As I write, Dick Cheney is in Communist-occupied China, trying to persuade it to do something about the atomic bombs Communist-occupied North Korea is known to have made. In his recent press conference, George Bush’s speechwriter said that Communist-occupied United States is helping North Korea with food, which means that you and I are helping Kim Jong-il build those bombs.
The Red Chinese may at least pretend to cooperate, because the District of Criminals is also putting together a multi-billion dollar deal that would send them some nuclear reactors. This is the same Red China with which we are still at war (in Korea), the same red China that attacked a U.S. Navy plane a few years ago and talked about nuking Los Angeles. But never fear! Fighter pilot George W. Bush is on duty! Remember Nine Eleven.
Meanwhile, let’s look at Mrs. Cheney. As you already knew, this is a very smart lady. She has a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin. She ran the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is a prolific author. One of her books recently made news because it was supposed to be republished.
It is Sisters, originally issued in 1981. “Beautiful, strong-willed Sophie Dymond had overcome nineteenth-century prejudices to succeed as publisher of a hugely successful women’s magazine. But when she left New York to revisit her native Wyoming, where her sister had died mysteriously, she left her prestige and power far behind.”
“Waiting for Sophie was a world where women were treated either as decorative figurines or as abject sexual vassals . . . where wives were led to despise the marriage act and prostitutes pandered to husbands’ hungers . . . where the relationship between women and men became a kind of guerrilla warfare in which women were forced to band together for the strength they needed and at times for the love they wanted. . . .”
I knew it was cold up there in Wyoming, but I didn’t know it was that bad. It wasn’t anywhere I have lived. It certainly isn’t in Texas. Maybe the problem is the secret Sophie discovers about her sister, the secret that “tainted her life.” Sophie “begins to understand the experience of the vast majority of silent, trapped women . . . .”
Here is Mrs. Cheney’s rendition of connubial bliss in Wyoming: “‘Inflamed by liquor,’ Cleantha went on, ‘men turn upon the physically weaker sex, they turn upon innocent women whose only crime is to have attracted their glance – or to be joined to them by the sacred bond of marriage.’”
Wyoming marriage consisted of men murdering their wives. “Sophie was brought up short. . . . She was talking about husbands and wives. ‘They indulge themselves selfishly, sensually, with no thought of the consequences for us. For their own pleasure, they condemn us to early graves, murdering us as surely as if they had knotted a cord around our necks.’”
So what is the secret Sophie discovers about her sister? It turns out that Sisters, in considerable part, is a lesbian novel. “Her words made Sophie remember how attached Helen had been to Miss Travers even at Fort Martin. She had followed the young schoolteacher everywhere, spent every moment she could with her, composed long notes to her. ‘The two of them were so beautiful together, so pure, so loving.’”
Sophie finds an inscription in a book. “To my Helena, my dearest lover. You are the joy of my life. If ever you fail me through my fault or your own, I will forswear thenceforth all human friendship. Thine always, A.T.”
It gets worse. “Helen, my joy and my beloved, why do we stay. I have no reason beyond a few pupils who would miss me briefly, and your life would be infinitely better away from him. Let us go away together, away from the anger and imperatives of men. We shall find ourselves a secluded bower where they dare not venture.”
“There will be only the two of us, and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement. In the evenings I shall read to you while you work your cross-stitch in the firelight. And then we shall go to bed, our bed, my dearest girl . . . .”
The real mystery here is how a woman as brilliant as Lynne Cheney could write prose as bad as this. If she were Jane Shmo from Kokomo, her book would presently be remaindered in the ladies’ room at the independent gas station on the bypass.
“The women who embraced in the wagon were Adam and Eve crossing a dark cathedral stage – no, Eve and Eve, loving one another as they would not be able to once they ate of the fruit and knew themselves as they truly were. She felt curiously moved, curiously envious of them. . . . she saw that the women in the cart had a passionate, loving intimacy forever closed to her. How strong it made them. What comfort it gave.”
All right, I won’t torture you any more. The remarkable thing about this is that one of Mrs. Cheney’s two daughters, Mary, is in fact a lesbian. Mary worked in “gay relations” for Coor’s, which I would not drink if I were a beer drinker. Now she draws a nice check from the Bush re-election campaign, no surprise because Bush has done more than even Clinton to advance the sodomite cause.
Mary Cheney is 34, so she was born in 1970. Her mother’s lesbian novel was published in 1981, which means it was gestating at some point before that, when Mary was growing up. I see a story there much more interesting than Sisters itself. How did Mary get to be what she is? Who and what is Lynne Cheney? Of course we shall never get the answers, but these are certainly intriguing questions.
Needless to say, the loony left is going orgasmic about Sisters. Recently, the New York Theatre Workshop hosted a celebration of Bushwomen: Tale of a Cynical Species, by radiowoman Laura Flanders, who says Sisters “is a breathy, gothic romance, horribly written. It’s celebrating lesbian love and promotes the value of preventative devices, condoms, to women who want to remain free. It features a woman who has unmarred sex with the widow of her sister – all this by Lynne Cheney, the culture warrior of the right.”
For those of you who are interested, Kris Kleindienst, co-owner of Left Bank, says that if you buy the book on its website, the store will donate 10% of the proceeds to the scholarship fund of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Annual Creating Change Conference, coming up in November.
Kleindienst explains, “What better way to foster educational opportunities for the younger generation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people than to raise money through the sale of Lynne’s lost life chapter? We’re promoting patriotism by promoting shopping and leaving no LGBT child behind.”
Sisters was published in Canada, not the United States. New American Library has the rights and was planning to republish here a couple of weeks ago. “We felt interest was growing because it was an election year and we decided it could be a timely book,” said Liz Perl, executive director of publicity at NAL.
Imagine the ready-made publicity! “Second Lady Writes Luscious Lesbian Novel! Read all about Dick’s Dykes!” Bush could have won some sodomite votes, advanced a cause that is close to his heart and – in the spirit of Hanoi John Kerry – at the same time could have denied he was involved.
But Mrs. Cheney has always been somewhat squeamish on the subject. At first she denied her daughter was a lesbian. Sisters has long been out of print and is not mentioned in Cheney’s biography on the White House Web site. In 2001, she told a New York Times reporter that she couldn’t even remember the plot.
So a man named Robert Barnett made a call to the New American Library. Barnett is Mrs. Cheney’s lawyer. He also represents Bill “The Rapist” Clinton and Hillaroid. After that call, New American Library agreed not to publish. Imagine! Just one call! Of course, it all depends on who is calling.
Barnett says Mrs. Cheney did not even know about the reissue until the media started calling. “I told them that she did not think the book was her best work. If there is a serious demand for this 25-year-old book, I am confident that America’s used bookstores will be able to satisfy it.” Ha, ha! Good joke Bob. Most lawyers are not that funny.
The New American Library’s Liz Perl is not unhappy. There will be no legal action. She says there was no desire “to put out a book that the author was not happy with.” So it looks as if the only way you can get a copy of Mrs. Cheney’s lesbian steam bath is to frequent one of Barnett’s used bookstores.
It looks as if the Bush gang is well on the way to being as kinky as the Clintons.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”