Fact Is the New Fiction BY Marty Kaplan HuffPost

[Demeter]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/fact-is-the-new-fiction_b_34181.html

THIS SHOULD BE CALLED "RETIREMENT PLANNING FOR THE GOP"!

For Bush administration members not facing indictment, it's never too soon to contemplate unemployment. But with sand in the gears of Tom DeLay's K Street project, and with too many lickspittles chasing too few "Republican Strategist" chyrons on cable tv, the job picture is looking pretty bleak for soon-to-be-former White House staff and Cabinet types.


The traditional recourse for newly-minted exes is to write a political memoir, but if the sales of Ari Fleischer or Karen Hughes are any guide to the future, the chances of getting a publisher to pony up more than pin money are slim.

Into this gloom now shines the blinding smile of OJ Simpson. He's writing a book called "If I Did It, Here's How It Happened." Even before this "hypothetical" work is published, Fox News is stunting a two-part interview with Simpson as the climax of November's Nielsen sweeps. Ka-ching!

There's a lesson in this for Republicans. Kiss-and-tell books can get decent advances, but when authors confront the consequences of bean-spilling -- do I really want my kids to read this? -- an insidious self-censorship can chill the urge to confess. What was promised as a searing tell-all can easily turn into a dreary cut-and-paste job padded with keynoters at the American Poultry Association.

But OJ's ruse puts a whole new ploy in play. Imagine Rumsfeld writing "If I Committed War Crimes, Here's How It Happened." Plenty of juice, but no risk of international prosecutions. Rove could get a ton of dough for "If Bush Had Been Impeached, Here's What For." George Allen would have a monster hit on his hands if he wrote, "If I Were An Asshat, Here I Am."

Hypothetical history is the perfect pomo alternative to checking into the Betty Ford Clinic, facing a grand jury, or fessing up to Oprah. The subjunctive conditional is the tense of choice in the state of denial.

[papau]

1. "The subjunctive conditional is the tense of choice in the state of denial" - love it!

:-)