While judging a book by its cover is usually rightfully frowned upon, there are often fairly sure signs that a particular tome should be handled with tongs by a reader in a lead suit.
One of the tell-tale signs akin to a radiation symbol: the descriptor "the real" proceeding the subject matter in the title. Consider "The Real Anita Hill," "Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson" and "The Real Jimmy Carter."
Now it's not to say that a book with that kind of title is inherently a pack of lies, but rather they should be approached with some degree of caution and skepticism.
And now we have "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty" by the notorious biographer Kitty Kelley.
The hot-button allegation from the book is the charge that George W. Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David during his father's presidency. According to CNN, the issue has grown even muddier now that the alleged source of the story, the ex-wife of the president's brother Neil, has denied it.
This is not exactly a new thing. Bill Clinton was also apparently a cokehead as well as a rapist and murderer. "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories by Evans Ambrose-Pritchard" is one of many books revealing "the real" life of our former president. That particular title came to us from Regnery, the questionable right-wing publishing house that brought us the Swift Boat book, "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS," "Inventing the AIDS Virus," "Leftism Revisited: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot" and many others.
Individuals on both sides of the political war who arm themselves with such weapons are using rhetorical VX gas and anthrax: WMDs banned by the civilized. Doing so is characteristic of political terrorists and tyrants -- the desperate, the angry, the misguided, the zealous.
This tendency to talk about "character" over issues is a troubling development in politics. When it comes down to it, none of us really know Senator John Kerry and President Bush. All we have is the inaccurate caricatures bombarded at us by the campaigns and a lazy, cheap, corporate media that knows entertaining scandals equal higher ratings.
In deciding who to vote for, the intelligent voter will instead consider a long laundry list of questions about both candidates' plans for the future.
Who has better economic policies? Who has a smarter plan for Iraq? Who's going to protect the environment? Which health care plan makes more sense?
What is one to make of the massive deficit? What is one to think of the fact that this is the first time in history we've had a tax cut while fighting multiple wars?
A vote for Bush is also a likely vote for four more years of Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. If you approve of Bush make sure you also approve of them.
Are you satisfied with this administration's radical neoconservative foreign policy of bringing democracy to other countries by force? Is that what you want your military and your tax dollars doing?
The electorate has snorted enough cocaine gossip. The issues are "the real" things about which we should be thinking.
Write to David at: swimminginbrokenglass@gmail.com
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