The View from the Couch: Endorsements

Both Bill Donohue and Hagee are birds of a feather, two blowhards raking in dough from the religion market. Donohue came into the Catholic League when it was down and almost out and rode the conservative bandwagon to fame and fortune. He cranked up the fund raising to pay himself well and turn himself into a national spokesperson. Hagee is the typical evangelical mega church ranter who's been fleecing the faithful for decades. These are the moral majority stalwarts who have cashed in big time. Donohue has now absolved Hagee of all stain of anti-Catholic bigotry, declaring "the case is closed." Donohue does speak for the Catholic League, because he is the Catholic League, but other Catholics might have a different view. I find it impossible to believe that there wasn't some rehearsal of this surprise apology and this instantaneous absolution granted by the reverend manque Father Bill.

And speaking of absolution, though not directly political, this resurrection of James Frey, the little pieces guy, who I referred to in an earlier blog, is another magic trick. In the literary world, the Otto Preminger Rule rules. I made up the Preminger Rule, based on this one case: back in the day, the long ago day when Erica Jong published her second novel, after the grand success of her first, Fear of Flying, Erica was complaining on some old talk show that she had never gotten a good review in the New York Times Book Review and she was afraid that her new novel wouldn't sell well. Preminger, a guest on the same show, asked her how many copies her first novel sold. She said whatever millions it was. Then Otto said, well, the new novel will sell at least half of that, so don't worry. So, once you get in the mega numbers, more famous than the average Nobel prize winner, publish what you want; it will sell at least half of what the first book did. But, Frey is not a literary case, so much as a figure in the grand tradition of the American con man; or, as Melville has it, confidence man. Frey is a con man; it just has literary aspects. He's like a number of fraud authors, the most recent example the gang girl dope dealer who turned out to be a suburban princess. The con just requires words. The literary publicity world, like the larger media, swallows it hook line and sinker; they're there to cover the famous, be it John Edwards, Pastor Hagee, or James Frey.