Let’s make a book deal

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve gotten about ten solicitations from a senator who I won’t name, but who has very interesting ideas about 4th century theological debates and 21st century insurrections.

This senator, who I will call “JH,” has been begging me to donate money to the Republican National Committee, while promising me that if I give the RNC at least $75 I will get a SIGNED copy of his new book excoriating Big Tech and Cancel Culture and the replacement of Mick Taylor with Ron Wood.

Now the tricky thing about this sort of grift sales pitch is that it’s “technically” (snicker) illegal to launder personal compensation via using campaign contributions to buy stuff like books, that generate royalties to the author. So you see where this could all end up heading, although needless to say if the FEC cracks down on our most prominent anti-Pelagian skimming the count room in this way, that too will be another example of Cancel Culture on the rampage against a righteous and godly man, whose hair was perfect.

Meanwhile, take Andrew Cuomo . . . please.

Last year, Cuomo took time from hiding the bodies of nursing home COVID victims and sexually harassing his staff to “write” a “book,” for which he was paid a $5.1 million advance against royalties. This tome was published seven months ago, and in that time has generated sales that might at best cover 10% of the advance — an eminently predictable result that raises the very impolite question of why a big New York-based publisher would light approximately $4.5 million on fire just to make the governor of the state in which said publisher operates a lot richer.

We shook hands and I started away. Just before I reached the hedge I remembered something and turned around.

“They’re a rotten crowd,” I shouted across the lawn. “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”

I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. First he nodded politely, and then his face broke into that radiant and understanding smile, as if we’d been in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time. His gorgeous pink rag of a suit made a bright spot of color against the white steps and I thought of the night when I first came to his ancestral home three months before. The lawn and drive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed at his corruption—and he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible dream, as he waved them goodbye.

I thanked him for his hospitality. We were always thanking him for that—I and the others.