Alternative political literature

This column would have been about George W. Bush's ethnicity gaffes-which include calling the Greeks "Grecians," Kosovars "Kosovarians" and East Timorese "East Timorans." But thanks to Edmund Morris, Pat Buchanan and John McCain, instead of writing about Governor Bush's seeming ineptitude at understanding foreign affairs, this column will be all about alternative forms of literature-the invented character biography, the campaign propaganda autobiography and the supremacist revision of history.

Morris, who recently completed the only official biography of President Ronald Reagan, won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Teddy Roosevelt. However, I think his awards case will stay empty this time. Entitled Dutch, the biography covers Reagan's entire life through the eyes of a phony character-and I don't mean Nancy Reagan. Morris chose to invent a protagonist instead of just simply writing about the career of the first man to go from being America's worst actor to America's most overrated president (Charlton Heston shares the inverse honor-most overrated actor to worst president of the National Rifle Association).

The story of the man who cut taxes for the rich, recklessly spent billions of dollars and "forgot" all about selling weapons to Iranians should be told honestly, not with a sugarcoat. From a literary and journalistic standpoint, Morris's book violates the first ethic of biographical writing-don't make stuff up.

In elementary school, I remember touring the library. The librarian taught us the difference between an autobiography and a biography. But I don't remember a section of the library that was devoted to invented biographies. Wait, yes I do-fiction.

Our next book is Faith of My Fathers by Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.). Politicians, both democrats and republicans, frequently write books during campaigns to push their candidacies. Usually these books are blatant campaign propaganda like Bill Clinton's Between Hope and History.

However, Senator McCain is trying to market his book as a inspirational story of what he learned and how he survived a prisoner of war camp in Vietnam. McCain's service to this nation and the service of his family belong in their own book, and not in a book that is one-half inspiration and one-half political propaganda. I don't understand how McCain learned that no woman should have the right to choose or that business deregulation is a necessity from his family's experiences. To truly honor the admirable actions of his patronage-his father and grandfather were also war heroes-McCain should write a book that is all about them.

McCain masks his intentions; Pat Buchanan flaunts his. Buchanan, a Republican presidential candidate and author of A Republic, Not an Empire, explained to his readers that the United States should not have got involved in the European theater of World War II. He asserts that Hitler really only wanted to control Eastern Europe (like France and the United Kingdom) and posed no threat to American interests. Which makes perfect sense if you forget the fact that Japan had aligned with Germany and attacked Pearl Harbor. Buchanan also explains that while the Holocaust was no doubt a bad thing, it was no reason to go to war with Italy and Germany.

And if that isn't racist enough for you, try Buchanan's stance that American "hyphenates" (African-Americans, Greek-Americans and Armenian-Americans) have far too much influence over U.S. foreign policy and are drowning out the voices of white, Christian Americans-whom Buchanan designates as the "real voice of America." According to Buchanan, it is wrong for Armenian-Americans to seek aid for Armenia. I wonder, is it wrong for Irish-Americans, like Buchanan, to seek aid for Ireland, or for Catholics, again like Buchanan, to seek prominence for the Catholic faith in majority Protestant America?