, and letting the chips fall where they will. And unless some genius soon discovers the mystery of Fusion, and releases us from our oil addiction, we are headed for more military involvement in the angry sand box, and have no one to blame but ourselves for not doing everything we could to not let it come to that.
This has been an authorized hot air release
jl
As a personal disclosure, I freely admit that I have never read more than a part of a chapter of one of these political novels written by insiders, usually in bookstores.
I even tried out a few pages of a novel by one of the forces of righteousness (Boxer).
Sorry, but I just cannot think of one of them that is worth anything. Reading through a whole one? About as horrifying as watching a Sunday political talk show marathon.
So, yes, I am a hypocritical ass, never read a whole one of those books, and I bash them anonymously. But, then, this is Balloon-Juice, and we are yammering jackals, so exactly what was one of commenters complaining about up above?
Southern Beale
What is with these hacks writing anonymous books about campaign novels? First Joe Klein and now Salter?
Pfft. Get a real job,
I bet Sarah Palin “writes” one … oh wait, forget it. The anonymous part is a deal breaker for her.
Southern Beale
What is with these hacks writing anonymous books about campaign novels? First Joe Klein and now Salter?
Pfft. Get a real job,
I bet Sarah Palin “writes” one … oh wait, forget it. The anonymous part is a deal breaker for her.
jl
@Southern Beale: Neither am I, so even though I disagreed with the last half of the article, thanks for posting it. Gave some interesting leads for further reading and blog searching.
handy
@junebug:
who are you?
@Chad N Freude:
oh but you see she earned it because she paid into the system all those years therefore she was just getting was due hers. Despite that she made a life of vilifying others who did the same.
And did anybody else catch the nice little juxtaposition in that piece on how Salter hated DC insider culture loved to attend Georgetown Hoyas basketball games. It read to me like a signal: hypocritical DC insider loves having it both ways.
Chad N Freude
@Southern Beale: But her ghost writer would be anonymous.
hilts
@Southern Beale:
Sarah Palin needs to read a book first.
Chad N Freude
@hilts: She reads all of ’em.
Anya
Salter’s definition of honor is very strange. He tried to sell America that an erratic, bitter old man can run the country at a time of great economic upheaval, with Snowbilly snooki as a running mate, and now he’s slamming people anonymously. What an honorable man.
Anne Laurie
@Origuy:
Well, to strip some of the gilt off that statement: The white South was settled largely by the bloody-minded, incurably tribalist losers to the cutting-edge technology that made it more profitable for the early-eighteenth-century Masters of the Universe to farm sheep than people. A handful of weathly aristocrats with inadequate social timing were sent to the “New World” to supervise the vast supply of excess peasantry, aka indentured servants, from those (literally) beyond-the-Pale regions where they’d spent many centuries refining their skills at hardscrabble farming and border raids. When those ‘Scots-Irish’ tenants proved unsatisfactory for the new factory-farming of tobacco, cotton, and indigo, the entrepreneurial class replaced them with actual slaves, mitigating the insult (and ensuring that the new African immigrants would not be able to find common cause with the ‘hillbillys’) by inventing a form of caste isolation that their cousins on the other side of the world would eventually label apartheid. It was a truly genius move by the top ten percent or so of the new class of Southern Gentlemen, and the rest of us are still paying for their “success”… not least the sullen no-hopers still waving Confederate flags and using what little political power they have to guarantee that they, and their children, and the rest of us will all continue to suffer.
Calouste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think the word Salter probably was looking for was “courtier”. But close enough for someone who had to endure Lady Blahblah for a few months. That must have cost a few dozen IQ points.
Origuy
@Anne Laurie:
Yeah, I was being sloppy. The Cavaliers, as the upper class, set the tone for the culture.
I didn’t finish Albion’s Seed, by the way. I had to take it back to the library before I got to the part about the Scots-Irish. Been meaning to get back to it.
Calouste
@Yutsano:
Knights started to go out of fashion in Europe in the 14th century, and were definitely done for by the end of the 15th.
Svensker
@asiangrrlMN:
Lemon meringue and black satin, maybe that’s junebug’s favorite color scheme?
Yutsano
@Calouste: There were a very few feudal hold-outs in Eastern Europe, but by the 1700’s the only folks you could possibly label as “knights” were the samurai class of Japan. And that came to a screeching halt with the Perry visit and the crowning of a competent strong emperor who modernized Japan. So that just makes that particular word choice amazingly off.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Calouste: I don’t know, it would certainly have been more accurate, but some editor saw that, and they kept it. Crude choice by Salter, sloppy work by the editor(s).
hhex65
Huffington sent an aeromail via the 4:30 autogyro from the Prussian consulate saying that she hadn’t read the book.
Anne Laurie
@Yutsano:
Those were the illusionary Victorian knights of Walter Scott’s inflamed imagination. If you’ve never read LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, it’s still got a lot to offer about the South, in all its resilient-as-any-other-zombie “glory”.
DW
I’m a little confused – how exactly was Salter’s honor insulted? He lost an election – so it goes. Obama didn’t run a particularly negative campaign and didn’t slander McCain. I could understand anger at Dubya for 2000, but Obama’s only offense seems to be winning.
Anne Laurie
@Calouste:
No, the anti-Ariana slant any time for the last several decades is that she, well, chose the men in her life with an eye to the main chance. The nasty stories go back to her Cambridge days (according to someone who was in the debating society at the time), but Vanity Fair‘s coverage of her marriage to Michael Huffington, his ensuing political career, and the messy ending to both his career and their marriage permanently cemented the meme.
Heck, no good Villager would ever diss the noble career of a courtier!
djesno
NEVER EAT SPINACH WITH A STRANGER!
Yutsano
@DW:
He let someone below his station get the better of him. Duh.
Mnemosyne
@Chad N Freude:
Rutten’s right about Klein, though — for all of his myriad faults, Klein knows how to talk to people and how to construct a story. Salter’s a political operative with no writing talent whatsoever who doesn’t understand the people he worked with for two years and so has to construct cardboard stereotypes to represent them.
It’s a novel from the right-wing echo chamber, and I’m guessing that Salter literally doesn’t understand the criticism he’s getting.
ETA: Also, too, at what point is the right wing going to start accusing Obama of smuggling drugs from Midway? They’re trying to re-create all of their Clinton greatest hits, so that one must be in the pipeline.
bob h
How can one be bitter about an electoral defeat and reputational collapse that was entirely due to the candidate’s own inadequacy?
aimai
@Origuy:
Yes, there were upper class men obsessed with their honor 300 years ago, as Origuy points out–the important thing to remember is that this kind of honor is something that only some men (upper class, white, powerful, patriarchs) and not other people (women, lower class men, non whites) get to have. And this notion of honor, like the notion of liberty that was then employed, specifically didn’t apply to anyone but the top of society. Albion’s Seed has a fantastic discussion of Cavalier and Scotch-Irish notions of liberty both of which are non inclusive and unequal by nature: the more liberty I have (and the more honor) the less you have. I was so happy when McCain and all talk of his limited, childish, spiteful, martial notions of honor had staggered off the political stage. Fuck Salter, he was a terrible person in support of a worse one. If he had any real, modern, sense of honor at all he’d commit seppuku over Palin.
aimai