Posted on 10/27/2006 8:19:01 AM PDT by elhombrelibre
Webb Says His Novels 'Inappropriate' for News Radio By Nathan Burchfiel CNSNews.com Staff Writer October 27, 2006
(CNSNews.com) - In an interview on Washington Post Radio Friday morning, Jim Webb, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Virginia, said excerpts of his novels are "a little bit inappropriate" to be read on news radio.
"I don't know why you're reading that on WTOP," Webb told host Mark Plotkin. "I think it's a little bit inappropriate."
Plotkin was reading an excerpt from Webb's novel "Something to Die For," in which Webb describes a female stripper performing sexual acts with a banana.
"I don't think that's appropriate for you to read on WTOP," Webb said again as Plotkin finished the excerpt. (Washington Post Radio is WTOP's sister station.)
The campaign of Republican Sen. George Allen on Thursday released excerpts from some of the war novels Webb wrote between 1978 and 2002. The books include some graphic sexual passages, as well as frequent uses of a racial slur for blacks and descriptions of Vietnamese women as "monkey-faced."
Among the excerpts is a scene from the 2002 novel "Lost Soldiers," in which a man embraces his four-year-old son and places the boy's penis in his mouth.
Webb said the release of the excerpts was "a Karl Rove campaign tactic" and a "classic example of the way this campaign has worked. It's smear after smear."
He defended his fiction as "illuminative."
"It's not a sexual act," Webb told Plotkin regarding the "Lost Soldiers" excerpt. "I actually saw this happen in a slum in Bangkok when I was there as a journalist."
"The duty of a writer is to illuminate his surroundings," he added.
Coincidentally, a Cambodian woman in Las Vegas is facing sexual assault charges for performing a similar act on her young son, according to an Oct. 14 report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The article quotes an office manager for the Cambodian Association of America, who described the act as a sign of respect or love. Webb criticized the Allen campaign for focusing on excerpts from his novels.
"The most important issue facing the country, he hasn't got a statement to make on it," Webb said of the Iraq war. "This country's been breaking into pieces economically ... they've got no position on that.
Thank goodness there are "real conservatives" like you to tell us that art and artists are above our unenlightened examination.
Are you seriously comparing Maplethorpe to this passage by Webb???
Maplethorpe was a prima facie deviant. Webb included a brief passage of an ACTUAL CUSTOM to color his story and give it realism. THAT is what any half-decent writer would do.
And you're right, you probably wouldn't think of me as a "real conservative" since I tend to look a little more deeply at a subject before I form an opinion.
It's not FAKE agooga.....that this is OK for you is a little scary.....guess you thought the "macaca" comment was worse.
Actually, Webb was a Republican when he wrote much of what is in question and even served as Sec. of the Navy in Reagan.
"It's not FAKE agooga.....that this is OK for you is a little scary.....guess you thought the "macaca" comment was worse."
It IS fake, SQ. It's fake in so far as many of us feel the need to strike back against the democrats using ANY MEANS-- your reference to "macaca" illustrates that you are interested more in retribution than reality.
See my post #56 and #58 if you dare to go deeper.
I'm comparing judging Mapplethorpe, and judging Webb, by their art.
It would make no sense to compare the work of one artist to another artist. I'm not surprised that's over the head of a "real conservative" like you BTW.
I feel sorry for you. Art must be very dull for you since you think it inappropriate to contemplate the reasons for what the artist does.
You said putting your little boys penis into your mouth is a BENIGN EXAMPLE???? PLEASE do NOT reply to me anymore because I think you and this are a little sick.
I hope you all heard today that Webb called into a radio show and said he witnessed a father putting his young son's private parts in his mouth. It sounds like rather than call the authorities, Webb chose to write about it instead. Which means he doesn't have the good judgment to hold elective office.
Oh, and by the way: Webb said today that homosexual fellatio isn't really sex.
If that's the case, the Democrats had better rethink their outrage at Foley who wrote about but didn't actually have sex with male Pages.
You are JOKING!!! He said that sex act is not sex....or was he referring to the father wasn't actually having sex with the little boy? I can hardly believe I'm writing these words....it's so sick.
If you HONESTLY judge Webb by his art, you can reach no other conclusion than that he is innocent of the smears, i.e. that he condones pedaphilia or homosexual filatio.
That conclusion is of course impossible with Maplethorpe.
Tell me EXACTLY how Webb is a deviant for using an accepted (though repugnant by western standards) cultural tradition as a means of illustrating the differences between the cultures?
Do you believe that a writer condones, approves and fantasizes about every action that his or her character undertakes?
As an adult, with a presumably rational mind, you must conclude that writers who create characters often create them with differences between the reader and the character to make the story interesting.
I am not asking you to approve of what the character did. I am asking you to accept that Webb is not a deviant for including the questionable action in his novel.
It's so Clintonian. And so utterly Democrat. LOL
LOL.
I never thought I'd see the day I saw some freepers defend a Democrat who said on public radio that homosexual fellatio isn't really sex. But I've seen "it" on a couple of threads now. It's most disconcerting, isn't it?
did webb mention what place would be appropriate?
But I haven't.
And you claiming to hold me to your "shaming" stick is pretty funny, too.
I would love to see the holier-than-thou Peach walk into the Thai police station ca. 1969 and report that he had seen this act-- and get laughed out of there by the cops.
If you are not morally outraged, then I haven't smitten you with my stick, now have I? :P
Get bent. And keep defending a Democrat who said today, in this country, that homosexual fellatio isn't really sex.
"I never thought I'd see the day I saw some freepers defend a Democrat who said on public radio that homosexual fellatio isn't really sex. But I've seen "it" on a couple of threads now. It's most disconcerting, isn't it?"
Afraid we might change a few minds? Get over yourself, Peach.
Just watch how the media gives this turd a free pass but roasts Rush for the "Fox" thing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.