Scooter, What the....?

In what appears to be a trend, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby joins the list of right wing fascists ( Bill O 'Reilly , Newt Gingrich, and Lynn Cheney) who dabble in writing pornography.  Via American Stranger, The latest New Yorker has a concise description of the various layers of homo-eroticism, bestiality, and pedophilia discussed by the infamous neocon:

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.”

Homoeroticism and incest also figure as themes. The main female character, Yukiko, draws hair on the “mound” of a little girl. The brothers of a dead samurai have sex with his daughter. Many things glisten (mouths, hair, evergreens), quiver (a “pink underlip,” arm muscles, legs), and are sniffed (floorboards, sheets, fingers). The cast includes a dwarf, and an “assistant headman” who comes to restore order after a crime at the inn. (Might this character be autobiographical? And, if so, would that have made Libby the assistant headman or the assistant headman’s assistant?)

When it comes to depicting scenes of romance, however, Libby can evoke a sort of musty sweetness; while one critic deemed “The Apprentice” “reminiscent of Rembrandt,” certain passages can better be described as reminiscent of Penthouse Forum. There is, for example, Yukiko’s seduction of the inexperienced apprentice:

"He could feel her heart beneath his hands. He moved his hands slowly lower still and she arched her back to help him and her lower leg came against his. He held her breasts in his hands. Oddly, he thought, the lower one might be larger. . . . One of her breasts now hung loosely in his hand near his face and he knew not how best to touch her."

Other sex scenes are less conventional. Where his Republican predecessors can seem embarrassingly awkward—the written equivalent of trying to cop a feel while pinning on a corsage—Libby is unabashed:

"At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons. They fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it seemed to lose interest."

And, finally:

"He asked if they should fuck the deer."

The answer, reader, is yes.

Comments

[Adam Kotsko]

IS NOT....?

(I figure we could all come up with a Zizekian rhetorical question to fit this situation -- or is the whole thing just too obvious? Accounts of the early Roman emperors included a lot of similar kinds of stuff, except presumably they were actually doing it -- if we're to be the next Rome, perhaps this kind of stuff is the warm-up, getting their nerve [and other things] up. After all, a lot of the torture has a sexual degradation aspect to it. And after Augustus, the emperors did follow an official "family values" propaganda policy, even as they engaged in behaviors even worse than gay marriage, if you can believe it. Unrestrained arbitrary violence, particularly sexual violence, coupled with the propaganda of patriotism and love of tradition -- I just feel like it's all happening over again. It's not Weimar that's happening over again, it's the fucking principate.)

[Adam Kotsko]

(If anyone cares, the two edited volumes by Richard Horsley, _Paul and Empire_ and _Paul and Politics_, contain a lot of the information on which I'm basing these parallels. I apologize in advance for any idiotic comments about "screepture" that might result from what I've just said.)

[Alain]

Adam, you might be right. I think this may tie in with what Alphonse was saying in her comments on the Cheney/Strangelove post: the folks in the ruling elite are not like regular people. They are not only depraved, but maliciously cruel and sadistic, in fantasy and in life. I cannot begin to imagine what these people are like in private, and I don't think I really want to know.