Speaking ill of the dead
Howard Hunt, for whom laws, democracy and ethics were obstacles to the American Way, died this week.
Hunt may be best known for his role in recruiting most of the Watergate burglars. MeTheSheeple knows him best, though, for his role in overthrowing a democracy because the elected president (Time's man of the year) decided to buy a company's land ... for what the company said it was worth. That evil travesty of justice is described in a Wikipedia entry but more commonly in an older book, "Bitter Fruit," which is still occasionally read in college courses.
They say you shouldn't speak ill of the dead. Well, if the dead are cheating bastards, what else are you supposed to say? None of this has kept a publisher from trying to cash in on Hunt's death with a post-mortem autobiography:
It's hard for me to tell now who is the bigger asshole: The bastard dead guy, or the bastard editor? Even today, neither seems willing to face the truth.
Hunt may be best known for his role in recruiting most of the Watergate burglars. MeTheSheeple knows him best, though, for his role in overthrowing a democracy because the elected president (Time's man of the year) decided to buy a company's land ... for what the company said it was worth. That evil travesty of justice is described in a Wikipedia entry but more commonly in an older book, "Bitter Fruit," which is still occasionally read in college courses.
They say you shouldn't speak ill of the dead. Well, if the dead are cheating bastards, what else are you supposed to say? None of this has kept a publisher from trying to cash in on Hunt's death with a post-mortem autobiography:
His Editor, Stephen S. Power, said "For decades Hunt served our country well, and that is how he should be remembered: as an honorable man whose patriotism was misused and whose sense of duty to his president was abused. It was a privilege to work with him."Yeah, just the poor, babe-in-the-woods, honorable, honest man, taken advantage of by someone else. Never mind he'd had a lengthy career as a friggin spy by then, a group of people not known for being easily dominated and deceived.
It's hard for me to tell now who is the bigger asshole: The bastard dead guy, or the bastard editor? Even today, neither seems willing to face the truth.
posted by MeTheSheeple at 12:47 PM
1 Comments:
[I may have posted this twice. If so, please forgive me.]
Although Hunt's passing has brought considerable attention to AMERICAN SPY, the memoir had already attracted some good publicity, so we are hardly cashing in on it. Indeed, how could we have foreseen the exact moment of his passing back when I acquired the book in June 2005? In fact, we would have published in mid-January before his death, but the CIA clearance took longer than we thought, so it had to be bumped back a couple months. Hardly the stuff of a bastard, I would think, even if you disagree with Hunt's life work or my assessment of it.
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