Fewer Lawyers, More Authors...

Now I know the nation is in good hands. Too many lawyers in Congress? Can a duck pull a truck? Hook 'im up! So what's the antidote? Bankers? Shoe salesmen?

How about doctors? Hell no. Bill Frist is a doctor, and he is one of the biggest tools in politics (even my dad, who was a black conservative and an M.D., registered as a Democrat once Frist went buckwild on the Terri Schiavo nonsense, and decided to use the Bill of Rights as a Kleenex at Bush & Cheney's behest). Who's the second biggest tool? Howard Dean. What does he do for a living? He's a doctor. Nuff said.

No, the only hope for the nation lay with us. AUTHORS! Represent, ya'll! Now, I don't mean dumbass memoir-scrivenors and clowns publishing bios of John C. Calhoun that were ghost-written by staffers. Unh-unh. Democrat Jim Webb, who ousted the second biggest retard in the GOP, George Allen, from office, is an author. That's how he's paid the bills since he left public life as Navy Secretary, back when he was a Republican and Reagan golden boy. He's penned three novels, as well monographs on naval history and aviation. Check it out. Allen's campaign even tried to paint him with his prose from one of his cheesier Top Gun type books, were the hot shot carrier pilot character (based on him, of course), is boning a Navy nurse and some foreign chick. Hell if people judge me by some the crap I've written I'd be wearing a goalie mask in an isolation cell in the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital in Jessup...

Born Fighting is by far his most controversial work of non-fiction, wherein he chronicles the groupwho can bets be described as the white trash backbone of America: the Scotch-Irish. Not the Irish as in JFK and Gangs of New York. These were people who were Protestant, largely from northern Ireland and lowland Scotland, and intermingled there-between before coming to America. They make up the bulk of Webb's hillbilly ancestors from Southeastern Virginia to Indiana and Illinois and eastern Ohio, and along the whole Applachian chain from West Virginia to northeastern Georgia. When you think of a blue collar white dude who's NOT a Pole, Irish-Catholic or looks and talks like Tony Soprano, well--he just may be Scotch-Irish. Not necessarily redneck, and Webb goes to great pains to make the distinction. He also highlights famous Scotch-Irish who've shaped America, including two Presidents who literally changed the course of the nation's life and development: Andrew Jackson and Ronald Reagan (Webb's old boss).

I found the book enlightening without being smarmy about one's own tribe. Indeed the title says it all. These people came from leather-tough, fighting stock, and Webb does parse that strange rivalry between the Scotch-Irish and the Irish Catholics. Other than Jews and us colored folk, no other group has been the subject of more study and dissection (and needless glorification). The Scotch Irish never wrapped themselves in the mystique and romance that the Irish have. Nor did the former ever belabor the group's trials. (Now, a bigot would say that's because Catholics feed off drama, pagentry and neo-pagan myth, hahaha). They just came here an put their noses down, no fanfare and started working, like a dusty ol' pickup truck. The book is a good primer for those of us still trying to figure white folks out.

This one, The Emperor's General, is for Tom Clancy fans who can't stand all the whiteboys know best, spooktalk (no, not ebonics--intelligence community lingo), etc. It posits that General Douglas MacArthur basically sold out the war effort in his own zeal for personal godhood. He decides to protect the Emperor from war crimes in the days following Japan's surrender, and goes about a complex dance of alliances and double-crosses that basically allows the same nationalists and big businessmen who fomented war to regain control and set the machinery in motion for the economic goliath that Japan became in later years. The protagonist is a fictional aide of MacArthur's who's versed in Asian cultures, lanuage and traditions. He wants to see Japan become a true democracy, unlike Germany which was then being propped up merely as a bulwark against Stalin--even if it meant putting ex-Nazis back in charge. Lots of intrigue, Japanese tea house sex, ritual suicide, etc. A great train/plane/beach read for dudes. Sorry girls...

So rejoice that an author's in the US Senate. Hell, I may try it. As for skeletons (or bloating corpses) in my closet? Sheeee-it...of course I'm screwed up, damaged goods. I'm a author!!! No retort for that in a debate or in some attack ad. So what committee should I want to serve on?