BobHarris.com - Lynne Cheney's World O' Cheap And Tawdry

Books! Actual books!

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-- The Wall Street Journal

"Pulls you in like a good sports story"

-- The New York Times Book Review

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-- New York Newsday

"A surprisingly touching memoir"

-- Entertainment Weekly

"Snappy and informative"

-- Associated Press

"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."

-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."

-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life

"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."

-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game

"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"

-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All

"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."

-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history

Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

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— Boston Globe

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— New York Observer

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— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs

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— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."

— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review

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Dennis Perrin

Lynne Cheney's World O' Cheap And Tawdry

Tag it now -

Thursday, 14 October 2004

So all Team Chimpy seems to think they have at the moment is an attempt to spin Kerry's mention of Mary Cheney's open, avowed, widely-acknowledged sexual preference into some sort of hideous attack.

At first glance, this is truly rich. Kerry didn't bring this up out of the blue or as a smear, but as a compassionate response to a direct question. And Mary Cheney's not in the closet or a private figure; she's her father's campaign manager, and she does GOP outreach to the gay community. (Which is probably about as effective as a shark doing outreach to the sea lion community. But I digress.)

One second glance, it gets full-on creepy, since (as Talking Points Memo has noted) Madame Cheney is calling Kerry's mere mention of her daughter's sexuality "cheap and tawdry."

That's not the language of political outrage. That's the language of sexual shame. Seems like the Cheneys need a few more group hugs.

It gets more delightful the more you think about it. So now these idiots are so desperate for ammunition that they're actually posing as defenders of homosexual dignity -- at the very same moment they're doing everything in their power to portray gay marriages as a threat to the fabric of society.

And on final glance, one is almost blinded by the white-hot glow of lunacy gone nuclear, as soon as we remember that Lynne Cheney herself was the author of a cheesy 1981 lesbian romance novel, Sisters, in which one we find the following letter proclaiming the Love Which Dare Not Allow Another Candidate To Speak Its Name:

Let us go away together, away from the anger and imperatives of men. There will be only the two of us, and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement. In the evenings I shall read to you while you work your cross-stitch in the firelight. And then we shall go to bed, our bed, my dearest girl.

Closet. Undisclosed location. Whatever you want to call it is fine.