All of this talk about Watergate has me thinking of E. Howard Hunt: White House plumber, Watergate conspirator, CIA agent, Bay Of Pigs handler and hack novelist. Hunt wrote dozens of pulpy paperbacks under his own name and a variety of pen names, most notably Robert Dietrich. Here are a few books from the man I call the master of disaster:
Who among us has forgotten the immortal Steve Bentley? Everyone? I’m not surprised at all. Actually, those spy potboilers were Hunt’s most successful tomes. He had to use a pseudonym because he was a spook and so was Steve Bentley. Bentley, however, was a slick right wing spy and Hunt earned the nickname I bestowed on him long ago, the master of disaster. I wish I could claim that inspired this John Hiatt song but it did not:
Laff…Bimini Run…speaking of topical material, like Matt Bai’s book, that’s not the Monkey Business, is it?
That said, I’m hoping Bai’s book is the beginning of the end of the era of the personal stuff. Hell, I’ll even cut McAllister some slack on that. I hate him for his politics … though I think he’s once again the lesser-of-evils/lunatics…which shows how evil and loony it is in the ArkLaMiss. But I digress.
As for Hart himself, nothing against him, though neither did I find him particularly inspiring.I certainly would’ve voted for him over Poppy — and St. Ronaldus-he-who-walked-the-earth-without-sin, not that it would’ve made any difference in 1984 (Hart probably didn’t mind Mondale getting the nod that year)…but I don’t wonder too much about “what might have been.” Because I doubt things would have been all that different. Maybe we’d have gotten Obamacare sooner. I could see Hart and the non-lunatic-fringe Rethugs coming together on that one. We might also have gotten Social Security and/or Medicare “reform,” which I’m glad we don’t have…