Who is George Allen? Who is James Webb?

Some of the sex passages from James Webb’s novels that the George Allen campaign has publicized are vulgar and offensive in the way you’d expect any contemporary novel to be. But some are shocking, perverted, and just plain weird, and will doubtless hurt Webb with voters—deservedly so. What most disturbs me, however, is not anything that Webb has written, but Allen’s attack on Webb for opposing the feminization of the armed forces. From the Allen campaign press release:

Why does Jim Webb refuse to portray women in a respectful, positive light, whether in his non-fiction concerning their role in the military, or in his provocative novels? How can women trust him to represent their views in the Senate when chauvinistic attitudes and sexually exploitative references run throughout his fiction and non-fiction writings?

For George Allen, a supposed conservative, to attack his opponent as anti-woman because he is against the leftist movement to integrate women with men in the military, is very bad. Allen not only fails to hew to conservative principle himself on this basic issue, but he smears another candidate who does hew to it. This negatively affects the way I view Allen.

As further evidence of a lack of conservative principles, I see that Michelle Malkin thinks that Allen should not have attacked Webb’s fiction writings but only his stand against women in the military. Here are the Webb quotes that Malkin regards as worthy of censure. (For easier reading, I have also copied them into a new blog entry.) But what’s objectionable here? Does Michelle deny Webb’s assertion (albeit stated in vulgar terms) that the sexually integrated military has turned into a place of sexual promiscuity? Does she deny his statement that women are not suited to lead men in combat? Does Michelle realize what she’s saying? She’s saying that the feminization of the military is such a “normal” part of America that criticism of it is not allowed.

The fact that so-called conservatives accept as normal and unchallengeable the integration of women with men in military training, military units, and quasi combat units, does not make it any the less radical and wrong.

Getting back to the sex passages, I think I disagree with Malkin’s and Rick Moran’s characterization of the Allen campaign’s exposure of the passages from Webb’s fictional writings as an “outing.” If the published writings of a candidate for high office are not legitimate material for publication and debate, then what is?

Evidently, Malkin doesn’t think that a public figure’s having written fiction with perverted material is a legitimate subject for public debaate at all. She writes:

Remember how pathetic it was when the Left tried to make scandals out of books written by Lynne Cheney and Scooter Libby?

Cheney wrote a pulpy novel, “Sisters,” about a frontier woman that included graphic sexual passages and lesbian lovers. (A conservative-bashing site reprinted excerpts here.)

Libby wrote a pulpy novel, “The Apprentice,” a “story of innocence and temptation” set in turn-of-the-century Japan that included graphic sexual passages—including bestiality and a scene in which the brothers of a dead samurai have sex with his daughter.

Both were works of fiction. You know, stuff that’s made up.

While I have no opinion about the Cheney and Libby novels which I haven’t read, I am brought up short by Malkin’s intellectually juvenile comment that novels (and therefore all literature and all movies and all plays) are not to be morally judged, because they are “made up.” Conservatives who are completely at home with the contemporary culture and its degraded values have got to think more deeply about what is at stake.

Also, there’s an intelligent discussion of Webb’s strange literary/sexual predilections at Free Republic. I don’t see how his candidacy can survive this.

- end of initial entry -

Frank B. writes:

As you’ve pointed out many times, many so-called conservatives are really liberals in their principles and presuppositions, Laura Bush being the pre-eminent symbol of the ConLib.

I noticed several years ago, when Dick Cheney’s daughter came out as a lesbian that not much was made of her mother Lynne’s writing. Lynne Cheney had published a novel entitled Sisters in the 80’s about a lesbian affair. In fact it was hard to get the book because all copies seemed to be disappearing rather quickly. But now this comes out on CNN, her publication of Sisters.

If the mother indulged her imagination about lesbianism, then how could the Cheneys say anything about their daughter’s lesbianism? Notice how she entitled her book—Sisters A term both popular with lesbians and feminists.

Does anyone think there is really anything “conservative” about the White House given the Bush and Cheney families?

LA replies:

To be fair to Mrs. Cheney, in the interview she says that she has never written anything sexually explicit, though Malkin said her novel had graphic sexual passages.

Also, I don’t see anything even superficially conservative about Laura Bush. She’s a liberal, period.

Robert B. writes in defense of the scene in the Webb novel that created the most shock:

I think a lot depends on whether Webb saw the incident himself, or heard reliably about it. It does not seem impossible to me that this is a common form of affection between father and son in Vietnam … or is when the family is under outside pressure. Webb, perhaps in the novel speaking for an American, says that he does not understand what he has seen. Seems like plausible fictional reporting to me.

Ben writes:

For Malkin to say that Allen should have stuck with his winning strategy of wanting American young women to fight in wars is stunning. At least Joseph Farah doesn’t take this stand, Farah takes the correct stand of dismissing both candidates’ views on women in combat.

I did find it a bit amusing about Farah dismissing Allen for his dirty politics and refusing to run the story. Isn’t this WND? One of the most sensationalist, conspiracy-theory oriented sites out there, yet it is too good to run Allen’s legitimate story about Webb’s fiction?

Also I get worried when conservatives use statements such as “stick to the issues.” It reminds me too much of the Clinton years. Ignore all of Clinton’s behavior past and present and just focus on the great economy. (which Americans did)

Mark A. writes:

This is something I’ve been pondering:

With respect to Malkin’s being upset with Webb’s comments on women in the military, doesn’t this demostrate her innate Liberalism? In my opinion, Conservatism is grounded in moral absolutes rather than relativity. It is also, and just as importantly, grounded in truth. Conservatism believes that there is truth. Liberalism doesn’t believe in truth, it just believes in perspective. If Malkin is so ignorant as to not understand the basic factual differences between the sexes, can we really take her writing seriously?

…Or am I reading too much into this?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 29, 2006 03:30 PM | Send