Wednesday, October 18

Tawdry Republicans

In today's Grapevine Brit Hume reports on the race for Texas State Comptroller:

"Two-Faced Hypocrite"

The race for state comptroller in Texas is getting down and dirty — and not in the usual way. Democratic candidate Fred Head is calling Republican rival Susan Combs a "two-faced hypocrite" for writing what he calls "a pornographic book."

The tome in question is a romance novel called "A Perfect Match" that Combs published in 1990. Head has posted excerpts of the book on his Web site that feature what the people who buy romance novels want them to feature — steamy romance.

All of this has enraged the 9,000 member Romance Writers of America — which is headquartered in and has many members from — Texas. One novelist wonders why Head posted parts of the book on his Web site if it is in fact pornography. Another says she's a Texan, a Christian, a grandmother who has written 46 novels — and a registered Democrat — but she's not voting for Fred Head.

But what Hume fails to mention is that in addition to the sort of steamy naughtiness that would make Scooter Libby blush (or maybe not), Comb's roman à l'eau de rose, is filled with indigestible prose that's almost as turgid as seasoned NSA super-spy Ross Harding's manhood at the moment in which he lowers himself upon NSA analyst Emily Brown "with devastating slowness" and an eye toward filling "the aching void at her center."